Generative transformational grammar.

Language as a system.

Language is a system of elements like phonemes,morphemes etc. and these elements are science.

Science has a value without each other,they are co-dependent thats why change in one part of the system causes changes in the whole system. Language is the system that has a certain structure асе it's k hiararchy type.

1phonological(phoneme.а divinative unit-lid-lit.-constitutive function)

2. Morphological (morpheme-a minimal meaningful unit(re-,-er,-s)-we can't use it by itself.

3. Lexical(lexeme(word)-a minimal naming(nominative) unit.

4. Syntectic-a)superfrasemic(sentence-a minimal communicative unit) b)phrasemic(the word-group-a dependent syntectic unit.)

5. Sypersyntectic(text-the informative unit)

All language units with the exeption of the phoneme are science. It means that they are of two rhode nature. And two plane of content and a plane of expression.

The form of language science is mostly arbitrary because there is no natural resemblence of meaning in the form of the signs.

Linguistic science have features of all other science but at the same time they have unique features of theirown.

In language relations between form асе meaning are much more complicated than in other systems асе it can be seen in homonymy(discussed-обсуждаемый.обсужденный-1 form,2 meaning.),synonymy(i have to go,i'm to go,i'm going to go),polysemy .

The existance of such facts on one hand makes the system of language more complicated but on the other more expressive.

The term grammar is of Greak and it means "whole of writing"the meaning has changed асе now it denotes "study of language of the whole"

As any desiplin grammar is practical асе theoretical.

- the aim of practical grammar is systematic language that help us understand асе constract speech.

- the aim of theoretical grammar is quite different.It's to describe upper levels of the language system that provides explanation for the existing rules. It also claimes to explain exeptions of the rules.

Grammar includes morphology асе syntax.

Morphology-deals with the inner structure of words,parts of speech division,grammatical category.

Syntax-deals with rules of combining words into longer units and with description of syntectic relations that exist in speech.

Grammar deals with 3 types of relations and these relations are studied by different linguistic discipline.

1. Between a language unit and an object in the word.(semantics)

2. Between a unit and other units(syntax)

3. Between a unit and a person who uses it (pragmatics)

Evolution of grammar theory.

Grammar theory goes back0o ancient times.It's usually stated that the fists grammarian was Aristotel. He introduced the notions subject асе predicate.theme асе rheme and introduced fists parts of speech classification.

The first classical period was characterized by accumulation of initial facts. It was useful but there were some limitations. The basic conseption was wrong. They belived that grammar is direct reflection of logic and thinking. But now we know that it's a mistake.

The notions of logic асе language are connected but not directly. The laws of logic are universal because they characterise man's thinking,but language are different.they may be of different types асе the way they express meaning can be different for different languages,but it doesn't mean that some languages are better or more expressive.But classical grammar treated some languages like Latin or Greak as model languages. Their structure is considered to be perfect.

Historical-comparetive grammar was called so because linguists studyed genetically related languages and mainly focused on historical changes асе development. It was the time of many interesting discoveres that now belong to the history of languages.

But there was also some limitation in this approach. Now it's critisised for being automistic(not systematic) only fragmentary facts were discribed . Therm wasn't any system in this approach.

Structural linguistics.

In the beginning of the 20.c the modern period of grammar started. Now the language was treated as a wholelistic system.within laws асе functions.the structure of language was in the center of attention.that's why it was called structural linguistics.working on this sphere:boduin de Courtene and Ferdenant de Sausure.

Descriptivism

descriptive linguistics- developed in the US as the necessity of studying languages of American Indians. At the beginning of the century, these tribes were rapidly dying out because of the colony policy in USA . The most productive way to analyse such languages was to analyse distribution that is position of language elements and the sentence of structure and combinability of these units of other types. The motion of distribution was introduced by two American linguist. (Charles Fries and Leo Bloomfield)

the basic notion:

Distribution is the whole complex of all possible environments where this unit can occur. The environment opposition is the set of neighboring elements in its concrete realization:

e.g. A nice pen (article is right hand environment and noun is left hand environment and adjective is environment. )

Distribution can be of 3 types.

1. Contrastive. Is understood is difference between 2 units that occurs in the same environment but creates difference in meaning

e.g. pens-pen(pens-ending 's' ,pen-' 0')

2.non-contrastive is difference between 2 language units that occur in the same environment but without difference in meaning. E.g. wake-woke-woken./wake-waked-waked. (no difference in meaning as творог)

3. Complementary. Two units are considered in complementary types of limitation if only one of them normally occurs in one environment and only the other in some other environment.

E.g -s [s],[z],[iz]

Charles Fries stared grammar analysis with lexical problems. Не introduced an alternative parts of speech classification that was based only on distribution. Semantic, formal and functional criteria were of no use. According to Fries language units that occur in the same environment without changing the meaning. The belong to the same class of words. That means that for every language the pattern is different. On the basis of real speech utterances they singled out seven minimal grammatical structures that are most frequent in speech.

NV-John came.

NV prep. N- John looked at Mary.

NVN-john saw Mary.

N is N - john is a teacher.

N is prep. N-John is in bad.

N is D- john is out.

N is A- john is sad.

All language units that can replace element N is these structures are refer to class 1 words.(numerals e.g. Two came) words that can replace V are refer to class 2 .when it replace in Adj. it's third class and when it replace in ADVERB it's fourth class.

System of markers.

Notional words.

1.noun-like words.

2.verb-like words.

3.adjective-like words.

4. Adverb-like words.

Functional words.

1. F-prep. conjunctions.

2. T-determiners(articles, demonstrative pronouns)

e.g. The old man saw a black dog there!(t-3a-1a/he-2d+- -t-3в-1в/it-4)

Distributional model shows the sentence structure objectively because not only distribution is seen but also some grammatical qualities of the words. At the same time this model shows the sentence as the linear succession of elements and it ignores real semantic relations between words.

E.g . English (verbs and adverbs)(3-1a/they -f-1в/they) -(old men) and children(3-1a/they-f-1в/they) semantic relations are ignored.

IC-method.(Bloomfield)

The above mentioned limitation was to some extend eliminated by one more method also introduced by descriptivism.

A constituent is a linguistic element which functions as a part of a longer unit.

An IC one of the two constituents which make up some language unit .the main principle of division that any grammatical system is binary in structure. It's seen in derivative words ,word groups and sentences.

Generative transformational grammar.

This method of grammar analysis was created by Noam Chomsky. In his book syntactic structures in 1957,according to this theory sentences have two aspects. He called them surface and deep structures. Usually in speech surface structures are more complicated and more flexible. The reason for it is that simple ideas can be expressed in a different way. Deep structures are connected with ideas. One long sentence can include several simple ideas. There ideas were called by Chomsky "Kernel sentences" they should be simple, active, declarative, indicative and used in present tense.

E.g. Birds fly-yes.

Birds will fly-нет

do birds fly?

In English the number of kernel sentence is seven:

NV,NV PREP N,N V N, N is N ,N is prep N, N is D,N is A.

According to Chomsky ,every language is a set of all utterances which grammar can potentially produce. In every language the deep structure of Kernel sentences coincide but the form of their expression can be different.

Besides Kernel sentences there exist some transformational or "rewrite" rules that help to change Kernel sentences into transforms. The nomenclature of rewrite rules for the most part coincides for different languages but there are some peculiarities:

-negative or positive transformation

-active or passive transformation

-tense transformation

-mood transformation.

E. g do birds fly? Birds! fly!

In real speech one of the same kernel sentence is transform a lot of times and as a result structures that are longer that kernel sentence appear.

Such analysis explain how sentences are generated in speech and the method which is used is transformation.

It's interesting that the number of kernel sentences is limited and the number of transform rules is limited too. But the number of transforms is indefinite. One and the same rule can be applied several times and it's called recersiveness and a chain of transformations can be also enriched by combining simple sentences into composite it ones.

The idea of two Sentence structures is connected with syntactical ambiguity and it gives a key to its understanding .

E.g marry is curious to know.

1. She is curious!(N is A) smb knows Marry(NvN)

2. She wants to know everything (not kernel)

Conclusion:

Division of any sentence into kernel sentences shows it's real meaning in this context when context changes, the meaning can be changed too. This method is more efficient than the previous one, because it isn't depend on the sentence structure and strength, and than it's also representative because it can show the difference in meaning where the rest methods fail.

Semantic trends.

a) Case grammar.

After Chomsky with his deep and surface structure, a lot of people started their analysis of sentence too. A lot of methods were introduced but a lot of them were not good but they were aimed at analysis of grammatical meaning. They can be united under in general term-semantic case grammar.

Case grammar was created by Fillmore. Who shared Chomsky ideas but who went further in the analysis of meaning. Fillmore began his analysis with the verb. He called the predicate a semantic center of the sentence. "A verb is a potential sentence"

e.g a good any reads a book. (here everything depends on the verb)

If you know the verb you can reconstruct all possible models of sentences with this verb. According to Fillmore each has a definite number of case roles. A case sold denotes semantic relations that exist between the verb and other sentence parts. All words in the sentence are called arguments. In every language verbs require different number of case colds. So verbs are divided into one-place verbs, two-place and three-place verbs.

One-place means just among to connect with one argument.

Most of the verbs are two-place. Two place verbs are very common, and they can be used in passive.

Intransitive verbs belong to one-place type ,(я стою) Only obligatory relations are taken into consideration (he thinks)

Charles Fillmore singled out a list of case roles that are universal for all language and it shows the deep structure of the sentence as well as transformational analysis.

Case roles.

A-agent- the doer of an action(he is clever-no, he reads-yes.)

I-instrument (open the door with a key)

E- experiencer -одушевленный переживатель действия(he gave me the book)

P- patient.-неодушевленный переживатель действия (to read a book)

F-factitive -object, the result of an action(he created a piece of music)

L-locative -where the action takes place (Chicago is windy in winter, he went to Moscow.)

T-temporative-when the action takes place (i like to go there on summer)

Pos-possessor -a person or object who possesses smth(the book is mine, the party has a lot of money)

Char-characterizer -gives a quality (the book is difficult)

Adr-afressee (i send them a letter.

N-nominizer( his name is Nick)

S-source(he put sugar from the sugar cap)

G-goal (he poad tea from the cattle and then put sugar from the sugar cap)

Case roles preserves their status if we transform the sentence but preserve its meaning. Traditional sentence part can be changed but semantic case roles preserve their status.

Conclusion:

1) the same deep structure can correspond to several surface structures

2)languages differ in surface structures mainly. But in the deep structure they correspond to the same amount of elementary content ideas.

Contansive grammar.

These theory is based on previous achievements of grammar and appeared in 19 in Russia.

The basic principle were formulated by professor S.D.Kacnelson in his book "типология языка и речевое мышление"the main principle of this theory to study the content of grammar structure but not its form.

He staged that the form can be misleading because sometimes its polysemantic. The form can't relieve the precise content of the structure.

It's right, because in most cases in grammar there is no one-to-one correspondence between form and meaning.

Стол накрыт скатертью-patient

стол накрыт официантом -agent.

We can say that they are the same, because they are nouns. But the meanings are different.

The method consists on 2 stages:

At first we should define the functional and semantic contact of the opposite words in both sentences. The second is to apply some infinitive in order to clarify the semantic difference.

Meaning in grammar and especially in syntax is not always clear and evident. Syntactic ambiguity is a very common phenomena. This ambiguity can be discarded with the help of transformations and specifications on semantic relation between components of the utterance.

Children's toys -possessor, patient.

Children's arrival-agent, factitive.

Semantic syntax.

This trend in grammar is connected with previous trends and it's based on 2 ideas of there previous trends. The thing is that the verb is a semantic center of the sentence.

Deep and surface structure

The difference is connected with a fact that Fulanov's the deep structure of the sentence was constituted by the set of meanings hidden in each national work of sentences.

According to Lakoff sentence analysis should stand with componential analysis of nominal components of the sentence.

Each word is understood as a number of semantic elements(markers),(later the term "seme" was introduced. The same can be applied to grammar meaning because as a rule it's also divisible.

When we analyze words in the sentence we should single out all components both grammar and semantic. The same analysis of other words in the same sentence will show whether these words are combinable or not.

If we take:

Boy 1.human + 2. Animate + 3. Concrete + 4. Grow-up - 5. Male +

Girl 1.human + 2. Animate + 3. Concrete + 4.grow-up - 5. Male -

Man 1.human + 2. Animate + 3. Concrete + 4. Grow-up + 5. Male +

Beauty 1. Human - 2. Animate - 3. Concrete - 4. Grow-up - 5. Male -

In conpenentional markers have two peculiarities:

1. They are always an binary relations

2. They are always in hierarchical relations.

Some markers more informative and they include other markers is their meaning.

This method became popular to analyze meaning of words in lexicology because if shows slightest differences between related words.

The semantic structure of words should be paid attention to, if we want to make a grammar correct sentence.

The words in a same sentence shouldn't have contradictory markers

e.g the boy frightens sincerity(animate -)

sincerity frightens the boy(animate +)