Phrase Structure Rules

Must allow all and only the grammatical sentences in a language Descriptive rules, not necessarily prescriptive Each rule rewrites a constituent into one or more constituents

A Simple Set of Phrase Structure Rules

S NP VP PP N V adj art prep NP +VP art + (adj*) + N V + NP + (PP*) Prep + NP sailor, cat, horse, bridge, saluted, kissed, fried drunken, puzzled, gregarious a, the on, under

From this simple set of rules we can generate many, many sentences, including:
A cat saluted a horse. A cat saluted a horse on the bridge. A gregarious horse fried the cat. The drunken sailor saluted the puzzled cat. The puzzled, gregarious sailor on a horse saluted the drunken cat on the bridge.

Phrase Structure Tree: Derivation of a Sentence

S

NP art adj N V

VP NP N

The drunken sailor

saluted art adj

the puzzled cat

Sentences with ambiguous meanings have different phrase structure trees

S NP adj N VP aux V adj

Visiting relatives can be boring S NP VP Ger N aux V adj

Visiting relatives can be boring

Transformational Rules
Rules that transform deep structure into surface structure Apply to constituents not to individual words Involve movement, insertion, and deletion of constituents Conditions of occurrence: Transformations will not apply under all conditions

Some Transformations
Particle-movement
John called up the woman. John called the woman up.

T1 V + part + NP V + NP + part
John called up the interesting woman up. John called the interesting woman up. John called up the woman with the curly hair. John called the woman with the curly hair up. *John called the woman up with the curly hair.

Other Transformations
Passive:
Arlene played the tuba. The Tuba was played by Arlene. T2 NP1 + V + NP2 NP2 + be +V + en by + NP1 Wh- Question: Why is Arlene playing the tuba? Negation: Arlene is not playing the tuba? Compound: Arlene is playing the tuba and the drums.

Derivational Theory of Complexity

If transformational grammar is how language is actually done, then
Untransformed sentences > transformed sentences Simpler transformations > complex transformations Should see this both in acquisition and in adult processing of sentences But there are many exceptions to this prediction Compound Sentences
The zoo has llamas and gnus is derived from The zoo has llamas and the zoo has gnus.

Whence Transformational Grammar?

Revolutionary approach to the study of language, though the specifics have not stood up well. Revised approaches include Parameter Setting (Chomsky, 1981, 1986, 1995)
All possible linguistic variations are hard-wired, the parameters that are set depend on exposure to language.

Lexical-Functional Grammars (Bresnan, 1982, Pinker, 1984, 1990)

Grammar is actually in the lexicon, e.g. an entry for a verb entails its argument structure and restrictions as well as meaning.