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Syntax
Presented to:
Dr. Summaira Sarfraz
Presented by:
Maha Hijab Sikandar 18L-1704
Nadia Neelam 18L-1710
Faiza Mushtaq 18L-1709
Manal Javaid 18L-1724
Zareen Sahar 18L-1708
Grammar is a word that confuses considerably. It has been approached and defined
differently by different scholars and schools of linguistics. Etymologically, the term Grammar
goes back (through French & Latin) to Greek word Grammatika or Grammatkia which may be
translated as the art of writing. But for a long time, this term has been used very closely to
History
Chomsky refers to this ability as the "creative aspect" of language. His first book,
This grammar consists of surface structures - the sounds and words in a sentence - and deep
structures that contain the meaning of the sentence. He believed that humans are born with an
innate ability to learn languages. According to Chomsky's theory, the basic structures of
language are already encoded in the human brain at birth. This “universal grammar theory”
Types of grammar
Case grammar.
Cognitive grammar.
Construction grammar.
Generative grammar.
Mental grammar.
Theoretical grammar.
Transformational grammar.
Generative Grammar
Generative grammar defined as a description in the form of a set of rules for producing
the grammatical sentence of a language. The idea of generative grammar was definitely
articulated by Noam Chomsky in syntactic structures (1957). The generative grammar’s task is
ideally not just to define the interrelation of elements in a particular language but also to
characterize universal grammar that is the set of rules and principles intrinsic to all natural
Example
He plays hockey.
He plays football.
He plays cricket.
In generative grammar, the first part remain same but the last part generate and create new
sentences. Below the given example explain the deep structure of sentence.
Difference between generative and Transformational grammar
the language. Whereas in Transformational Grammar, the patterns of language are formalized
using rules to generate basic phrase structures and transformations to relate these to complex
surface structures.
grammar received wide acclaim through the works of Noam Chomsky. Chomsky postulated a
syntactic base of language called deep structure, which consists of a series of phrase-structure
rewrite rules, i.e., a series of rules that generates the underlying phrase-structure of a sentence,
and a series of rules called transformations that act upon the phrase-structure to form more
structure that, after the addition of words and pronunciations, is identical to an actual sentence of
All languages have the same deep structure, but they differ from each other in surface
structure because of the application of different rules for transformations, pronunciation, and
the difference between language competence (the subconscious control of a linguistic system)
and language performance (the speaker's actual use of language). Although the first work done in
transformational generative grammar was syntactic, later studies applied the theory to the
grammar (TGG) is part of the theory of generative grammar, especially of natural languages. It
considers grammar to be a system of rules that generate exactly those combinations of words that
form grammatical sentences in a given language and involves the use of defined operations
of language analysis that recognizes the relationship among the various elements of
a sentence and among the possible sentences of a language and uses, processes or rules to
For example, transformational grammar relates the active sentence ‘John read the book
with its corresponding passive, ‘The book was read by John’. The statement ‘George saw Mary’
is related to the corresponding questions, ‘Whom or who did George see?’ and ‘Who saw Mary?’
Although sets such as these active and passive sentences appear to be very different on the
surface i.e., in such things as word order, a transformational grammar tries to show that in the
“underlying structure” i.e., in their deeper relations to one another, the sentences are very similar.
Transformational grammar assigns a “deep structure” and a “surface structure” to show the
relationship of such sentences. Thus, ‘I know a man who flies planes’ can be considered the
surface form of a deep structure approximately like ‘I know a man’, ‘The man flies airplanes’.
The notion of deep structure can be especially helpful in explaining ambiguous utterances, e.g.
‘Flying airplanes can be dangerous’ may have a deep structure or meaning like ‘Airplanes can be
When it comes to syntax, Noam Chomsky is famous for proposing that beneath every
sentence in the mind of a speaker is an invisible, inaudible deep structure, the interface to
the mental lexicon. The deep structure is converted by transformational rules into a surface
structure that corresponds more closely to what is pronounced and heard. The rationale is that
certain constructions, if they were listed in the mind as surface structures, would have to be
multiplied out in thousands of redundant variations that would have to have been learned one by
one, whereas if the constructions were listed as deep structures, they would be simple, few in
History
In 1980s, Chomsky modified s syntactic theory called Government Binding Theory which is now
widely used by linguistics all around the world. GB was the first theory which is based on the
principles and parameters model of language, which also underlies the later developments of the
minimalist program.
Definition
Government and binding (GB, GBT) is a theory of syntax and a phrase structure grammar in the
Sub theories
Government Binding
Nouns involved
3. Re- expressions:
1. Anaphors: 2. Pronouns:
myself, i. Proper names
I, you, me,
herself, (Harry, Peter, Ali, etc)
him, she,
himself, her, etc Common nouns (cat,
itself, etc. tree, phone, etc)
• Binding is used, along with particular binding principles, to explain the ungrammaticality
• Binding Principle A,
• Binding Principle C.
to have meaning.
A pronoun must be free in its binding domain/
Principle B
the same clauses as its antecedent
E.g. John (i) told Mary (j) that he (i) was tired.
meaning.
Learning about GBT will help you to…..
Be aware of the
Explore the internal
modified rules and
development system
Interpret many using the rules from
of language from the
language GBT will ease
perspective of
phenomenon in everything since there
cognitive due to the
order to are not many of rule
emphasis on
understand the systems as Chomsky
universal grammar
language nature. proposed to limit the
systems of
types of rules in GBT.
principles.
GBT
Although this theory has it's own limitation as well whereby it still contains many rules
even after the modification and it disregards language's social function, knowing about the rule
system helps us understand what makes sentences and paragraphs clear and interesting and
precise.
Definition
Head phrase structure grammar was introduced by ivan sag and carl pollard in the mid 80’s.
Linguistic objects are represented through symbols so it is a grammar of signs. In head phrase
structure grammar, data in the form of phonology, syntax and semiology is transferred into
So while dealing this type of universal grammar there is the requirement of;
linguistics signs
Combination principles
Main features
2. Similar structure of linguistic objects emphasize the idea of uncertainty that feartures of the
3. Complex description of the head will be represented by the valence information that would
Framework
In HPSG features are considered as models and these features are translated as attributes.
specific type and lastly these types are in ordered form. (there is a particular hierarchy of these
types).
These hierarchies would have the most general type at their top; while the most specific would
be at the bottom.
AVM’S Translation
Attribute value matrix for the word ‘walks’. Categorical information of the verb would
divide into features that describes it, HEAD, and the feature that will describe the argument, it
will be called VALENCE. Walk is a symbol and it’s a type word and its head word is
represented by verb. This is an intransitive verb as it does not need any object and moreover, it
does not have complement. It has third person singular noun. Hence, the semantic value of the
subject is co-related with the only verb’s argument (means the individual is walking).
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
Conclusion
Functional theories of grammar belong to structural and humanistic linguistics. They take
into account the context where linguistic elements are used and studies the ways in which they
can be used productively. There are different grammar theories that are being described in this
paper. In Generative grammar theory and transformational theory patterns of the language are
formalized using rules to generate basic phrase structure and transformations to relate these too
difficult surface structures. Government and binding theory Noam Chomsky modified syntactic
theory; this theory depends on the rules and parameters of model of language. This theory relates
to the application of grammar case that shows the relationship of a noun and a pronoun in a
similar sentence. There is another approach to syntax where terminal nodes of syntactic parse
tress are somehow reduced to the smaller units, even smaller than morpheme. Each unit is further
irreducible and it does not require any further tree. There is Arc pair theory, is the extended
version of relational grammar. It primarily builds upon the relational grammar and it has also
used the formally stated concepts from model theory and graph theory. This means that
functional theories of grammar tend to pay attention to the way language is actually used in
communicative context.
References
Gruyter.
Chomsky, Noam (1993) [1981]. Lectures on Government and Binding: The Pisa Lectures.
Mouton de Gruyter.
1994:163f.
Layton, P., & Simpson, A. J. (1975). Surface and deep structure in sentence
Levine, R. D., & Meurers, W. D. (2006). Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar: Linguistic
and linguistics, 2.
Lakoff, G., & Ross, J. R. (1976). Is deep structure necessary?. In Notes from the linguistic
Monachesi, P. (2001). Head-driven phrase structure grammar and the interfaces. ESSLLI course
Press.
minimalism.