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

NP

art + (adj*) + N

VP

V + NP + (PP*)

PP

Prep + NP

sailor, cat, horse, bridge,

saluted, kissed, fried

adj

drunken, puzzled, gregarious

art

a, the

prep

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

VP
N

The drunken sailor

V
saluted

NP
art adj

the puzzled cat

Sentences with ambiguous meanings

have different phrase structure trees
S
NP
adj

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.