Transformational Grammar : Evolution

Abstract

Transformational grammar was developed in the mid 1950s by Noam Chomsky. Over the next two decades it became the dominant paradigm in syntactic theory and description and its descendant, government binding theory is still one of the most influential current theories. Transformational grammar forms a wide-ranging theory, whose central tenets are the use of hypothetico-deductive methodology to construct formal models of certain aspects of human linguistic capabilities. Such models are called ‘grammars’ in the theory and are taken to be an encoding, in some form, of the native speaker's linguistic knowledge (or ‘competence’). Much of the work of transformational grammar has consisted of constructing models of (fragments of) individual languages, but equally important has been the task of exploring and defining the properties which are required by such grammars to provide accurate and revealing accounts of the linguistic data under consideration. Such general properties are taken to form the content of ‘linguistic theory’ (also termed ‘universal grammar’) and therefore do not need to be stated in individual linguistic descriptions. While a grammar for an individual language is a representation of the linguistic knowledge of the native speaker of that language, linguistic theory represents the properties (possibly very abstract in nature) which constrain all languages and thus defines the notion ‘possible human language.’ The content of universal grammar is taken to be a characterization of the human language acquisition device – those antecedent conditions that make language acquisition possible and which constrain the learning space available to the child acquiring a native language. Transformational grammar has undergone significant evolution since its initial development and one of the slightly ironic consequences of the pursuit of the goals listed above is that transformations themselves have come increasingly to play a less and less significant role in the theory. This article traces that development.