Transformational Syntax Research Articles

Rendering English Structural Ambiguity into Arabic and the Role of Transformational Syntax along with Arabic Morphology

Rendering English Structural Ambiguity into Arabic and the Role of Transformational Syntax along with Arabic Morphology

EMPTY CATEGORIES IN TRANSFORMATIONAL RULES

There are three theories that are always developed in any study of language, namely theory of language structure, theory of language acquisition, and theory of language use. Among those three theories, theory of language structure is regarded as the most important one. It is assumed that if someone knows the structure of language, he/she can develop theories about how language is acquired and used. It makes Chomsky interested in developing the theory of language structure. Chomsky introduced a theory of grammar called Transformational Generative Grammar or Transformational Syntax. Transformational Syntax is a method of sentence fomation which applies some syntactic rules (or also called transformational rules). Transformational rules consist of three types, namely movement transformation, deletion transformation, and substitution transformation. When those transformational rules are applied in a sentence, they will leave empty categories. Empty categories can be in the form of Complementizer (Comp), Trace, and PRO. This article will elaborate those empty categories; their appearance in the transformational rules; and the characteristics of each empty category.

Observations on Strict Derivational Minimalism

Deviating from the definition originally presented in [12], Stabler [13] introduced—inspired by some recent proposals in terms of a minimalist approach to transformational syntax–a (revised) type of a minimalist grammar (MG) as well as a certain type of a strict minimalist grammar (SMG). These two types can be shown to determine the same class of derivable string languages.

Back to the future

Andrew Radford, Syntactic theory and the structure of English: a minimalist approach. Cambridge textbooks in linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997. Pp. xii + 558. Hardback £50, US$69.95, ISBN 0 521 47125 7; paperback £16.95, US$24.95, ISBN 0 521 47707 7.Until recently I was convinced that by far the best textbook ever written on Generative Grammar was Perlmutter and Soames' Syntactic argumentation and the structure of English (1979). Unfortunately, the theory advanced there died out. As concerns its successor, namely GB-theory, I still believe that Andrew Radford's pioneering Transformational syntax (1981) is one of the best introductions to Chomsky's Pisa lectures, despite the plethora of competing textbooks that have appeared over the years. Now that Radford has presented his most recent book, Syntactic theory and the structure of English, I am inclined to believe that it should be considered a competitor to Perlmutter and Soames' book. Not only the similarity to Perlmutter and Soames' title, but also the pedagogical and systematic orientation of the new book invites comparison. As both books meet the highest standards with regard to clarity of expression and exposition, I recommend Radford's book as the best textbook for up-to-date syntactic theory, and I am convinced that it will play the same influential role as an introduction to the Minimalist theory as did the 1981 book for GB theory.

Raising and Transparency

The phenomena that classic transformational syntax handled by means of 'raising' rules pose an interesting challenge to theories that do not posit movement or derivation from underlying structures. An account of these phenomena is formulated in the context of COGNITIVE GRAMMAR. Raising is analyzed as a special case of the metonymy that virtually all relational expressions exhibit in regard to their choice of overtly coded arguments. The transparency of these constructions-the fact that the main clause imposes no restrictions on the 'raised' NP-is explained with reference to the semantics of the governing predicates.*

The metalanguage of transformational syntax: Relations between jargon and theory

The metalanguage of transformational syntax: Relations between jargon and theory

Review of McCloskey (1979): Transformational Syntax and Model Theoretic Semantics: A Case Study in Modern Irish

Review of McCloskey (1979): Transformational Syntax and Model Theoretic Semantics: A Case Study in Modern Irish

Das Futur mit und ohne werden in Wort und Schrift

natural interpretation, sentences containing a predicate adjective (with sein) can usually also be understood subjectively (for example, sentence 9 can be read Karl must be being careful) and subjective sentences containing a verb can usually also be understood objectively (for example, sentence 5 can be read She wants to hear voices). 2Cf. George Lakoff, Irregularity in Syntax (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970), pp. 121-2, 156-7. 3Stative is normal or unmarked for adjectives as a class; so adjectives like careful and helpful, which are normally used non-statively, are marked. Non-stative is normal or unmarked for verbs as a class; so verbs like resemble, know, which are normally used statively are marked (cf. Lakoff, op. cit., pp. 142-3). These markedness relationships account in part for the ambiguities described in note 1 above. Even with the aid of markedness theory, however, there remain severe problems in defining the notion of stativeness. Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik maintain .. that we are dealing with scales rather than a feature that is present or absent (A Grammar of Contemporary English. New York and London: Seminar Press, 1970, p. 265). Rodney Huddleston finds it arguable how far this notion can be specified in linguistic terms . (An Introduction to English Transformational Syntax. London: Longman, 1976, p. 241). For the examples in this paper, I have sought verbs and adjectives that are clearly either stative or nonstative, but I agree that many are not easily classified. 4Note that inherently non-stative verbs and adjectives can appear as part of larger verb phrases which do allow dominating modals to be heard subjectively, e.g., the perfect: a) Franz mug nach Hause gekommen sein; with objective modals: b) Franz mug nach Hause kommen wollen; with an iterative context: c) Franz mug alle drei Stunden wieder nach Hause kommen; with noch and other free adverbials (Angaben): d) Franz konnte noch nach Hause kommen. From the viewpoint of generative semantics, these adverbial and auxiliary-verb modifications of the sentence are higher (stative) predicates, so that what the speaker is assessing with the modal is a) the completedness, b) the subject's desire, c) the frequency, and d) the time of the basic proposition. sThe first and most thorough textbook treatment of this topic is that by Walter F. W. Lohnes and F. W. Strothmann in German: A Structural Approach, 2nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1973), pp. 281-8.

Slavic Transformational Syntax. Edited by Richard D. Brecht and Catherine V. Chvany. Foreword by Horace G. Lunt. Michigan Slavic Materials, no. 10. Ann Arbor: Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan, 1974. vi, 261 pp. Paper.

Slavic Transformational Syntax. Edited by Richard D. Brecht and Catherine V. Chvany. Foreword by Horace G. Lunt. Michigan Slavic Materials, no. 10. Ann Arbor: Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan, 1974. vi, 261 pp. Paper. - Volume 35 Issue 2

The programmatic semantics of binary predicator calculi.

One may take the view that combinatory logic is concerned with some families of calculi that share well studied morphological and transformational features. These calculi allow for a variety of interpretatio ns. There has been some interest among those concerned with the theory of programming, in these calculi. The intuitive programming interpretations of some of these calculi generally view them as abstract theories of rules that govern problem solving by idealized computing facilities (see Goodman [2]). In this paper,* we wish to present a formal programmatic semantics for a selection of combinatory calculi that is based on first-order model theoretic considerations. There may be extensions of the methods here proposed to higher order and type theoretic considerations (see Curry, Hindley, and Seldin [1], and Sanchis [4, 5]). For the present, we shall limit ourselves to the first-order case. In the following sections of the paper, we first review the morphology and transformational syntax of the calculi, we then construct a first-order referential semantics and conclude with a section that develops the programmatic semantics. The capstone of the paper is a semantic completeness theorem that exhibits how the semantic notion of programmatic equivalence is related to the syntactical concepts of reducibility and extensional equivalence.

A note on the ordering of transformations

As part of the mid-decade revision of transformational syntax, Chomsky (I965: I34-I35) proposed a solution to the so-called 'traffic-rules' problem in which (a) the embedding of sentences is transferred to the base component, and (b) the singulary transformations apply in a cyclical fashion, first to the most deeply embedded constituent sentences, then to the most deeply embedded but one, then to the most deeply embedded but two, and so on. In my detailed review of this work (Matthews, I967) I was sufficiently unobservant as to report the proposal without comment (cf. I27). Since then I have not seen any discussion which argues that amendment might be necessary. There may therefore be room, even at this stage, for me to repair my omission. In the course of my review (I40), I implied that the example John inquired if the Prime Minister was a Socialist would involve an embedded Interrogative sentence: Interrogative was, of course, expressed by the 'Q' formative of Katz & Postal (I964). Similarly Hartung (I967: 82 ff.) had derived sentences of the type Es istfraglich, ob er kommt from embeddings in which a formative comparable to 'Q' ('IF)' [cf. 20]) was replaced by the overt morpheme ob (e.g. by T4 [89]). But if these analyses are right, then how do we prevent the Interrogative transformation from applying to the constituent sentence? For the Wh-example I asked why John left the deep structure would, in all relevant respects, be of the form:

Worksheets for a first course in transformational syntax

From the introduction, "The worksheets collected here were written in answer to a need for short exercises that could be easily worked in class and that would illustrate and allow for the application of material presented to the Area Linguistics course of the Summer Institute of Linguistics held at the University of North Dakota during the summer of 1965. With the exception of the introductory worksheets, which were designed to provide a bridge for he approach of transformational syntax by students who had some acquaintance with the Tagmemic view of grammar, these materials were intended as pedagogical aids for the presentation of Transformational Syntax as revised by Chomsky in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1965."