Concept
Transformational grammar
Related concepts (35)
Subject–auxiliary inversion
Subject–auxiliary inversion (SAI; also called subject–operator inversion) is a frequently occurring type of inversion in English, whereby a finite auxiliary verb – taken here to include finite forms of the copula be – appears to "invert" (change places) with the subject. The word order is therefore Aux-S (auxiliary–subject), which is the opposite of the canonical SV (subject–verb) order of declarative clauses in English.
Markedness
In linguistics and social sciences, markedness is the state of standing out as nontypical or divergent as opposed to regular or common. In a marked–unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one. The dominant default or minimum-effort form is known as unmarked; the other, secondary one is marked. In other words, markedness involves the characterization of a "normal" linguistic unit against one or more of its possible "irregular" forms.
Relational grammar
In linguistics, relational grammar (RG) is a syntactic theory which argues that primitive grammatical relations provide the ideal means to state syntactic rules in universal terms. Relational grammar began as an alternative to transformational grammar. In relational grammar, constituents that serve as the arguments to predicates are numbered in what is called the grammatical relations (GR) hierarchy. This numbering system corresponds loosely to the notions of subject, direct object and indirect object.
Move α
Move α is a feature of the Revised Extended Standard Theory (REST) of transformational grammar developed by Noam Chomsky in the late 1970s. The term refers to the relation between an indexed constituent and its trace t, e.g., the relation of whom and [t] in the example Whom1 do you think you are kidding t1 ? In the 1990s Minimalist Program, it became a structure-building operation together with "Merge". "α" is the placeholder symbol for the moved constituent. The constituent (whom) and its trace (t) are said to form a "chain".
Generative semantics
Generative semantics was a research program in theoretical linguistics which held that syntactic structures are computed on the basis of meanings rather than the other way around. Generative semantics developed out of transformational generative grammar in the mid-1960s, but stood in opposition to it. The period in which the two research programs coexisted was marked by intense and often personal clashes now known as the linguistics wars.
Howard Lasnik
Howard Lasnik (born July 3, 1945) is a distinguished university professor in the department of linguistics at the University of Maryland. He studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (B.S., 1967), Harvard University (M.A., 1969) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1972). He joined the faculty of the University of Connecticut in 1972, and took up his present post at the University of Maryland in 2002.
Ellipsis (linguistics)
In linguistics, ellipsis (from ἔλλειψις, élleipsis 'omission') or an elliptical construction is the omission from a clause of one or more words that are nevertheless understood in the context of the remaining elements. There are numerous distinct types of ellipsis acknowledged in theoretical syntax. Theoretical accounts of ellipsis seek to explain its syntactic and semantic factors, the means by which the elided elements are recovered, and the status of the elided elements.
Tree-adjoining grammar
Tree-adjoining grammar (TAG) is a grammar formalism defined by Aravind Joshi. Tree-adjoining grammars are somewhat similar to context-free grammars, but the elementary unit of rewriting is the tree rather than the symbol. Whereas context-free grammars have rules for rewriting symbols as strings of other symbols, tree-adjoining grammars have rules for rewriting the nodes of trees as other trees (see tree (graph theory) and tree (data structure)).
Langue and parole
Langue and parole is a theoretical linguistic dichotomy distinguished by Ferdinand de Saussure in his Course in General Linguistics. The French term langue ('[an individual] language') encompasses the abstract, systematic rules and conventions of a signifying system; it is independent of, and pre-exists, the individual user. It involves the principles of language, without which no meaningful utterance, or parole, would be possible.
Branching (linguistics)
In linguistics, branching refers to the shape of the parse trees that represent the structure of sentences. Assuming that the language is being written or transcribed from left to right, parse trees that grow down and to the right are right-branching, and parse trees that grow down and to the left are left-branching. The direction of branching reflects the position of heads in phrases, and in this regard, right-branching structures are head-initial, whereas left-branching structures are head-final.