DICTIONARY
CHOMSKY, NOAM
Linguistic who develop the theory of the transformational-generative grammar.
GENERATIVE
A linguistic theory that attempts to describe the tacit knowledge that a native speaker has of a language by establishing a set of explicit, formalized rules that specify or generate all the possible grammatical sentences of a language, while excluding all unacceptable sentences
Cf. transformational grammar.
GENERATIVE GRAMMAR
A system of language analysis that makes it possible to generate all the grammatically
acceptable sentences of a language and eliminate ungrammatical constructions is called a
generative grammar.
LINGUISTICS
Scientific study of language. Such study may focus on the sounds, words and grammar of
specific languages or the universal characteristics of all languages. It may also analyze the
sociological and psychological aspects of communication.
SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES
The book by Noam Chomsky in which we can find the first expression of the
transformational-generative grammar.Written in 1957.
TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR
A grammar that takes basic, underlying semantic units and transforms them to produce sentences
with recognizable and understandable orde and units is called a transformational grammar, in
other words, a system of grammatical analysis, esp. a form of generative grammar, that posits
the existence of deep structure and surface structure, using a set of transformational rules to
derive surface structure forms from deep structure; a grammar that uses transformations to
express the relations between equivalent structures.
TRANSFORMATIONAL-GENERATIVE GRAMMAR
A grammar that generates all the acceptable sentences of a language and uses rules, called transformations, to transform, or change, the underlying elements into what a person actually says.