In traditional grammar, a sentence is considered a sequence of words which are classified into parts of speech.
Sentences are analyzed in terms of grammatical functions of words: subjects, objects, verbs (predicates), predicatives, …
Compulsory elements of a sentence: subject, verb, object, complement, adverbial…
Nouns: number, case, gender…
Verbs: tense, aspect, voice…
Adjectives and adverbs: comparative and superlative degrees
Agreement in number/person/gender
Parsing: trying to make detailed analysis in structure
Structural grammar
Structural grammar arose out of an attempt to deviate from traditional grammar. It deals with the inter-relationships of different grammatical units. In the concern of structural grammar, words are not just independent grammatical units, but are inter-related to one another.
Form class
Form class is a wider concept than part of speech in traditional grammar.
Linguistic units which can appear in the same slot are said to be in the same form class. For example, a(n), the, my, that, every, etc. can be placed before nouns in English sentences. These words fall into one form class.
These linguistic units are observed to have the same distribution.
Immediate constituent (IC) analysis
Structural grammar is characterized by a top-down process of analysis.
A sentence is seen as a constituent structure. All the components of the sentences are its constituents. A sentence can be cut into sections. Each section is its immediate constituent. Then each section can be further cut into constituents. This on-going cutting is termed immediate constituent analysis.
Examples:
Old men and women: old | men and women, old || men | and women
The ||| little || girl | speaks || French.
In this way, sentence structure is analyzed not only horizontally but also vertically. In other words, IC analysis can account for the linearity and the hierarchy of sentence structure.
I will suggest | that this || in itself reflects ||| a particular ideology |||| about gender ||||| that deserves to be re-examined.
Two advantages of IC analysis:
It can analyze some ambiguities.
It shows linearity and hierarchy of one sentence.
Transformational-generative (TG) grammar
Background and the goal of TG grammar
Chomsky (1957) – grammar is the knowledge of native speakers.
Adequacy of observation
Adequacy of description
Adequacy of explanation
Writing a TG grammar means working out two sets of rules – phrase structure rules and transformation rules – which are followed by speakers of the language.
TG grammar must account for all and only grammatical sentences.
Syntactic categories
Noun Phrase (NP)
Verb Phrase (VP)
Sentence (S)
Determiner (Det)
Adjective (Adj)
Pronoun (Pro)
Verb (V)
Auxiliary Verb (Aux)
Prepositional Phrase (PP)
Adverb (Adv)
Phrase structure (PS) rules
S → NP VP
(Det) (Adj) N
NP →{
Pro
VP → (Aux) V (NP) (PP)
PP → P NP
Tree diagrams (omit)
Recursion and the infinitude of language
