Reflection Transformational Grammar

Universidad de Guadalajara

Maestría en Enseñanza del Inglés como Lengua Extranjera

Module II: Linguistic Description For Foreign Language
Teaching
Reflection 3.3
Transformational Grammar

Tutor’s Name: Dra. María Luisa Arias Moreno
Name: Humberto Marino Ramírez
E-mail: [email protected]
March 10th, 2014

Reflection 3.3
Reflection 3.3
You should now able to make a comparison between traditional grammar, constituent phrase
grammar, phrase structure grammar and transformational grammar. Write your reactions,
both positive and negative, to the models described.
Syntax describes the principles which order words meaningfully into sentences, with the
different types of grammars that exist it tries to describe the rules that arrange the linguistic
units into a coherent (and meaningful) whole. In this text I am going to talk about my
impressions on the different grammars and highlight their ups and downs.
The first grammar was traditional grammar and although it may seem quite old fashioned
nowadays, it represented a great milestone in the linguistic knowledge of its time. The
scholars who devised this grammar differentiated between statements, questions,
exclamations and commands; these categories helped the first linguists to classify
sentences according to its function. It was of great value when it was created, but since
this grammar couldn’t break up sentences into grammatical units and see the valid
patterns of combination between sentences, it was disposed of.
When analysis of languages started, sentences used to be studied in a linear way, word by
word from left to right, but then constituent phrase grammar was created and its great
contribution was, as it name says, the identification of constituents which, according to
Herman Wekker, are words in a sentence that are linked closely together, they are
grammatical units that are able to be moved within the sentence. But Constituent
Grammar’s greater gift to linguistic analysis was the notion that sentences have a
hierarchical structure of groups within groups (noun phrases, verb phrases). These
sentences are analyzed in tree diagrams. This new-found feature gave linguists the
possibility to analyze language in an easier way and describe how morphemes interact
with one another to give meaning to sentences according to the order of words.
But even though Constituent Phrase Grammar had big advantages it also had
weaknesses: in tree diagrams there’s a large amount of repetition. E.g. Noun phrases are
made of such and such verb phrase and these VPs are made of other NPs and VPs and
so on. Sometimes this is repeated 7 or even ten times making tree diagrams of many
levels! It is much simpler to make general statements about these repetitions of constituent
structure: for example: A sentence is composed of a NP and a VP. These general
statements are summarized in rules: Phrase Structure Rules.
Phrase Structure Rule grammar appeared after Constituent Phrase grammar as an

improvement that made easier the tree diagrams. These rules are more explicit, easy to
understand, brief and simple, they use mathematical speculation to describe in few words
the repetitive tree structures. This PS grammar is generative because its rules create a
description of the hierarchy of the morphemes in the sentences.
But Phrase Structure rules cannot do it all. Noam Chomsky said that there are languages
that cannot be described in terms of Phrase Structure, he applied the PS rules to various
sentences in English to prove the inadequacy of this grammar. He found that there are
sentences where constituent movement takes place and ambiguous sentences are
originated.
E.g. She only passed in French
She passed only in French
The first sentence implies that the only thing that she did was pass in French while the
second one says that the only subject she passed was French. PS rules generate
ambiguity and they cannot handle a change from the active to the passive voice. This is
where Transformational Grammar comes in and gives rules for sentences: e.g. “Given any
deep structure tree which has a VP… then one may ….” Of course there’s also a
mathematical formula that summarizes the previous rule into a few words.
A transformation is a syntactic rule that alters a tree structure. The sentences before these
transformations are called deep structures (other authors call them underlying structures)
and the ones that result after the changes by transformations are called surface structures.
There are many types of transformational relations but they have shown that they are an
improvement on Phrase structure rules being able to describe syntactic changes that all
the previous grammars could not account for.
I think transformations are very important for the English teacher because he must try to
strengthen grammar in his/her students so that it will be like the one internalized by
English speakers. When a teacher understands transformations (like Tag endings,
declarative sentences to interrogative ones) he can explain them to his/her students and
design exercises for the grammar to be practiced.
In this text the different grammars were analyzed: Traditional grammar described 4 main
categories for sentences but Constituency Structure Grammar went a step forward when it
introduced constituents, how they can be moved and what their hierarchy is. This brought
up large tree structures that made difficult analyzing them but Phrase Structure Rules
summarized the tree diagrams and made them easy and simple. Finally Transformational
Grammar published rules (like tag ending rules) that covered aspects that PS rules could
not explain successfully. In studying the different grammars the English teacher can
explain to his/her students the arrangement of words to give an appropriate meaning.
Bibliografía
Chomsky, N. (2002). Syntactic Structures. New York: de gruyter.
John, B. (1975). Modern English Linguistics. New York: Thomas Crowell Company.
Palmer, F. (1983). Grammar . UK: Hazell: Watson and Viney Ltd.
Wekker Herman, H. L. (1996). A Modern Course in English Syntax. New York: Routledge.

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Universidad de Guadalajara

Maestría en Enseñanza del Inglés como Lengua Extranjera

Tutor’s Name: Dra. María Luisa Arias Moreno

Name: Humberto Marino Ramírez

March 10th, 2014

Phrase Structure Rule grammar appeared after Constituent Phrase grammar as an

E.g. She only passed in French

She passed only in French

Palmer, F. (1983). Grammar . UK: Hazell: Watson and Viney Ltd.

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