Everything about Generative Linguistics totally explained
Generative linguistics is a school of thought within
linguistics that makes use of the concept of a
generative grammar. The term "generative grammar" is used in different ways by different people, and the term "generative linguistics" therefore has a range of different, though overlapping, meanings.
Formally, a generative grammar is defined as one that's fully explicit. It is a finite set of rules that can be applied to
generate all those and only those sentences (often, but not necessarily, infinite in number) that are grammatical in a given language. This is the definition that's offered by
Noam Chomsky, who invented the term , and by most dictionaries of linguistics. It is important to note that
generate is being used as a technical term with a particular sense. To say that a grammar generates a sentence means that the grammar "assigns a structural description" to the sentence.
The term generative grammar is also used to label the approach to linguistics taken by Chomsky and his followers. Chomsky's approach is characterised by the use of
transformational grammar – a theory that has changed greatly since it was first promulgated by Chomsky in his
1957 book
Syntactic Structures – and by the assertion of a strong linguistic
nativism (and therefore an assertion that some set of fundamental characteristics of all human languages must be the same). The term "generative linguistics" is often applied to the earliest version of Chomsky's transformational grammar, which was associated with a distinction between the "
deep structure" and "
surface structure" of sentences.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Generative Linguistics'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://generative_linguistics.totallyexplained.com">Generative linguistics Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
