Universidad de Santiago de Chile Facultad de Humanidades Departamento de Lingstica y Literatura Magster en Lingstica

Generative Grammar and Real life language.

Author: Diego Cabezas Bravo Date: July 19th 2013

Introduction The aim of this study is to analyze and appreciate how the Generative Grammar theory works on a real life corpus. As the artificiality of its corpus is one of the main drawbacks of this approach, I attempt to undercover if it is possible to apply this theory to a corpus outside the safeness of the simulated corpus. For this reason, a real life corpus is the main object of analysis accepting its wildness and unpredictability. In order to achieve the purpose of this paper 3 complex declarative sentences have been taken from the book Media Control - The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda written by Noam Chomsky (2002). In addition to this, it is important to point out that this corpus has been chosen at random and there is no ulterior motive involved in it. When we talk about real life language, the first thing that comes to mind is an everyday conversation, thus this should have been the corpus if the intention was to expose generative grammar to this unknown corpus. However, this specific genre of conversation has certain characteristics like the turn taking strategies and the non-clause material which locate conversation outside the scope of the first paradigm of generative grammar. The analysis of this work is based on what is known as Generative Grammar, first proposed by Noam Chomsky in 1957. This theory is an approach to the study of syntax with the main objective of unscrambling the hidden patterns or rules in the production of a specific language, permitting to predict the correct combination of words which form grammatically correct sentences. These patterns are known as finite syntactic rules, they are not an endless set of rules but a few predetermined elements. Notwithstanding, according to Chomsky (1957), with this limited set of items the human mind is capable of creating an

endless number of sentences, proving the enormous capacity of creativity present within humans. Theoretical Framework This theory was an attempt to bring science into humanistic studies, this way he argued against all the scholars from the hard sciences who have never considered linguistic scholars as their peers. Nevertheless, he was not the first scholar from humanities to attempt to get closer to the hard sciences. B.F Skinner struggled to apply a scientific method in the field of psychology but failed in doing so due to his way of considering human beings as comparable to inanimated substances. Chomsky, on the other hand, in his approached assumed a scientific method of analysis and logic (Cogswell p 52. 1996) Throughout the development of his theory Chomsky had to undergo numerous critiques from his peers. Among other things, it was considering an Armchair Grammar, this was so due to the origin of its corpus which was generated from the head of the grammarian and not from a real life corpus. All the examples are invented without paying attention to a persons real performance but with the final aim of make them suitable to the theory focusing only in competence. Another important critique was that this theory does not take into consideration the contextual environment of the sentence analyzed; this is so mainly because it does not have one, as it is generated in isolation from the mind of the researcher with no social context involved in it. The only relevant context to this approach is the linguistic context or the near constituencies of each element in the sentence. Linguistic is first and foremost a social science which studies the main social tool: language, thus social elements should be central

in any linguistic study and under no circumstance be ignored. Moreover, it minimizes the semantic element as an accessory to help the syntactic rules. Furthermore, it attempts to make explicit the implicit elements of language by digging up and discovering the deep structure of a language from the surface structure. In theory, this is an excellent assertion not a criticism. However, outside the theory, this is almost impossible to totally prove, due to the impossibility to open up the brain of any individual to see how langue really works. Considering the above said, this is the most successful attempt to make grammar a hard science. It makes abstract representations from the concrete elements of languages. According to Chomsky (1957) there is a universal grammar capacity which is part of the genetic birthright of every human being. We are all supposed have the capability to fit any language into our basic template. It is important to point out that there are universals among languages but there is no a universal grammar. There exists a universal capability to acquire any language so there is specific grammar for each single language with the same syntactic elements. This capacity is known to belong only to the human species showing the enormous creativity ability in all human beings. This innate ability is believed to be present only in native speaker thus a non-native speaker is not excepted to form grammatically correct sentences with the same accuracy a native does. Native speaker are able to generate, perceive and understand an endless number of sentences spontaneously which are in most cases never heard before. The innate creativity plays an important role in this area; having a finite number of elements native speakers can produce all kind of complex and simple sentences with no major effort. Natives have the

competence on any given language to innovate by creating new these never-heard sentences in accordance to the employment of grammar rules. (Cogswell p 55. 1996) There are three main level of grammar analysis: the syntactic, semantic and phonological level. The first, the most important and relevant in this area, seeks for the pattern, principals or rule which construct a particular language. The second tries to find out the meaning of sentences, for Chomsky, this element should depend on the syntactic rules to work out being a secondary element. Finally the phonological search for the phonemes combinations on sentences as the actual realization language. In the syntax level of analysis there are 8 main rules. The first is the sentences, represented by a capital S from which the Noun Phrase (NP) and the Verb Phrase (VP) are derivate. The second rule consists of the derivation of a Verb and a NP from the VP. The third is NP split into a determiner (Det) and a Noun (N). The fourth is the Verb divided into an auxiliary (Aux) and a Verb (V). The fifth is the Det derivate into whatever determiner is shown in the surface structure of the analyzed sentence, for example a,the,he etc. The sixth the N is derivate into any actual noun is present in the surface structure, for example house, television, newspaper etc. The seventh the Aux is derivate into an auxuliar, for example must, may, ed etc. The last is the eight which is the derivation of a verb, for example read, study, play etc. from the Verb category. In the next section, the three sentences will be analyzed, all of which were taken at random from the book Media Control - The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda written by Noam Chomsky (2002).

Illustration and Discussion First Sentence: The crisis of democracy is still alive and well, fortunately, but not very effective in changing policy (26)

In concrete, this complex sentence is constituted by two simple sentences: the crisis of democracy is still alive and well and the crisis of democracy is not very effective in changing policy linked by unfortunately, but. None of the clauses is subordinated to the other. They are two independent sentences working as a contrast of two ideas. As it is possible to see at a first look to the analysis there are several words left aside from the analysis: of, still, very, in, which do not fit any of the categories proposed by Chomsky. Second Sentence He argued that in a properly functioning democracy there are classes of citizens (10)

There is a big portion of this sentence that in a properly functioning democracy that cannot be located within GG scope, as there are no categories for these constituencies. Third Sentence The crisis was that large segments of the population were becoming organized to participate in the political arena (25)

Once again, there several constituencies that fail to fit into any of the categories proposed by Chomsky.

Final Discussion Even though, the corpus is very small and any definite conclusion is impossible to obtain from this work, it possible to see without any deep examination that there are too many elements that are not included and too many loose ends that cannot be tied accurately. This theory was created without paying attention to performance but competence, however seeing that is not even close to work on language in use, it can be considered faulty and deficient to tackle the analysis outside the safeness of artificiality. I totally I agree with the main criticism to this theory, the most important is the origin of its corpus. I can bear to accept that a social science likes linguistic and grammar specifically abandon the real use of language. The hard sciences should never be a point of comparison, not even a role model to fallow. Humanities is a field of investigation that really can have an impact in the social world, a characteristic that has to be take into consideration in every investigation. Barely understanding how language is generated without any further aim to improve the ways of the social world seem useless an unimportant in comparison with the rest of humanities studies. Nonetheless, All knowledge is a contribution to the human development and enlightenment To finish, I would like to say that this theory was not meant to be conclusive but a first approach to what could be a definite theory of generation of grammar. For this reason, it an excellent milestone when going deeper into the world of grammar and an essential knowledge for linguistic scholars

Reference Chomsky, Noam .(1957). Syntactic Structures, London: Mouton Chomsky, Noam .(2002). Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda, New York: Seven Stories Press, 1997, updated 2002. Cogswell, D., & Gordon, P. (1996). Chomsky: For beginners. New York, NY: Writers and Readers Pub.