8

Transformation
Generative Grammar

INTRODUCTION

Imagine a computer that is programmed to invent grammatical sentences tor every occasion--a
computer so ingenious that even with a limited storage of words t 15 able to generate an infinite
number of grammatical sentences. The language component of your brain is just such a
computer, a linguistic marvel that can go into action without a moment's hesitation, inventing
sentences, putting together meaningful combinations of words, even putting together
combinations that have never been heard before. In day-to-day situations your inventions tend to
be fairly predictable: "Hi, how are you?" "Have you eaten yet?" "Sorry I'm late." "That was the
funniest movie I've ever seen." "Coffee time!" But other occasions call for unique combinations,
and you come up with such sentences automatically too

Your linguistic computer has another job as well: to process the sentences you read and hear so
that you can understand them. It does this just as automatically usually with no difficulty, even in
the case of strange 5entences you have never heard or seen before.

As you have just demonstrated, your computer a process a sentence and sense of its ideas even
when they are nonsense.The system underlying our computer- like ability this internal system we
that enable as to create and to process sentences is the system we called grammar.

How we shall begin the study of grammar? First, imagine that we are programming a computer
to do what we as language users do-to generate.

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grammatical sentences. What the computer to be creative, as we are, to invent sentences on its
own. How will we program it to do that? The obvious first step is to understand our own
sentences. What rules do we follow? What are the parts of the system? How do they work
together?

These are the very questions that linguists ask. Some fifty years ago when the Structural
linguists, also known as "new grammarians," began to ask Such questions, they obviously were
not thinking about programming computers to produce sentences. They simply set out to
describe the language in an objective way. Until that time, most descriptions of English grammar
were based on Latin grammar , 1he new grammarians changed that practice, describing English
own terms, They examined all the components of English, beginning with the small unit-the
meaningful sound, or phoneme-and then described how phonemes recombined into larger,
meaningful units--morphemes--and then into words and, finally, sentences. This description
came to be known as structural grammar.

Then in the 1950s a new generation of linguists took up the questions in somewhat different way
and added a few ones: How can we account for this linguistic ability ? What rules do we follow
in order to produce and process sentences'? How does the system work? These are the questions
of the transformational-generative linguists. They are still in the process of formulating answers.

The thread that runs through all of the answers through all of the years of asking questions i1s
the idea of system: we put sounds and words and phrases and sentences together in a highly
systematic way. This system makes up what we call the rules of grammar. It is this system of
rules forming the language that we will examine in this module.

Several models or frameworks for the study of English grammar have been evolved in the past to
describe the form of language: traditional, structural, tagmemic, case, etc. These models have
been introduced to you in Module 6, The Grammar of the Language: Syntactic Structures, In
Module 7, Structural Grammar: the Immediate Constituent Analysis was discussed in detail to
explain the major divisions that can be made within a syntactic construction, at any level. For
example, in analyzing the sentence The boy is walking, the immediate constituents would be the
boy and is walking These in turn can be analyzed into immediate constituents (the + boy + is
walking), and the process continues until irreducible constituents are reached. The immediate
constituent analysis is concerned about surface structure only. 1ranstormational - generative
grammar shows that an utterance can have two deep structures, e.g, Visiting aunts can be boring
or two different utterances can have the same deep structure, e.g, active and passive voices.
 198
In this new module, the transformational-generative analysis will be presented to explain this
other Iinguistic operation.

OBJECTIVES

After going through the activities in this module, you will be able to do the following tasks

1. Explain transformational generative grammar (TG) and differentiate it from the other
linguistic models

2. distinguish between surface structure and deep structure.

3. Define and exemplify the four fundamental processes of transformation

4. read and interpret basic phrase structure rules

5. construct tree diagrams as a convenient means of displaying the internal hierarchical

structure of sentences as generated by a set of rules

6. analyze sentences using the TG model

WHAT IS TRANSFORMATIONAIL GRAMMAR (TG)?

Here are some definitions of transformational grammar according to different authors

The transformational model for linguistic structure is more powerful than the immediate
constituent model in certain important respects and which does account for grammatical
relations in a natural way. When we formulate the theory of transformations carefully and apply
it freely to English, we find that it provides a good deal of insight into a wide range of
phenomena beyond those for which it was specifically designed.
Noam Chomsky
Syntactic Structures (1963)
 199

Several models of transformational grammar have been presented since its first outline. The
standard model, as presented by Chomsky in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965), consists of
three components:

1. a syntactic component, comprising a basic set of phrase-structure rules, which together with lexical
information provides the deep structure information about sentences, and a set of transformational
rules for generating surface structure.
2. a phonological component, which converts strings of syntactic elements into pronounceable
utterances;
3. a semantic component, which provides a representation of the meaning of the lexical items to be
used in the sentence.
David Crystal

Transformational grammar is a set of rules capable of generating all of the grammatical sentences of
English and describing their structure in a way that seems intuitively correct to native speakers of
English.
This is what transformational grammar is - a set of artificial rules that mimic our intuitive knowledge
of our language. Our intuitive set of rules is so fully internalized that we have little more conscious
awareness of how the rules work than we have of how Our eyes and brain enable us to see. By
creating and studying a set of artificial rules that mimic our ability, we can gain considerable insight
into our intuitive, internalized rule system. Through the approach of transformational grammar we
have learned more about English and language in general in the last thirty years than we have learned
in all of previous history. Transformational grammar is the most important modern approach to
grammatical analysis.
Mark Lester
Grammar in the Classroom (1990)
 200

Transformational grammar is any grammar that claims to assign to each sentence that it generates both
a deep structure and a surface structure analysis and systematically to relate the two analyses.
John Lyons
Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics (1968)

Transformational grammar is a systematic analysis of both the surface structure and the deep structure of
sentences by means or transformational rules.
Harris Zellig
Methods in Structural Linguistics (1951)

When we speak of studying transformational grammar, we refer to a framework within which a number
of questions about human intellectual capacity, questions concerning the knowledge involved in
"speaking" a language have been answered and are currently being answered. This framework is a set of
principles, called linguistic universals, which allow us to describe what we know about language
intuitively. Without such guiding principles, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to obtain a
correct description of English. Before we can describe what we know, we must know how to describe it,
we must know, in other words, how to classify the facts which we observe.

Roderick A. Jacobs & Peter S. Rosenbaum

"English Transformational Grammar (1968)

 201

As mentioned earlier, transformational grammar is only one of several models for linguistic
analysis, the other two classical analyses being the traditional and structural models. Different
grammars make very different contributions to our understanding of English grammar.

What are he characteristics and distinctive features of each model? How does TG differ from the
traditional and structural descriptions.

The foundation of traditional grammar is the identification of each word in a sentence in terms of
the eight parts of speech: noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and
interjection. It is traditional grammar that has given us these basic terms for the parts of speech,
although the way traditional grammar defines terms is not easy for all students to learn. It is not
that the definitions are wrong, it is that they are abstract and hard for many students to apply in
practice. For example, the traditional definition of a noun emphasizes the fact that nouns are
names. The definition works well for the names of proper nouns and tor common nouns when
the common nouns refer to tangible things such as people, places, and concrete objects.
However, students run into trouble when they apply the traditional definition of noun to
intangible things like love, honesty, government, etc. The fact that blue is the name of a color
does not mean that blue (in its usual meaning as a term describing a color) is a noun Likewise,
the fact that jump is the name of an action does not mean that jump (in its normal use) is a noun.

Based on experience, the most useful sentence-level model for the English teacher is the
transformational one, since it views human language as dynamic rather than static and is process-
oriented rather than form-oriented. For example, in a static model of grammar such as the
structural one, questions are analyzed and presented independent of statements. Such structural
analyses- while being rigorous from a formal point of view -do not encourage students to
understand and exploit the similarities and differences that exist among related sentence types.
Two of the best known structural linguists, Bloomfield (1933) and Fries (1940), believed in the
need for scientific rigor in linguistic description. Because they felt that meaning in language was
too messy to deal with in an objective manner, the structuralists focused their attention on
describing the forms of the spoken language.

Traditional grammar, while less rigorous in its statement of rules than either structural grammar
or transformational grammar, did attend to meaning and usage as well as form Preceding the
structuralists and writing in a loose, discursive style, traditional grammarians such as Jespersen
(1922-1942) and Poutsma (1914-1929) produced multivolume grammars of the English language
in which generalizations about form and usage are presented in an expository fashion and are
typically supported by abundant examples drawn from literary materials, The traditional
 202
grammars of English thus compiled have been criticized as being long-winded and archaic
(owing lo the use of outdated literary sources as example data) however, they still provide the
most readable and accessible information about the English language. In fact, almost all linguists
currently doing research on English syntax will at some point in their work seriously review
what the traditional gran nave had to say about a given topic because of the scope of their work
and the value of their insights, however informally those insights may have been expressed.

Other examples and other models could be discussed Suffice it for us to say that we agree with
Chomsky (1965) and others that for certain English syntactic structures both structural and
traditional analyses of English grammar miss valuable and interesting generalizations that can
readily be captured n transformational analysis of the language.

?
_____________________________________________________________________________

SAQ 1

Can you summarize the distinctive features of the three models of linguistic analysts discussed
above? Put in a grid form, it should be easy to differentiate the three models You can include
additional information you have gleaned from your readings of the references mentioned earlier.

Bases for Traditional Structural Transformational

Comparison Grammar Grammar Grammar

View of Human

language

Linguistic Focus

Kind of Linguistic

Analysis

Sample Data
 Contribution to

Linguistics

203

? ASAQ 1

Compare your grid to the one below. Give yourself a pat on the back if you listed down at least
four (4) characteristics of each model. If you did not, read the text again and reflect on what is
discussed.

Bases for Traditional Structural Transformational

Comparison Grammar Grammar Grammar

View of human • Language is • Language is • Language is

language static. static. dynamic.

Linguistic focus • Attends to the • Form-oriented • Process-oriented

meaning and because looks at how
usage well as meaning forms change.
the form. is too messy to
deal with.

Kind of Linguistic • Less rigorous and • More objective • Formal/scientific

Analysis informal analysis. and more linguistic
accurately analysis.
descriptive.
• Rigorous • Incorporates
analysis which the rigor of
does not allow structural
students to linguistics and
understand and the insights of
exploit existing traditional
similarities and grammar.
differences.

Contribution to • Has given us the • Emphasis on • Easiest and most

Linguistics basic terms and morphology and practical model
concepts in syntax. for language
grammar. • Has developed Teachers.
• Provides the most analytical
readable and techniques like
accessible test frames,
information about immediate
the English constituent
language. analysis and
• Has provides us sentence
with multivolume formulas.
grammars of the
English language.
 204

DEEP STRUCTURE AND SURFACE STRUCTURE

As we have seen in the first section of this module, transformational grammar incorporates two
aspects of syntactic description, a surface structure and a abstract deep structure, together with a
set of transformational rules relating deep and surface structure.

Perhaps the most important fact about the sentences of human languages is that all sentences
have both a deep structure and a surface structure. The meaning of a sentence is conveyed by its
deep structure; the form of a sentence is given by its surface structure.

Consider this example:

A new idea is often valuable.

What is the meaning of the constituent "a new idea"? Unquestionably, part of the meaning Is that
the idea is, in fact, new. In some fashion the constituent “a new idea" contains the sentence “The
idea is new." This claim is substantiated by the relative clause version: "the idea which is new."
What is the status of “which is new"? It is actually a modified form of "The idea is new." Thus,
in the deep structure of the constituent "a new idea, " there exists the sentence "The idea is New."
Such constructions need to be investigated in more detail. For now, it is important simply to
recognize that the deep structure of a sentence or constituent provides an explicit account of the
meaning of the sentence or constituent, a meaning which is often not contained in any explicit
way in the surface structure. We know that "The idea is new" when we hear, "a new idea," but
the surface structure does not explicitly contain the sentence "The idea is new."

Thus we can say that the deep structure of a sentence gives its meaning because the deep
structure contains all the information required to determine the meaning of a sentence.

How is the deep structure of a sentence related to its surface structure? A deep structure
becomes a surface structure via transformations.

DEEP STRUCTURE SURFACE STRUCTURE

Transformations

meaning form used in communication

 205

The notion "transformation" may seem strange at first, but you really know more about it than
you realize. Here are some examples of transformations:
The interrogative transformation which is the process that changes the word order of the deep
structure, so as to generate the surface structure diagrammed below:

SENTENCE

Can anyone solve this problem

Solve this problem

this problem

The negative transformation which changes an affirmative statement into a

negative one.

Linguistics 15 an interesting Linguistics is not an interesting

science. science.

The contraction transformation which changes the particle not to the contracted
form n't.

Students should not give Students shouldn't give up

when the going gets rough. when the going gets rough.

The passive transformation which changes an active construction into a passive

construction.

The dog chased the cat. The cat was chased by the dog.
Transformations relate deep structures and surface structures, or more specifically they transform
one constituent structure into another. If more than one transformation is necessary, intermediate
structures will be generated by each transformation until the surface structure is formed.

206

? ASAQ2

Let us see how well you understood the discussion on deep structure and surface
structure and transformation.
Read each sentence below and put D if it tells you about deep structure, S if it tells
you about surface structure, and T if it pertains to transformation.

_____1. This notion has also been referred to, in various theoretical contexts, as
underlying structure, base structure, remote structure, and initial structure.

_____2. This level provides information which enables us to distinguish between

the alternative interpretations of ambiguous sentences, e.g. Flying planes can be
dangerous, where flying planes can be related to two underlying sentences, Planes
which fly, and To fly planes.

_____3. It is also a way of relating sentences which have different surface forms
but the same underlying meaning, as in the relationship between active and passive
structures, e.g. The dog bit the boy as opposed to The boy was bitten by the dog.

_____4. This process allows one construction to be derived from the other, or
perhaps both from an even more abstract underlying structure.

_____5. It is the final stage in the syntactic representation of a sentence.

_____6. It corresponds most closely to the structure of the sentence we articulate

and hear.

_____7. It is a formal linguistic operation which enables two levels of structural

representation to be placed in correspondence.

_____8. It is a level of structural organization in which all the factors determining

structural interpretation are defined and interrelated.
_____9. It is sometimes used as an informal term for the superficial properties of
the sentence.
_____10. It is an underlying level of structural organization which specifies all the
governing the way the sentence should be interpreted.

207

THE FOUR FUNDAMENTAL PROCESSES OF TRANSFORMATION

Let us now briefly consider the transformational model and the type of analysis it provides. The
four processes that transformational theory attributes to all human languages are:

1. movement or permutation
2. substitution or replacement
3. deletion
4. addition

How are these processes manifested in English grammar? If we start with an English statement
such as "Delia is a teacher," we can compare it with the related question" Is Delia a teacher?" and
see that a movement transformation accounts for the relationship. If we substitute she for Delia
in the above statement, another type of transformation (i.e., substitution) can account for the
difference and for the semantic relationship. If we next answer the question, "Is she a teacher?"
by saying, "Yes, she is,” we see the effect of a deletion transformation. A deletion transformation
has removed a teacher from our answer. Repeating the words a teacher is unnecessary, since they
are understood from the context. Finally, consider the 1olowing statement-question pair:

Norma write(s) poems. Do(es) Norma write poems?

208
Aside from the movement of the present tense/third person singular inflection from the main
verb to the front of the sentence, the auxiliary verb D0 has been added via a transformation of
addition to form grammatically acceptable question.

______________________________________________________________________________

? SAQ 3
The four process of transformation, namely, movement or permutation,
substitution or replacement, deletion, and addition are basic to understanding
the operation of transformation.

Can you give an original sample sentence for each of the processes?

1. movement or permutation

______________________________________________________________________________

2. substitution or replacement

______________________________________________________________________________

3. deletion

______________________________________________________________________________

4. addition

______________________________________________________________________________

210
The transformational model of grammar which tries to incorporate both the rigor of structure
grammar and the insight of traditional grammar has the several components that wild be very
briefly introduced here. First of all, there are the structure rules, which generate the basic or
underlying structure of he sentence lexical terms are then inserted to complete the meaning or
semantic representation of the sentence at this stag. Next the transformational rules are applied
to charge the basic structure into a surface structure representation. Finally, the rules of the
morphological component and then the rules of either the phonological or the orthographic
component are applied, depending on whether one is referring to speech or writing, or to give the
surface structure phonetic orthographic realization The model can be represented schematically
as follows.
 Transformational rules
Morphological
rules orthographic
rules
phrase Basic Surface
structure structure structure
rules realization in speech
writing through
phonological

lexical orthographic rules

insertion
Our primary objective in this module is to convey to you acts and generalizations about the
rules
English language, as well as present the transformational-generative model of grammar in a
systematic way. We feel that by working within a linguistic model, you will also be able to
develop skill in linguistic analysis. Therefore, we give you some exposure to linguistic
formalism, i.e , the phrase structure rules of transformational grammar We present the phrase
structure rules and, as nonsymbolic, an account of transformations operations as possible. We
ask you to
earn the names of the transformational rules and to be able to state and manipulate the change(s)
that a given rule produces m syntactic strings to which it applies.

211
Our rationale for including the formalism, which we feel will help readers develop skills in
linguistic analysis, is three-fold

1.We hope that you will gain not only a knowledge of the facts, but also an
awareness of why the facts are the way they are.

2. Knowledge of linguistic terminology and formalism will give you access to the linguistic
literature and therefore to a continuous source of new information about the English language

3. As you develop skills in linguistic analysis, you will be able to uncover for
ourselves facts about the English language beyond those presented in his
module-perhaps beyond those reported on in the literature

Thus we feel that the skill in linguistic analysis will allow you to continue to expand your
knowledge of the subject matter you have chosen to teach as you continue in your development
as a language teacher.

212
? SAQ 4

Look again at the schematic diagram representing the components of the transitional model of
grammar Explain the diagram distinguishing among the different rules cited.
213
PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES
In this part of the module, we will introduce the phrase structure rules of the English. Through a
series of such rules we will analyze in greater detail the basic structure of the English sentence.
The rules are arranged in a hierarchy so that the first rules tells us the largest unit, namely, the
sentence, is composed of. The next rule takes one of the constituents of the sentence and further
breaks it down to reveal its composition By the end of the module we will have accounted for all
component parts of basic English sentences.

Let us turn now to our first phrase structure rule.

1. S NUC

The arrow means that the notion of S sentence is expanded (or rewritten) to include an obligatory
sentence nucleus NUC.
One way of representing this rule more graphically is to draw a tree diagram. If we
were to provide an example sentence (e g Jun works here) to illustrate our first
rule, we would construct a tree like this:
Jun works here

NUC

Jun works here

The triangle under NUC indicates that we have yet completed our analysis of this constituent.
The second phrase structure rule expands (or rewrites) the nucleus:

2. NUC → NPAUXVP(Advl)

This rule indicates that the nucleus gets expanded to include a noun phrase NP, an auxiliary
element AUX, a verb phrase VP, and an unlimited number of optional

adverbials such as those of time, position, manner, reason, and frequency. When we apply rules
I and 2 to the same sample sentence we used above, our tree diagram looks like this:
 Jun works her.

NUC

NP AUX NP Advl

Jun works here

3. The noun phrase

The next phrase structure rule expands the noun phrase NP to include an obligatory head noun
N, an optional determiner (det), and an optional plural inflection (PI); alternatively, NP may be
expanded as a pronoun pro.

NP → det N pl
pro

The braces to the right of the arrow indicate that either "(det) N (PI)" or "pro" must be chosen,
but not both. When both a determiner and a plural marker are selected, they must agree in
number. Assuming that we wanted to generate a noun phrase with a definite article and a plural
inflection, the tree for our slightly modified example sentence would grow as follows:
The boys work here.

NUC

NP AUX VP Advl
 det N pl work here

the boy

If the sentence were "They work here," the NP slot would be filled by a pronoun.

NUC

NP

Pro

they

Note that a pronoun, therefore, is not really a noun substitute, but rather replaces an entire noun
phrase.

SAQ 5
Construct a tree diagram for each of the following sentences: Use a triangle for the AUX, VP and
adverbial slots to show that you have not yet completed your analysis of the constituents.

1. Ben studies in the library.

2. She plays in the garden.

3. The girl drinks milk every morning.
 PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES FOR THE AUXILIARY
The English verb has many potential auxiliary elements that must be accounted for in the phrase
structure rules. Consider the following sentences:

1. Jean bought a bag.

2. Jean should buy a bag.

3. Jean has bought a bag.

4. Jean is buying a bag.

5. Jean is going to buy a bag.

6. Buy a bag.
If we consider the auxiliary as everything but the subject and the verb phrase huy-ü.ag, we see
the auxiliary + the verb in each sentence consists of the following elements:
1. past tense + buy

2. modal should + buy = should buy

3. pres tense + perfect HAVE EN + buy = has bought

4. pres tense + progressive BEING + buy is-buying

5. pres tense + the periphrastic modal be going to + is-going-to-buy
6. imperative mood + buy = buy

Thus as we previously mentioned, non-imperative English sentences obligatorily take

grammatical tense or a modal. If another auxiliary verb other than a modal is present, it carries
the tense. If no tense-bearing auxiliary verb is present, the main verb will carry the tense (e.g.,
Sentence I above).
Four different optional auxiliary verbs may be present: a modal auxiliary (e.g., ill, can, must.
shall. may). a periphrastic modal (e.g., be going to, have to, be able to), the perfective aspect
(HAVE plus the past participle), and the progressive aspect (BE plus the present participle).

Here is the tree diagram for a given sentence.

Jean has bought a bag.

NUC

NP AUX VP

N T perf buy a bag

Jean Pres HAVE EN

As we have just seen, whenever three or more auxiliary elements occur together, the perfective
precedes the progressive (have been dancing) and a periphrastic modal precedes either of the two
aspects (ought to have gone, has to be going). A modal can precede a periphrastic modal and also
either of the two aspects. (should have gone, should be going) (If two or more tense-bearing
auxiliary verbs are present, the first of these auxiliary verbs will carry the tense.)

These relationships can be summed up in the following rule:

4. T
(PM ) (perf) (prog)
M

AUX →
IMPER

Here the auxiliary is AUX. It is made up of tense (T) or the other optional auxiliary elements:
periphrastic modal (perf and progressive (prog) aspects. (IMPER stands for verb form in
English.)

We have already learned that grammatical tense in English is either past or present. This choice
is stated in phrase structure rule 5.
Past
5. T→
Present

The perfective and progressive aspects are expanded into their auxiliary verbs and accompanying
grammatical inflections in rules 6 and 7, respectively.

6. perf → HAVE ... EN

7. prog → BE ... ING
ASAQ 6

Construct a tree diagram for each sentence below.

1. Leah is writing a story.

2. The girls dance tinikling.

3. He is going to paint a picture.

PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES FOR THE
VERB PHRASE

Leaving the auxiliary elements aside for the moment, we also know that English verb
phrases can be complicated. Consider the following sentences:

1. John is a teacher.
2. Alice is very pretty. /Alice is very, very pretty.

3. The students are here.

4. John studies.

5. John studies mathematics.

6. John put the books on the table.

7. John is fond of books.

A phrase structure rule that would allow us to account for all such structural possibilities
follows:

NP
BE AP
PP

8. VP →

V NP PP

AP refers to an adjective phrase.)

Can you determine which part of the rule would be used to generate each of the above sentences?
For example, the first three sentences could be accounted for by the following subrules contained
within rule 8:

a. VP→BE NP John is a teacher.

b. VP →AP Alice is very pretty.
c. VP →BE PP (where P = 0) The students are here
SAQ 7

See if you can figure out the others. Nos. 4-6

4.John studies.

5.John studies mathematics.

6.John puts books on the table.

Now construct your own tree diagrams for the sentences below.
1. He was an engineer.

2. The teachers came to school.

3. Ivy plays the piano.

 PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES FOR ADVERBIALS

We now move to the rules for adverbials, the last slot in our phrase structure rules, Rule 9
provides us with three "tactic possibilities for each sentence-final adverbial generated by rule
2:

Advl. Cl.

9. Advl. → PP
Advl. P.

Remember that the braces indicate that for each adverbial generated, only one of the three
choices must be selected — i.e., an adverbial clause Advt. Cl., a prepositional phrase PP, or an
adverbial phrase Advl. P.

An adverbial clause gets expanded to include an adverbial subordinator followed by a new

sentence.

10. AdvLC1→ Sub S

This rule reintroduces S —an element already presents in rule I. To expand the new S, we
would go back to rule I and begin the process all over again. In branching—tree form the base
structure for a sentence with an adverbial clause looks like this: the boys left before the rain
fell

NUC

NP AUX VP advl.

Det N pl T V advl Cl

The boy past leave adv Sub S

Before NUC

NP AUX VP
 Det N T V

The rain past fall

If a prepositional phrase had been selected instead of an adverbial clause, the following rule
would apply.

11.PP → P NP

The prepositional phrase is expanded into a preposition P and a noun phrase NP.
Since noun phrase has already been expanded in rule 3, we would again have to go back and
apply our earlier rule for NP expansion in order to diagram the following sentence.
The girl works in the city.

NUC

NP AUX VP advl.

Det N T V advl Cl

The girl pres work P NP

S

In det N

The city

The other possible expansion of the adverbial is an adverbial phrase Advl P, which is rewritten
as follows:

12.Advl.P.+ (intens Advi

This means that an adverbial phrase contains an obligatory adverb Adv optionally preceded by
an intensifier intens. An intensifier is an item which specifies the degree to which an adverb will
apply. The following sentence and tree diagram illustrate a case where the optional intensifier
has been selected

NUC

NP AUX VP advl.

Det N pl T V advl P

The boy pres work intens advl

Very fast
The superscript after the optional intensifier allows for more than one intensifier to occur. Some
intensifiers may be repeated (the linguistic term for such repetition is reduplication).
very, very quickly

Other series of intensifiers can consist of different lexical items.

really very quickly

In either case, the meaning of the intensifier is strengthened.

SAQ 9

Let us see if you can make your own tree diagrams to illustrate the phrase structure rules for
adverbials. It is easy as you will see.

1. I went to school.

2. Mother is cooking in the kitchen.

3. Christine is very happy.

4. She waited until her friend arrived.

5. The students were reading when the teacher arrived.

SUMMARY

In this module we have explored what transformational grammar is and how it works.
Transformational grammar is a set of rules capable of generating all of the grammatical
sentences of English and describing their structure in a way that seems intuitively correct to
native speakers of English.
Transformational grammar consists of a double set of rules. The first set is called the phrase
structure rules. The phrase structure rules generate abstract grammatical structures, which when
words are attached, become abstract basic sentences called deep structure. Deep structures
contain all the information necessary to interpret the meaning of sentences: Among the
components of the deep structure are elements that indicate whether the deep structure is to be
interpreted as a statement or a question, a positive sentence or a negative one. A second set of
rules, called transformation. converts the deep structures into representations of actual
sentences, called surface structures. _Transformations the power to edit and rearrange a deep
structure* but they do not have the power to change the basic meaning of the surface structure
from that determined by the deep underlying the surface structure. Transformations can chain
together so that the output of one transformation becomes the input for a second transformation.
This chaining effect allows a relatively few transformation rules to produce a large number of
related surface structures from a single deep structure. Thus, from one deep structure, various
produce different surface structures that are paraphrases of each other.

Below is a summary of the phrase Structure rules discussed in this module:

1. S→ NUC

2. NUC→ NP AUX VP Advl

Det N pl
3. NP →
pro

T PM perf prog
4. AUX→ M
Imper

past
5. T→
present

6. perf→ HAVE… EN

7. prog→ BE…. ING

NP
AP
 PP
8. VP→ BE
V VP PP

Advl. Cl.
9. → PP
Advl. P.

10. Advl. Cl. → Adv Sub S.

11. PP → NP

12. Adv.P. → INTENS Adv