TRANSFORMATIONS RULE

Transformations
H. Robins in his General Linguistics describes a transformation as a method of stating how the structures of many sentences in languages can be generated or explained formally as the result of specific transformations applied to certain basic sentence structures. (qt in Smith: 2004). The kernel is the basic phrase from which transformations start.

 Examples of the kernel: Active-passive Shaw opened the door The door was opened by Shaw If S1 is a grammatical sentence with the form NP1----Aux----V----NP2, then the corresponding string of form NP2----Aux + be + en----V----by + Np1 is also grammatical.

 Permutation (when there is an auxiliary) John has called. Has John called? You can repeat. Can you repeat? I must sleep Must I sleep? When there is no auxiliary, we insert do. He writes. Does he write? We arrived. Did we arrive? The second sentence is a transformation of the first.

 Relative Transformation: More than one kernel sentence is involved: E.g.: the man who stood there was angry. This is a transformation of two sentences: The man was angry The man stood there The relative transformation places the second sentence after `man' in the first and then replaces `the man' in the second by `who'.

 Syntactic Ambiguity: The relevance of transformational grammar becomes obvious when it disambiguates sentences. E.g.: Approaching elephants can be deadly. We have two sentence meanings: In the first: can be deadly, (someone) approaches elephants. Or: elephants are deadly/ elephants are approaching Here we apply a transformation similar to the relative transformation. Elephants which approach can be deadly and then a further transformation to give the required sentence by transforming `which approach' in `approaching' and placing it before `elephants'. Thus we see that the deep structure of the two apparently identical sentences are quite different.

Transformational rules

A way to capture the relationship between a declarative and a question is to allow phrase structure to generate the structure using special rules: transformation rules
Move Aux: take the first aux and move it to the left of the subject

The boy is sleeping Is the boy sleeping?

Deep and surface structure

Deep structure: the basic structure
: the aspect of syntactic structure operated on by semantics for the purpose of semantic interpretation

Surface structure: the resulting structure after applying a transformational rule

the aspect of syntactic structure operated on by phonology for the purpose of phonetic interpretation.

The boys is sleeping: Deep Move Aux Is the boy sleeping? Surface
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Other transformational rules

Active passive (aka passivization)
The cat chased the mouse The mouse was chased by the cat

There-sentences
There was a man on the roof A man was on the roof

PP-preposing
The astronomer saw the star with the telescope With the telescope, the man saw the star
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Transformational Grammar and Movement Rules

S
Meaning preserving tree-to-tree mapping

S
NP VP

NP

VP The chocolate V PP

The kids

NP

ate

the chocolate

was eaten Surface Structure

by the kids

Deep Structure

1. Sentences that mean the same thing have the same deep structure. 2. Tree-to-tree mappings convert deep structure trees into surface structure trees. 3. Tree-to-tree mappings must be meaning preserving, so that (1) remains true. 4. Government and Binding Theory and the Minimalist Program (Chomsky) are theories that characterize which tree-totree mappings are meaning preserving.
1. The kids ate the chocolate. 2. The chocolate was eaten by the kids. (meaning preserving) 3. The chocolate ate the kids. (not meaning preserving)