Generative Linguistics

Generative linguistics includes a set of explanatory theories developed by Noam Chomsky in the 1960s. It opposes the behaviorist theory and structuralism. It is a school of thought within linguistics that makes use of the concept of a generative grammar.

Generative theory is distinguished from other traditions by distinguishing competence and performance, which distinguishes in the act of speech its linguistic capacity. Thus, under this approach, each speaker has a linguistic organ specialized in the analysis and production of complex structures forming the speech.

Generative linguistics comprehend 4 different sides:

• Generative grammar
• Generative semantics
• Transformational grammar.
• Universal grammar

Different people use the term “generative grammar” in different ways, and the term "generative linguistics" therefore has a range of different, though overlapping, meanings.

Formally, a generative grammar is defined as one that is fully explicit. It is a finite set of rules that can be applied to generate all those and only those sentences that are grammatical in a given language.

The term generative grammar is also used to label the approach to linguistics taken by Chomsky and his followers.

The term "ge(ne)rative 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.

It is a description of a language emphasizing a semantic deep structure that is logical in form, that provides syntactic structure, and that is related to surface structure by transformations.

Generative semantics is the name of a research program within linguistics, initiated by the work of various early students of Noam Chomsky:

Or transformational-generative grammar (TGG) is a generative grammar, especially of a natural language, that has been developed in a Chomskyan tradition. Additionally, transformational grammar is the Chomskyan tradition that gives rise to specific transformational grammars.

A transformational grammar has 3 major kinds of rules:

Syntactic rules: which specify the deep structure into a surface structure of the sentence and then transform that deep structure into a surface structure.

Semantic rules: which provide an interpretation for the sentence.

Phonological rules: which specify information necessary in pronouncing the sentence.

Universal grammar is a theory in linguistics that suggests that there are properties that all possible natural human languages have. The theory suggests that some rules of grammar are hard-wired into the brain, and manifest themselves without being taught. There is still much argument whether there is such a thing and what it would be.

 The activity of this topic is in this page: http://www.educaplay.com/es/recursoseducativos/565000/generative_linguistics.htm 

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