Transformational Grammar

4th stage/second course

‫صباحي‬/‫الفصل الثاني‬/‫مرحلة رابعه‬/‫النحو التحويلي‬

(1)
The structure of the sentence

Word order and tree diagram will be explained with examples:

Abbreviations:

Nuc nucleus
S sentence
SM sentence modifier
NP noun phrase
VP verb phrase
DET determiner
N noun
Pl plural
MV main verb

An apple lay on the ground

Those pearls look genuine
Surely you can go with us
The ducks are noisy
Certainly those sheep ran fast

VP…………AUX+MV manner place time reason

AUX………tense
Tense………..present/past
MV (main verb)…………be or V

MV is written as any one of the following structures:

1-be+NP
2-be+PLACE
3-Be+AP
4-V
5-V+NP

….……….

AP is an abbreviation for adjective phrase, which consists of an optional

intensifiers such as very,extremely, rather,etc… and ADJ adjective such as
old,happy,green.

AP……..(intens) Adj
Sm is sentence modifier which is a word or group of words like
yes,no,certainly,naturally,maybe,perhaps,possibly,in fact,to be sure,or
obviously. Example:woman drinks coffee

Certainly, I know the answer.

Apparently tom is sick
Unfortunately the fish died
Yes,……
Ofcourse,………….

-kinds of adverbials:

1-adv (rapidly, cheerfully)

2-Prepositional phrase (in the yard)
3-Uninflected word (here,there,today)
4-Noun phrase (we walked a mile)
 (2)
The Auxiliary

Different auxiliaries in the sentence structure will be explained with

examples.the main point here is that the aux reflects the tense of the
sentence.

1-AUX……tense (be+ing)

The bird is singing

The bird was singing
I am eating sandwiches
I was eating sandwiches

2-AUX……..TENSE (HAVE +EN)

We have taken medicine

We had taken medicine
Ann has drunk milk
Ann had drunk milk
I have been here
I had been here
He has had the answer
He had had the answer
3-AUX……………M (modal)

I can give the answer

I could give the answer
They will stop soon
They would stop soon
She may be joking
She might be joking
We shall be leaving
We should have been leaving
You must be going
 (3)

Present participle and future tens

We notice the expansion in the right using auxiliaries.

We take medicine we have taken medicine

We took medicine we have taken medicine
Ann drinks milk Ann has drunk milk
Ann drank milk Ann had drunk milk
I am here I have been here
I was here I had been here
He has the answer he has had the answer
He had the answer he had had the answer

Future tense can be expressed by other means than just by will and shall
by using present simple,present contiuous,if clouse, about to,…

We leave for new york tomorrow

If she says, we must leave
Ask her if she will stay
Ask her if she is going to stay
He is leaving soon
When she comes,we will leave
He is about to go
She is accompany him
What would you do if you had a flight tonight

Time in English is often expressed by other means than the tense of the
verb.by form there are only two tenses in English:present and past. Tense
means the form of the first auxiliary that follows the symbol tense.
 (4)

Lexical Features

Phrase structure rules will be the main point in this lecture.These rules will enable us to
produce the sentences of English.

1- There are 8 rules:

1-S……………………..(SM) Nuc
2-NUC………….NP+VP
3-VP……………AUX+MV
4-AUX…………….TENSE
5-TENSE………PRESENT PAST
6-MV…………………BE OR V
7-NP…………….DET N PL
8-AP……………………….INTENS ADJ

In English, the sentence consists of a sentence modifier (SM) and a nucleus (Nuc); a nucleus
consists of a noun phrase and a verb phrase.

1- TRANSITIVE AND INTRANSITIVE RESTRICTIONS

It deals whether the verb needs a noun phrase or not.we write them in this way:

-.……………………..NP (it doesnt need a np) OR +……………………….NP (it needs)

For examples:

He shot a rabbit
I waxed the car
Someone tore the page

Larry ate
The students wrote
He drove

The bird flew out

The angry woman flew out in a range
Last week I flew in an airplane
The dust flew everywhere
He flew off the handle
 (5)
Subject verb restrictions

The relation between the verb and subject in the sentence required specific
restrictions for the subject, for example:

The coffee prayed

Those ants talked to me
The umbrella coughed
A door sneezed

The above examples have nonhuman subjects and their verbs require human
subjects.

For example:

The woman prayed

Those children talked to me
My uncle coughed

There are some features for the noun to represent human, we say +human and the
nonhuman will be -human.
Another feature is whether the noun refers to human or animal,the feature will be
used is +animate and –animate.
The feature of being a concrete or abstract noun will be +concrete and -concrete
 (6)
Determiner and noun restrictions

the point here is the relation between nouns and determiners that is the
kind of determiners the noun needs in a sentence.

Here we have other noun features like being count,non count, common or
proper noun.such as water,pen,horse,William,honesty……and we will have
feature as:
+count -count +common -common

Pen +common (cuz its not a proper noun) and its +count
William -common (cuz its a proper noun)

For examples:

*I saw bug on floor

I saw bugs on the floor
*i saw honesty is an admirable trait
Honesty is an admirable trait.
*The William entered the room
William entered the room

Nouns are either common (+common) or proper (-common). the

traditional definition of the a proper noun as the name of a particular
person,place,or thing a nd of a common noun as any one of a class work in
many cases such as boy,city.the names of months are considered proper
nouns while seasons of the year are considered common and not
capitalized.
Some nouns name objects that can be counted, whereas others do not.the
sentence (I read a book) can be altered without changing the structure to (I
read two books or three books or four books). Book has both a singular
and a plural form,and various numbers can be placed in front of it.we call
book a (count noun) and it has the feature +count.
 (7)
The negative transformation

The phrase-structure rules can produce the structures underlying such sentences as :
Those boys might have been swimming in the lake.
The manager wrote a letter.
Those sentences cannot produce such structures as the following:

The manager didn’t write a letter

Did the manager write a letter?
Who wrote a letter?
What did the manager write?
A letter was written by the manager.
Because the manager wrote a letter………..
The manger’s having written a letter…..

All those structures seem to be related in some way to :

The manager wrote a letter.
The same relationships are found in all of them: the manager is the one who
performed the act of writing,and a letter is the result of this action.in spite of the
differences in form,there is a similarity in meaning in all the
structures.Transformational rules are used to produce these changes in form.

1-deep and surface structures

Deep structure is a structure generated only by phrase structure and lexical rules,such
as (not past johne can sing well).
Surface structure: is the deep structure that has transformed into a grammatical
English sentence,such as Johne could not sing well.
All grammatical sentences are surface structures, underlying each one is a deep
structure.

Examples:

Not jerry could hear me jerry couldn’t hear me

Not bill has received it bill has not received it
Not they are going with us they are not going with us

We present not play often we do not play often

They present not taste the salt . They do not taste the salt.
 (8)

The negative transformation

The man present not see me the man doesnt see me

Not we play often we do not play often
not the janitor did it the janitor did not do it

We need to formulate a rule to transform the deep structures on the left to the
surface structure on the right.
In the surface structure,the negative particle not follows part of the auxiliary,but not
all of it. In “not jerry could hear me”, could is a case of “past+can”.

Can is the first occurring auxiliary; therefore, not follows it in the surface structure.
Other examples:
Not those apples were smelling rotten.
Not sara would have done that.
Not you are reading fast enough.
Not tom will have finished by then.
Not we had heard the news.
Transform the following deep structures into surface structures:
1- Not John present be in the room

John is not in the room

2- not of course the children past can go with us.

Of course, the children could not go with us.

3- not we present jump here

We do not jump here.

 (9)
The question transformation

Transformation is the process that converts deep structures into surface

structures.the negative transformation involves a rearrangement of structure,as
when we move “not” to the position after the first occurring auxiliary or after be.

English has two main kinds of questions:those that are answered yes or no (are you
ready?) and those that are answered by other words (where are you going),they are
yes/n questions and WH questions.

A principle of our grammar is that transformations affect the form of a structure but
not the meaning.

Tom is sick cannot be the deep structure for is tom sick? Although the two are
similar.I need the idea of the interrogation in the deep structure which SM Q which
indicates that the structure is a question.

Q she could sing well Could she sing well?

Q the book has become wet Has the book become wet?
Q the bell is ringing now is the bell ringing now?

Yes/no questions

They have already left have they already left?

He heard us did he hear us?

Q the men are lucky Are the man lucky?

Q he was our supervisor was he our supervisor?
Q betty is at home is betty at home?

Q John read my letter did john read my letter?

Q the teacher eat here do the teachers eat here?
Q she knows my name does she knows my name?

The WH transformation shifts the NP with WH attached to it to the beginning of the

sentence and substitutes what/who/whom/whose/which

Are u reading np-wh what are you reading?

Has she torn np-wh what has she torn?
Were you giving it to np-wh who(m) were you giving it to?
 (10)

Compounding,deletion,and forms

In this lecture, three topics will be explained with examples:

1-Compounding: is to join two sentences using conjunctions like

(and,or,nor,but,yet,for) to produce a compound sentence

For example:

Alice wrapped the package,and susan addressed the card.

In compounding,we sometimes have deletion of identical elements.

For example:
We went to the exhibition,but (we) did not stay long. (deletion of the second we is
possible.

2-Deletion: like deleting the repeated VP

Example:

Edward was at the ball game and don was at the ball game

Edward and don were at the ball game

Or
Edward was at the ball game and don

2-Pro form: is the substitution of a generalized word.

Example:
A- Do: used for VP or a verb
I saw the accident,and bill saw the accident,too
I saw the accident,and bill did,too.

B- there: for adv of place

We were sitting in the balcony,and they were sitting in the balcony,too.
We were sitting in the balcony,and they were sitting there,too.

C- then: for adverbial of time

He saw tom yesterday,and we saw fred yesterday,too
He saw tom yesterday,and we saw fred then,too.

D- One: for a noun or a noun phrase

I have a sister,and you have a sister,too.

I have a sister,and you have one,too.