Transformation Rules

Akmajian and Henry (1975: 236-237)  state that “Transformation means preserving of two surface structures derive from exactly the same underlying structure and if their derivations differ only in that an optional transformation has applied in one but not the other, than they must have the same meaning”.

Elgin (1973:294), in her study believes that linguist is constructing grammar to identify the meaning of surface structure from the deep structure. Every human being who is native speaker of a language is walking around with just such a grammar in his head. There are no linguists have yet succeeded in achieving the same perfection and completeness but that is the goal toward their work. (Elgin, 1973: 54)  states that “When a deep structure undergoes a rule (or rules) and the end result is a sequence that can be spoken, the rule has transformed the sequence causes no transformational rule can ever be allowed to change meaning”

Jacobs and Rosenbaum (1968: 19), in their study say that a transformation is a particular Processes of alteration by which one sentence structure is converted into another sentence structure without any change in the meaning. The changing of deep structure to surface structure is via transformation


(Jacobs and Rosenbaum 1968:18) states, “The operation is called elementary transformation. The elementary consists of adjunction, substitution, and deletion”

Adjunction
Adjunction is a process by which one constituent is attached to another to form a larger constituent of the same type. For example; we could say that in a sentence like “He shouldn’t go”, the particle “not” can be adjoined to the auxiliary should to form the negative auxiliary “shouldn’t”.

Substitution
Substitution is technique used to determine an expression which can be substituted using another expression in phrases or sentences like that in which it occurs by another expression. For example, “John speaks clearer than you”…………”John speaks more clearly”.

Deletion
There are five kinds of deletion, those are:

a. Noun Phrase Deletion
In the noun phrase deletion, the noun in the sentence gets the Processes of deletion, for example:
Igor can play the violin, and that cat can play the violin too………Igor can play the violin, and that cat can too “Igor can play the violin, and that cat can play the violin too “becomes “Igor can play the violin, and that cat can too”. It is obvious that the violin is deleted since “the violin” has become as the object of “can”.

b. Verb Phrase Deletion
In the verb phrase deletion, the constituent that experiences a deletion is a verb phrase. The verb phrase deletion is also called an identical verb phrase deletion, for example:
“the papers refused to report the trial because they were afraid to report the trial”……….”the papers refused to report the trial because they were afraid to”.

c. Linking Verb Deletion
In the linking verb deletion, the constituent that experiences a deletion is a verbal “be”. Linking verb occurs together with the noun phrase deletion. Linking verb deletion can be considered as tobe Deletion. “Be” deletion transformation happens in the present tense sentence. For example:
“wearing makeUp”…………”
three Woman are Wearing MakeUp”

d. Imperative deletion
It is called imperative deletion because it deletes the NP, for example:
You jump (Deep Structure)…………Jump (surface structure)
In order to get from this deep structure to the surface structure “Jump”, what is needed is not an additional phrase structure rule, but rather a transformational rule. This transformation will delete the NP “You” which has been generated by the phrase structure grammar. It is illustrated in the following tree diagram:

e. Deletion under identity
For example, Ellsberg was arrested by FBI and Fonda was too. These sentences seem to consist of a complete sentence, followed by the conjunction and, followed by what we can call elliptical sentence. Taken out context, these are meaningless and could not standalone. Yet, when conjoined will dull sentence used in ordinary speech. The meaning of each of the elliptical sentences is dependent on the meaning of the sentence that precedes it. Thus, Fonda was too is taken to mean that Fonda was arrested by FBI too. We should note that sentences such as those present our theory with several nontrivial problems. We have no way of generating elliptical sentences such as those just stated. Our phrase structure rule for sentences, for example: NPAuxVP, always generates structures that are “complete” and there is no way we can generate a “partial” structure such as Fonda was. Second, we have seen that the elliptical sentences are followed by
word “and”. Thus, we may choose to generate elliptical clauses, we must ensure that our theory reflects the facts that they are dependent on the preceding sentence, at least for their meaning.
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How to Draw Tree Diagram

A tree diagram shows the hierarchical structure of the sentence. The sentence is considered the basic of the syntactic system. Instead of beginning with actual sentences, however we begin with the directions for generating or producing structural descriptions of sentences, which are set forth in phrase structure rules. The rules should be interpreted as an instruction to rewrite or expand the symbol on the left of the arrows as the sequence on the right. In S NP + VP, “S” stands for sentence, “NP” (Noun Phrase) and “VP” (Verb Phrase). The item on the left dominates the elements on the right. Bornstein starts with S, the highest level and works down to lower level until it comes to maximally specific level where in addition symbol can be written. This process is called derivational in the sentence.
Tree diagram provides a precise means of defining syntactic relation. NP is immediately dominated by an S in the subject of that sentence. An NP is immediately dominated by a VP is the object or complement of the sentence containing the verb phrase. Tree diagram also shows which words are constituents of a sentence (Bornstein, 1997: 44). From the diagram below we can see that Aux, Vt and NP belong to the VP.
Points of juncture in tree diagram are called nodes. If one node is immediately dominated by another, it is called a daughter node. If one node is immediately dominated by the same nodes, they are called sister nodes. In the following diagram, the nodes NP and VP are daughter of S and sister nodes of each other. NP is the left sister whereas VP is the right sister.

What Is Transformational Grammar?

According to Webster’s New World College Dictionary (1996: 1420), transformational grammar generates the deep structures of a language and converts this to the surface structures by means of transformation. Goodman (1970: 299) stated that all kinds of English sentences can be analyzed by using structure rule. He said that a sentence consists of phrase structure, noun phrase (NP), verb phrase (VP), adjective phrase (Adj. P), prepositional phrase (PP), auxiliary (Aux), and others.

Bornstein (1977: 39-99) says that “Transformations bring about various kinds of changes; they can rearrange elements in a string of symbols, add elements that were not there before, delete elements, and substitute one element for another.” He also said that in Transformational Grammar (TG) phrase structure is illustrated by means of tree diagrams called phrasemakers, which show the hierarchical structure of sentence. Bornstein symbolizes some of the common symbols used in Phrase Structure Rule as follows:


In Transformational Grammar, Phrase Structure Rules are illustrated by means of tree diagram called “phrase makers” that show the hierarchical structure of the sentence. We begin S, the highest level, and work down to the lower levels until we come to maximally specific of terminal level where no additional symbols can be written. This process is called a derivation of sentence. This steps of derivation of a sentence is:

The heart of theory is in the transformational rules that account for the relationship among different types of patterns. Transformation refers to the objective of process. “Bill painted the house” and “the house was painted by Bill” are different in surface structure but the meaning and the relationships that hold between the parts of these two sentences has same transformational grammar.
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Five Definitions of Deep Structure

1. Deep structure is the output of phrase structure rules
   We can not have deep structure if we don’t have phrase structure rules.
e.g.
tree diagram
















2. Deep structure is the input of transformation rules. We can apply transformation rules if we have deep   structure.
transformation rules

















3. Deep structure is the level of grammar which can explain adequately the concepts of subject, direct object and indirect object.
  • Subject is a noun phrase which is directly dominated by category of sentence.
  • Direct object is a noun phrase which is directly dominated by verb phrase
  • Indirect object is a noun phrase which is directly dominated by prepositional phrase.
e.g.

4. Deep structure is the level where we can apply selectional restriction rules (rules that restrict the selection of lexicons in a sentence)

e.g. the grass devoured the elephant (it is impossible, how the grass can eat an elephant)
The rule is:
- animate + animate > subject
+ animate +animate < subject

e.g. The tiger devoured the goat. 
The ones who don’t follow the selectional restriction rules are the linguist, writers, author.

5. Deep structure is the level which can solve the problem of ambiguity.
e.g.
"The girl hits the man with an umbrella."

Tree diagram
Note:

  • The meaning: the girl hits the man who brings an umbrella;
  • The PP is directly dominated by NP.

Note:
  • The meaning: the girl hits the man by using an umbrella;
  • The PP is directly dominated by VP.

Phrase Structure Rules

These rules refer to rules to generate a large number of sentences with only a small number of rules. Below are the Phrase Structure Rules:
(1). S => NP + VP (=>: can be written as)
(2) Noun Phrase





Note: The curly bracket indicates choices.

(3) Auxiliary => tense (modal)(have+en)(be+ing)
(4) Tense







(5) Verb
VP => V.int + 0 NP   (ket: Zero)
          V.Tr.+NP+(prep+NP)

 V.int. verb intransitive, V.tr verb transitive
Transitive become V have + NP
Transitive V seem + Adv

(6) preposition
PP=> Prep NP

Deep Structure vs. Surface Structure

One of the most important concepts proposed by Chomsky is the concept of surface and deep structure. The Generativism paradigm claims that the concept of structural analysis proposed by Structuralism paradigm is too swallow, it only reaches the level of surface structure. Surface structure can be defined as the syntactic form they take as actual sentences. In the other words, it is forms of sentences resulted from  modification/ transformation. Consider these sentences:

(1)   You close the door.
(2)   The door is closed by you.
(3)   Close the door!

The first sentence is active, second is passive, and the last is imperative. However, if you take a look those closely, you will find that those three are very closely related, even identical.  They seem to be identical, since they have the same underlying abstract representation that is called deep structure. It is defined as an abstract level of structural organization in which all the elements determining structural interpretation are represented. If you want to analyze the relation of those three sentences, the first you have to know about the deep structure of them, since deep structure is the input of transformation rules. You cannot apply transformation rules if you don’t  have deep structure. transformation rules are sets of rules which will change or move constituents in the structures derive from the phrase structure rules.

e.g.
The DS (deep structure)


(2)

SD (structure description)  : 
SC (Structural change)        :
SS (Surface structure)         :

1 2 3 4
3 4 + be 2+en 1
The door is closed by you  
Note: the SC is passive transformation rules

(3)
SD:
SC:
SS:
1 2 3 4
0 2 3 4
Close the door!
Note: 0 is deletion



From the above example, it can be concluded that deep structure then is a pure representation of thematic relations. Anything which is interpreted as the subject or object of a given predicate will be in the subject or object position of that predicate at Deep structure no matter where it is found at Surface structure.

Linguistic Competence and Linguistic Performance

language and mindThere are so many controversies among linguists from time to time, one of them is structuralism vs. generativism. Structuralism was once introduced by Ferdinand de Saussure, in which almost all the concepts of language are strongly influenced by behaviorism paradigm which argues that human mind is just like "blank paper" when they are born (tabula rasa). Based on this concept, structuralism believes that the acquisition of language is learned, which means that  the language abilities possessed by  human is gained by process of learning from surroundings. In addition, they also believe that language is just like a building, which means that it is built from the small parts to create the bigger one. language is built from sentences, sentences are from clauses, clauses are from phrases, and so ford, up to phones.

Meanwhile, generativism which was introduced by Noam Avram Chomsky argues that in the matter of language, the concepts proposed by structuralism are too simple. If we want to understand how language is mastered and used by human, we have to separate what is called cognitive system, that is a system underlying the ability of human to use and master language. In other words, human since they were born unconsciously have system of language in their brain (competence). That is why this paradigm argues that language is innate not learned.

Generative grammar is founded on the idea that linguistics should create a "grammar" that allows us to (in theory) generate every possible sentence in a language using a set of rules. It  is simply an abstract theory that allows us to make a list (in theory) of all sentences, given the time to do so (which would be infinite-- there are infinitely many possible sentences). With tricks like recursion, it is in theory possible to design such a grammar, although so far no perfect grammar for any language has actually been written. And in theory, such a grammar also exists in our heads as "linguistic competence", while something else explains how we actually use it to speak, an action called "linguistic performance"-- and that can be imperfect, with speech errors, etc.

Chomsky's Generative Linguistics: An Introduction

Perspective Border
Q:        Why is it called 'generative'?
A:      'generative'- to generate = (1) to produce, (2) to specify the rules
(1)  owing to our mental grammar, when we speak / write we produce new grammatical sentences.
(2)  Generative Grammar describes our mental grammar by specifying the rules / making the hidden linguistic rules in our head explicit. It has two ways:
(a) by drawing a tree structure (Tree diagrams);
(b) by stating the Phrase Structure (PS) Rules in the form of “re-write” rules: X à X  Z 
(e.g., S à NP  VP)

Three important linguistic principles
Q:      What makes us able to distinguish between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences?

A:      The “mental grammar” or the “linguistic competence” in our mind does.
The first principle proposed by Chomsky is (1) Language is a mental fact.

How many sentences do you think you can arrange from these words?

"saw – tigers – Wilson"

(1)        *Saw tigers Wilson (ill-formed)

(2)        *Saw Wilson tigers (ill-formed)

(3)        Tigers saw Wilson (unusual meaning)

(4)        *Tigers Wilson saw (ill-formed)

(5)        Wilson saw tigers (well-formed)

(6)        *Wilson tigers saw (ill-formed)



Q:        Can language imitated and produced by parrot be called a language?

A:        (2) Language is innate in the sense that every human child is endowed with the LAD (language acquisition device).  It is this LAD that makes  language  acquisition possible.  Note that the LAD is species-specific, that is, only humans—but not animals—have the LAD.  Therefore, only humans—but not animals—can acquire human language.



Q:        Can you produce an English sentence/ utterance that never be used by any other human in this surface of the earth?
A:        (3) Language is creative.  “linguistic creativity” = crossing the borders / limits of linguistic rules,e.g., That’s very you; kopi banget; benci à membencikan; to slipper the cockroach; Is this a knock-knock bird?

This can be explained in two different ways.  First, as noted above, “linguistic
creativity” means crossing the borders/limits of the existing linguistic rules.  In
addition to the examples given above, some poets are fond of “violating” linguistic
rules, since they are entitled to “poetic license” = lisensia puitika
            Anyone lived in a pretty how town
            With up so floating many bells down
            Spring summer autumn winter
            He sang his didn’t, he danced his did.
                                                (E. E. Cummings)

Secondly, “creativity” refers to our every use of our language.  Every time we speak / write, we “create” new utterances/sentences. 
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