Generative Grammar: Models, Subfields, and Historical Development

All flashcards

What is generative grammar?

A research tradition that builds and tests explicit models of the subconscious grammatical knowledge people use to produce and understand language.

How do competence and performance differ?

Competence is a person's underlying grammatical knowledge. Performance is the real-time use of that knowledge, which can be affected by factors such as memory and processing.

What are explicitness and falsifiability in a grammar model?

Explicitness means the model states its rules or constraints clearly. Falsifiability means it makes predictions that evidence could contradict.

What is universal grammar?

A term often used for hypothesized innate, domain-specific aspects of human linguistic knowledge; theories differ about what it contains.

What does the poverty of the stimulus argument propose?

It proposes that some aspects of children's grammatical knowledge may not be fully explained by the linguistic evidence they encounter, suggesting an innate contribution.

Quiz questions

1. In transformational grammar, what relationship did transformations establish between deep structure and surface structure?Answer: They mapped representations from deep structure to surface structure.
2. How does optimality theory account for patterns in sound systems?Answer: It uses constraints to explain recurring phonological patterns.
3. What did Montague grammar use interpretation rules to connect?Answer: Expressions in a formal syntactic system with formulas in intensional logic.
4. When did generative grammar become a distinct research tradition, especially through Chomsky's work?Answer: In the late 1950s.
5. According to Katz and Pesetsky's proposed Identity Thesis for Language and Music, what differs between the two syntactic systems?Answer: Linguistic syntax operates on morphemes, while musical syntax operates on pitch classes.