Must allow all and only the grammatical sentences in a language Descriptive rules, not necessarily prescriptive Each rule rewrites a constituent into one or more constituents
From this simple set of rules we can generate many, many sentences, including:
A cat saluted a horse. A cat saluted a horse on the bridge. A gregarious horse fried the cat. The drunken sailor saluted the puzzled cat. The puzzled, gregarious sailor on a horse saluted the drunken cat on the bridge.
NP art adj N V
VP NP N
Transformational Rules
Rules that transform deep structure into surface structure Apply to constituents not to individual words Involve movement, insertion, and deletion of constituents Conditions of occurrence: Transformations will not apply under all conditions
Some Transformations
Particle-movement
John called up the woman. John called the woman up.
T1 V + part + NP V + NP + part
John called up the interesting woman up. John called the interesting woman up. John called up the woman with the curly hair. John called the woman with the curly hair up. *John called the woman up with the curly hair.
Other Transformations
Passive:
Arlene played the tuba. The Tuba was played by Arlene. T2 NP1 + V + NP2 NP2 + be +V + en by + NP1 Wh- Question: Why is Arlene playing the tuba? Negation: Arlene is not playing the tuba? Compound: Arlene is playing the tuba and the drums.