Traditional Grammar and Generative Grammar

A large body of grammatical work was done in the twentieth century before the rise of generative grammar The work of the traditional grammarians still forms the foundation of modern grammatical work, but modern linguistics introduced very many changes and extensions. Modern linguists reject the insistence on prescriptivism as the basis of description; they recognise many more parts of speech than traditional grammarians did; they assign constituent structure to sentences; and identify a large number of grammatical phenomena which traditional grammarians overlooked; modern linguists try to construct generative grammar.

There are some important differences between traditional grammar and generative grammar. It is appropriate to look briefly at these differences.

Firstly, generative grammar places great emphasis on the precise specification of analyses. "Generative" means precise and explicit. This is quite different from traditional grammar, which is characterized by a general lack of precision. The stress on precision is really just a matter of good scientific practice. The stress on precision means that linguists working in generative grammar use various kinds of formalism, As a result, work in generative grammar has a somewhat mathematical appearance -at least to those with little background in mathematics.

Secondly, there is a stress in syntactic theory on the justification of the analyses. This means that generativists seek to demonstrate that their analyses work well.

Finally, generative grammar is unlike traditional grammar in being concerned not just with describing specific languages, but also with developing a generative theory.

Typology, Universal and Generative Grammar

Typology is the classification of languages according to their structural types. In this definition, a language is taken to belong to a single type, and a typology of languages is a definition of the types and classification of languages into those types. We will refer to this definition of typology as typological classification.

A second linguistic definition of typology is the study of patterns that occur systematically across languages. We'll refer to this definition of typology as typological generalization. The patterns found in typological generalization are language universals.

The third and final definition of typology is that typology represents an approach or theoretical framework to the study of language that contrasts with prior approaches, such as American structuralism and generative grammar. In this definition, typology is an approach to linguistic theorizing. Sometimes this approach to linguistic theory is called Greenbergian (named after the great typologist, Joseph Greenberg), as opposed to the Chomskyan approach to linguistic theory {formalism). Functionalism has the view that linguistic structure should be explained in terms of linguistic function. Typology in this sense is often called the functional-typological approach.

The Chomskyan approach (formalism) to linguistic theory is quite different to the Greenbergian approach. One of the main differences between these two approaches is their understanding of language universals. Language universals reflect the belief that there exist linguistic properties beyond the essential definitial properties of language that hold for all languages. Greenberg's approach to language universals emerged at about the same time as Chomsky's, in the late 1950s. The conception of language universals in typology and generative grammar is quite different. To a considerable degree, the difference between the generative and typological approaches to language universals can be traced to the different traditions to which Chomsky and Greenberg responded.

Two major methodological approaches to language universals can be contrasted on a number of parameters. The most important of these being the following:

1. the data base for research on language universals (a wide range of languages, or just a single language); the central role of cross-linguistic comparison;

2) the degree of abstractness of analyses that is required in order to state language universals ( for instance, in terms of surface syntactic structure or in terms of deep syntactic structure);

3) the kinds of explanations advanced for the existence of language universals;

4) the close relationship between linguistic form and language function.

On the one hand, some linguists have argued that in order to carry out research on language universals, it is necessary to have data from a wide range of languages; concentrate on universals in terms of relatively concrete rather than very abstract analyses, and to be open in the kinds of explanations that may be advances for the existence of language universals. On the other hand, some linguists have argued that the best way to learn about language universals is by a detailed study of the individual language; such linguists state language universals in terms of abstract structures (such as deep syntactic structures within generative syntax), and have tended to favour innateness as the explanation for language universals. The first of these two approaches is perhaps most closely associated with the work of Joseph H.Greenberg and of those inspired by his work. The second is most closely associated with the work of Noam Chomsky and those directly influenced by him, and also reflects the orientation of the present text-book.

To a considerable degree, the difference between the generative and typological approaches to language universals can be traced to the different traditions to which Chomsky and Greemberg responded. The generative approach represents a reaction against behavioristic psychology, while the typological approach represents a reaction against anthropological relativism.

In the behaviorist view, linguistic competence is acquired through learning stimulas-respond patterns. In contrast, the generative approach posits the existence of innate internal linguistic abilities and constraints that play a major role in the acquisition of language. It is these constraints that represent linguistic universals in this approach. ^c The argument used by Chomsky (Chomsky 1976) for the existence of innate universal linguistic competence refers to the "poverty of the stimulus".

The anthropological relativist view of language is that the languages of the world cai vary arbitrarily: "languages could differ from each other without limit and in unpredictable ways" (Joos 1957:96). Greenberg and others discovered that a more systematic sampling of a substantial number of languages reveals not only the range of variation but constraints on that variation. Those constraints demonstrate that languages do not vary infinitely, and the constraints represent linguistic universals.

The innate universals posited by generative grammar are intended to explain linguistic structure. The poverty of the stimulas argument is essentially a deductive argument. The poverty of the stimulas argument is one aspect of Chomsky's more general rationalist approach to language. The universals posited by typology are intended to represent inductive generalizations across languages, in keeping with typology’s empiricist approach to language. Typological universals call for explanation in terms of more general cognitive, social-interactional, processing, perceptual or other abilities.

These kinds of explanations advanced for the existence of language universals (the Greenbergian approach and Chomsky approach) are diametrically opposed to each other. However, there are significant similarities between the generative and functional-typological approaches:

1) both approaches begin with the analysis of language structure;

2) both approaches consider the central question of linguistics to be "What is a possible human language?";

3) both approaches are universalist, in contrast to their predecessors. There is broad agreement that there do exist a substantial number of universals that hold for all languages;

4) for both approaches, the construction of linguistic generalizations involves abstraction over the data, though the Greenbergian abstract patterns across languages and the Chomskyan abstract patterns within languages;

5) explanations for linguistic universals rest on universal abilities, which may or may not be linguistic specific, and which probably have a significant innate component, though perhaps are not entirely innate. In fact, for both generative and typological approaches, the foundations of linguistic explanation are ultimately biological, although for the Chomskyan, the biological basis is found in genetics (innate linguistic knowledge) and for the Greenbergian, the biological basis is indirect, but is to be found in evolutionary theory.

Nevertheless, there are two distinctive characteristics of the Greenbergian approach: the central role of cross-linguistic comparison, and the close relationship between linguistic form and language function.

Linguistics: The Science of Language

Language is a creation of the human mind, and is the mental capacity that most clearly makes us "human". Linguistics, the study of language, gives us an insight into the human mind.

Leonard Bloomfield defines linguistics as the science of language (Bloomfield, 1935), Like all scientists, linguists will aim at formulating general principles to account for the data with which they are faced. Linguists try to formulate generalizations about linguistic data, i.e. language.

There are various ways of approaching the study of language. The reader is familiar with the traditional view of language, say English. The goal of a linguist studying English will be to provide a systematic description of English sentence formation, the grammar of English. Our concern will be with the Principles and Parameters approach, the version of linguistic theory in the generative tradition. The two main goals which typify the Principles and Parameters approach to linguistic theory are;

what knowledge of language consists of, and how the mind is structured so that we are able to acquire knowledge of language.

The mind is not subject to direct examination. Thus, indirect methods must be found to investigate the nature of linguistic knowledge and how language is acquired by the mind. The objective of the Principles and Parameters approach is not to provide a complete description of human languages, conceived as a set of linguistic expressions (i.e. word, phrases, sentences). These expressions are simply data that are used in the investigation, and are not themselves the object of the theory. The concern of this approach is not with what a speaker or group of speakers say ("E-language", in the terminology of Chomsky 1986), but with the character of what is in the human mind that accounts for our ability to speak, to acquire and understand language ('7-language", in Chomsky's terms). According to Chomsky, we define "language" as a set of words, phrases and sentences that a speaker can produce, while "grammar" is the internal linguistic knowledge. Then "language" in this sense is E-language, while "grammar" is I-language.

Two more terms that draw a very similar distinction are competence and performance. Competence is the linguistic knowledge that a native speaker has, idealized away from actual situations of use; that is I-language. Performance is what a native speaker does, which in essence produces E-language. These distinctions are summarized as follows:

what is in the mind grammar I-language competence

what people say language E-language performance

In studying grammar (I-language) competence by looking at language (E-language) performance, linguists of the Principles and Parameters approach are trying to find the deeper principles, structures, and mechanisms that account for the organization o] this knowledge in the mind.