Transformational

Grammar
As a Theory of Language Acquisition

Sepideh Salehi
Foundational Analysis
Shows how it is possible to analyse existing
methodological arguments and find
loopholes in them, and raises new issues for
the rationale behind empirical technique.
• What meta-theoretical and methodological
assumptions underlie the then dominant paradigm of
linguistics investigation, namely transformational
generative grammar (TGG)?

• What is the status of a linguistic description ?

• To what extent is linguistics concerned with

establishing knowledge about some of the aspects of
real world?
TGG in brief

Transformational-generative
grammar considers grammar to be
a system of rules that generate
exactly those combinations of words
which form grammatical sentences
in a given language. TG involves the
use of defined operations called
transformations to produce new
sentences from existing ones.
The number of sentences in a
language is infinite
1. Creativity
2. Recursion

Components of Generative
Grammar:
1. Phrase structure component
2. Lexicon
Advantage of
paradigmatic orientation The paradigm-oriented
scientist need not
necessarily be involved in
solution of important or
significant problems. But
only with what Kuhn calls
those particular “puzzles”
which the dominating
paradigm defines as
legitimate and to which
solutions are more or less
assured.
pre/non
paradigmatic normal science
research

Fox Hedgehog

Disoriented Loaded
The effect which
these 2
orientation can
have on research
Some Special Problems in Dealing with Paradigms

• You can attack a given paradigm effectively only

by going outside that paradigm

• If people are content with the goods they possess,

there is little reason to expect that they will be
inclined to attach significance to the remarks of
neighbors denigrating them

• You should first test the wind and then take your
chance
 Once a paradigm is in, there is no easy way to get rid
of it until the time is ripe

 Certain social factors tend to interfere with the

evolutionary pattern, just as they do in biological
case
 Criticism of ideas is interpreted as Criticism of personalities
 Chomsky’s “revolution” in linguistics has been
nowhere near as revolutionary as it may once
have appeared

 No criticism, good or bad, is possible without a

set of original ideas to criticize
• In dealing with arguments I may well
end by developing points which seem
clear and indisputable, perhaps even
devastating, from my perspective, but
which may strike many readers as
incomprehensible, problematical or
quite irrelevant from others
Strategies to minimize this problem
• The overall organization
1. Those ideas likely to be shared by a
major proportion of the audience
2. introduce new or alternative views
3. Slowly differentiating the two

Reintroducing the same argument a

number of times in a slightly different form
The method of Alternative Hypothesis

No paradigm is ever abandoned unless there is an

alternative candidate to take its place

To reject one paradigm without simultaneously

substituting another is to reject science itself
Whatever its fault, TGG remains nevertheless “the
best theory we’ve got”

An alternative theory of language acquisition

1. It has all the TGG’s major theoretical work

2. Fundamentally different in kind and interpretation
3. An entirely different research strategy

The Method of Alternative Hypothesis

• Derwing believed that the method of alternative
hypothesis seems to be the ideal solution of the
methodological dilemma. (inefficiency of
paradigm- free data collection and the issue of
judgment or bias in paradigms).
The proposed alternatives provide an ideal vehicle for
helping to decide which aspects of the
transformational generative paradigm should be the
main focus of attention in the development of the
criticism

Serves as a principled guide to the outside criteria and

arguments which most need to be brought into play
You can be a good
empiricist only if you
are prepared to work
with many alternative
theories rather than with
a single point view

Theoretical pluralism is
assumed to be an
essential feature of all
knowledge that claims to
be objective
Alternatives must rather be developed in such
detail that problems already “solved” by the
accepted theory can again be treated in a new and
perhaps also more detailed manner

It takes time to build a good theory and it also

takes time to develop an alternative to a good
theory
They provide means of criticizing the accepted
theory by comparing that theory “with the facts”
and therefore allows much sharper criticism of the
accepted ideas
The relative autonomy of facts: whether or
not facts exist, or are “available
independently of whether or not one
considers alternatives to the theory to be
tested”

Facts and theories are much more

intimately connected than is admitted by
the autonomy principle
Overview
In Chapter 2
Derwing plays the role of the devil’s advocate for TGG.

In Chapter 3
Derwing reintroduce the underlying arguments for all
the metatheoretical tenets of TGG.

In chapters 7 and 8
Derwing mentioned some conceptual and empirical
difficulties with Chomsky’s basic theory.
Toulmin
“ we are justified in placing the trust in
that we do, only because – and to the
extent that – they have proved their
worth in competition with alternatives”.