Syntax is the study of how words combine to form meaningful phrases and sentences. There are many approaches to the formal study of syntax, but certain fundamentals are common to most. It is usually assumed that sentences consist of hierarchical structures, which may be represented graphically (see Figure 1) and some attempt is made to capture the formal rules of a language, the patterns that govern whether a sentence is grammatical or ungrammatical.

Since the 1950s the dominant approach to formal syntax has been spearheaded by Noam Chomsky and his colleagues. Generative Grammar is a blanket term often employed to talk about the basic framework, although it has undergone several transformations (eg, Transformational Grammar, Government and Binding, The Minimalist Program) and many alternative theories (such as Lexical Functional Grammar, Head Driven Phrase Structure Grammar) have branched off from this root. (Carnie, 2002; Baltin & Collins 2001) There are however many other approaches which do not fall under the Generative banner (such as Construction Grammar, Role and Reference Grammar and Categorial Grammar) and may have different concerns and sources of data. (Brown & Miller, 1996)

The aim of Generative Grammar is twofold. At the descriptive level, this approach attempts to capture the set of rules and constraints which generate all and only the grammatical sentences of any given language. At the explanatory level, it attempts to transcend the superficial differences between languages, to capture the extent to which languages may vary and to discover the basic principles that must be common to all.

A core concept that underpins Generative Grammar is Universal Grammar (UG). This is an abstract paradigm of all the possible forms a language can take. The hypothesis is that there is a specific language faculty in the human brain which consists of an invariant set of principles that apply to all languages. Further, there are a limited number of binary choices which account for variation across languages. This restricted interaction between principles and parameters ensures the learnability of syntactic rules and processes. (Carnie, 2002)

Figure 1. Phrase Structure Tree

References

Baltin, Mark & Chris Collins (eds). (2001) The Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic Theory. Malden, MA : Blackwell Publishers.

Brown, Keith & Jim Miller (eds). (1996) Concise Encyclopedia of Syntactic Theories. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Carnie, Andrew. (2002) Syntax: a generative introduction. Malden, MA : Blackwell Publishers.

Recommended Textbook

Carnie, Andrew. (2002) Syntax: a generative introduction. Malden, MA : Blackwell Publishers.

Summary Written By

Alex Trueman & Jessica Denniss

Linguistics Program

The University of Queensland