The Basics of Transformation Rules
For the time being, let’s set aside the issue of meaning in a theory of language
and grammar and turn to the transformation rules themselves. Transformation
rules have undergone significant change over the years. Necessarily, this sec-
tion serves merely as an introduction to some of the rules in Chomsky’s early
work. Later in the chapter, we consider the current approach to transforma-
tions. Thus, the goal here is to provide some understanding of the general prin-
ciples of T-G grammar rather than an in-depth analysis.
InSyntactic StructuresandAspects,Chomsky (1957, 1965) proposed a variety
of transformation rules, some obligatory and others optional. The rules themselves
specify their status. Rather than examining all possible transformation rules, only a
few are presented, those that govern some common constructions in English. Be-
fore turning to these rules, however, it is important to note that transformations are
governed by certain conventions. Two of the more important are theordering con-
ventionand thecycle convention.When a sentence has several transformations,
they must be applied in keeping with the order of the rules. In addition, when a sen-
tence has embedded clauses, we must begin applying the transformations in the
clause at the lowest level and work our way up. This is the cycle convention. Failure
to abide by these conventions when analyzing structure with T-G grammar may re-
sult in ungrammatical sentences. What we see in T-G grammar, therefore, is a
formalisticmodel of language production that employs a set of rigid rules that must
operate in an equally rigid sequence to produce grammatical sentences.
The Passive Transformation
The relation between actives and passives was an important part of Chomsky’s
(1957) critique of phrase-structure grammar, so it is fitting that we examine the
rule that governs passives first. Only sentences with transitive verbs can be
passivized, and we always have the option of keeping them in the active form,
which means that the passive transformation is an optional rule.
Consider sentence 5:
- Fred bought a ring.
If we change this sentence to the passive form, it becomes:5a. A ring was bought by Fred.In keeping with the early version of T-G grammar, sentence 5 represents the
deep structure of 5a. The process of the transformation is as follows: First, the
NOAM CHOMSKY AND GRAMMAR 169