There is a language acquisition device called Chomsky. He believes that language is innate to some extent, and children are born with it. This theory reflects that children are born with knowledge of basic grammatical relations and grammatical categories, and this knowledge is universal. In addition, this knowledge also reveals human nature. Chomsky's talent hypothesis is based on his observation, and some important factors can never be fully explained. His theory holds that although babies are not born knowing languages, they are born with a tendency to develop languages, just as they are born with a tendency to learn to walk.
The next stage is the development of generative grammar. For it, Chomsky just means a system of rules, which assigns structural descriptions to sentences in a clear and well-defined way. He believes that everyone who speaks a certain language has mastered and internalized a generative grammar to express his language knowledge. Generative grammar is not limited to a specific language, but reveals the unity of specific grammar and universal grammar. It does not describe a language as an end, but as a means to explore universal laws in order to reveal human cognitive system and human nature.
The third is the classical theory. In classical theory, Chomsky's goal is to make linguistics a science. This theory has three characteristics: (1) emphasizes the generative ability of language; (2) The introduction of conversion rules; And (3) a grammatical description regardless of its meaning. The main idea can be found in Chomsky's syntactic structure.
The fourth theory, the standard theory, is marked by all aspects of syntactic theory. After the publication of Syntactic Structure, Chomsky found some serious problems to be solved in order to achieve his theoretical goals. The first problem is that the conversion rules are too powerful. An ordinary sentence can be transformed, negated, passive, added or deleted at will, without any restrictions. The second problem is that his rules may produce ill-formed sentences or well-formed sentences. In his syntactic theory, Chomsky made significant changes by including semantic components in his grammatical model. He believes that generative grammar should be composed of three parts: syntax, phoneme and semantics.
The extended standard theory is the fifth theory. Chomsky revised his standard theory twice. Although the standard theory has revised the classical theory, there are still many problems to be solved. First of all, the conversion rules are still too powerful, because they can move or delete language fragments, change categories, keep the original meaning unchanged, and change according to specific circumstances. Secondly, the standard theory holds that derived nouns such as criticism and explanation have the same semantic attributes as their corresponding verbs.
1980s, Chomsky's transformational generative grammar entered the fourth development period with the theory of governance and constraint. It includes X-bar theory, constraint theory, government theory, case theory, control theory and constraint theory. Although all other theories have been mentioned in EST, GB theory further develops and supplements the discussion in EST.
Generally speaking, the development of transformational generative grammar can be regarded as a process of constantly mineralizing theory and controlling generative power, and the simplest scheme and the simplest inquiry are only some logical steps in this process. Although transformational generative grammar puts forward, modifies and cancels many specific rules, assumptions, mechanisms and theoretical models, its purpose and purpose are the same.
Chomsky's transformational generative grammar is different from structural grammar in many aspects: (1) rationalism; (2) congenital; (3) deductive method; (4) pay attention to interpretation; (5) formalization; (6) emphasizing language ability; (7) Strong production capacity; (8) Pay attention to language commonness.
First, Chomsky defined language as a set of rules or principles. Secondly, Chomsky believes that the purpose of linguistics is to produce a generative grammar that captures the tacit knowledge of native speakers. This involves the problem of learning theory and language commonality. Thirdly, Chomsky and his followers are interested in any data that can reveal the tacit knowledge of native speakers. They seldom use what native English speakers actually say; They rely on their intuition. Fourthly, Chomsky's methodology is hypothesis-deduction, which operates at two levels: (a) linguists formulate a hypothesis about language structure-a general linguistic theory; This is tested by the grammar of a specific language, and (b) every such grammar is a hypothesis of general linguistic theory. Finally, Chomsky follows rationalism in philosophy and idealism in psychology.