Principles and parameters of grammar report
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The document discusses several key concepts in Chomsky's Principles and Parameters theory of grammar: - Language knowledge consists of universal principles and parameters that vary across languages. Parameters specify word order and position of elements in phrases. - Phrases have a hierarchical tree structure and are headed by certain elements like verbs or nouns. The position of heads relative to complements is specified by the Head Parameter. - Binding theory addresses the relationship between referring expressions like pronouns and their antecedents within sentences. It defines classes of words and constraints on their reference.
![For example:
Jane wanted [the girl to help herself]
Principle A applies because ‘herself’ is an anaphor and
therefore bound to ‘the girl’ within the local domain of the
embedded clause, not to the Jane in the main clause.
Principle C also requires the referring expression Jane to refer
to someone outside the sentence.
Finally Binding theory demonstrates that grammar is not
concerned with information specific to one language, say
English, the Binding principles are couched at a level of
abstraction that may be used for any human language.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/principlesandparametersofgrammarreport-141228200556-conversion-gate01/85/Principles-and-parameters-of-grammar-report-19-320.jpg)
Principles and parameters of grammar report
- 1. PRINCIPLES AND PARAMETERS OF GRAMMAR Aubrey Segui Somera Lecturer Graduate Studies, Master in Education, Major in English Language Teaching Panpacific University North Philippines Urdaneta City, Pangasinan Panpacific University North Philippines Urdaneta City, Pangasinan Institute of Graduate Studies
- 2. PRINCIPLES AND PARAMETERS The term principles and parameters theory has, become more popular in recent years as it conveys that unique central claim of the theory that language knowledge consists of principles universal to all languages and parameters that vary from one language to another.
- 3. STRUCTURE DEPENDENCY Structure – dependency asserts that knowledge of language relies on the structural relationship in the sentence rather than on the sequence of words. A major assumption in linguistics since the 1930s has been that sentences consist of phrases structural groupings of words: sentences have phrase structure.
- 4. FOR EXAMPLE: The child drew an elephant. It breaks up into Noun Phrase (NP) the child Verb Phrase (VP) drew an elephant the VP further breaks up into a verb (V) drew Noun phrase (NP) an elephant.
- 5. TREE DIAGRAM Sentence Noun Phrase the child Verb Phrase Verb Phrase Noun Phrase an elephant
- 6. These phrases also break up into smaller constituents. The (NP) ‘the child’ consists of a determiner (Det or D) ‘the’ and an Noun (N) child, while the NP ‘an elephant’ consists of a Determiner ‘an’ and a Noun ‘elephant’.
- 7. Sentence Noun Phrase Verb Phrase Determiner Noun Verb Noun Phrase the child drew Determiner Noun an elephant
- 8. THE LANGUAGE FACULTY Chomsky says: Human mind has separate part for language acquisition and it differs with the learning of other things. The Principle of structure dependency does not necessarily apply to all aspects of human thinking, it is not at all clear that such Principles could operate in areas of the mind other than language. ‘Language faculty’ separates from other language faculties such as mathematics, vision, logic and soon. Language knowledge is separate from other forms of representation in the mind; it is not the same as knowing mathematical concepts, for example. Thus the theory divides the mind into separate compartments separate modules, each responsible for some aspect of mental life. The language faculty is concerned with an attribute that all people possess. So Chomsky asserts that language knowledge is independent of the other aspects of mind.
- 9. THE HEAD PARAMETER It specifies the order of certain elements in a language. One distinctive claim is that the essential element is each phrase is its head. Thus the verb phrase Drew an elephant has a head verb (drew) Noun phrase The child has a head noun (child) Prepositional phrase By the manager has a head preposition (by). Complements An important way in which language very concerns where the head occurs in relationship to other elements of the phrase, called complements. The head of the phrase can occur on the left of the complements or on their right. In the NP: “Education for life” the head noun education appears on the left of the complement ‘for life’. In the VP: Showed her the way. One head verb ‘showed’ appears on the left of the complement ‘her’ and ‘the way’. In the PP: In the car The head preposition ‘in’ appears and the left of the ‘complement the car’. There are two possibilities for the structure in human languages. Head-left Head-right
- 10. Chomsky (1970) suggested that the relative position of heads and complements needs to be specified only once for all the phrases in a given language. Human beings know that phrases can be either head- first or head-last; an English speaker has learnt that English is head-first; a speaker of Japanese that Japanese is head-last and soon. The variation between languages can now be expressed in terms of heads occur first or last in the phrase. This is head parameter, the variation in order of elements between languages amounts to a single choice between head first or head last.
- 11. THE GOVERNMENT THEORY This refers to a syntactic relationship of high abstraction between ‘a governor’ and an element that it governs. A verb governs its object NP as in: Kate likes me Verb NP Where the verb ‘likes’ governs the NP ‘me’. A preposition also governs its NP the traffic warden spoke to her P NP
- 12. The preposition ‘to’ governs the NP ‘her’ The possible governors are the categories Noun, verb, adjective and prepositions. If the relationship of government obtains between two elements in the sentence, there is one-way flow of influence from the governor to the governed. To her not To she In more technical terms, the object of the preposition appears in the accusative case (her) rather than in the nominative case (she) Similarly the objects of verbs also appear in the accusative rather than nominative case. Kate likes me Versus Kate likes I The verb likes governess the NP object and thus determines that it appears as the accusative form ‘me’ rather than the nominative for I
- 13. RELATING SOUND AND MEANING One of Chomsky’s insight is that ‘each language can be regarded as a particular relationship between sounds and meaning. (Chomsky 1972) The sentence: The moon shone through the trees consists on the one hand of a sequence of sounds, on the other of a set of meanings about an entity called ‘the moon’ and the past relationship of its light to some entities called ‘trees’. The meanings are the internal face of language, it contact with the mind; they are abstract mental representations, independent of physical forms. Relationship between the external sounds and the internal meanings. Sounds ↔ meanings
- 14. The difficulty of the task is due to the complex links between them. Gill teaches physics The grammar must know how the sentence is pronounced – the sequence of sounds, the stress patterns, the intonation and so on. It needs a way of describing actual sounds – a phonetic representation. It needs a way of representing meaning – a semantic representation. It needs a way of describing the syntactic structures that connects them – a syntactic level of representation. Syntactic structure plays a central mediating role between physical form and abstract meaning. The sound – meaning bridge:
- 15. Syntax Phonetic Semantic representation representation Sounds meanings Principles and parameters theory captures this bridge between sound and meaning through the phonetic form and logical form.
- 16. Syntax Phonetic Logical Form (PF) Form(LF) Phonetic form and logical form have the own natures for which distinct P/F and LF components are needed within the model. They form the contact between the grammar and other areas, at the one end physical realization of sound, at the other further mental systems: “PF and LF constitute the ‘interface’ between language and other cognitive systems, yielding direct representation of sound on the one hand and the meanings on the other as language and other systems interact …………”. (Chomsky 1986)
- 17. BINDING THEORY Binding theory deals with whether expression in the sentence may refer to the same entities as other expressions. ‘Never write a personal pronoun without duly considering what noun it will, upon a reading of the sentence, be found to relater to’ (Cobbett 1819) Binding theory is basically concerned with the same issue of how pronouns and other types of noun relate to each other but it extends the antecedent / pronoun relationship to other categories is a rigorous fashion. Binding theory is concerned with connections among noun phrases that have to do with such semantic properties as dependence of reference including the connection between a pronoun and its antecedent.
- 18. For example: Peter Killed him. One possible way of explaining Binding is to consider the class of word involved. Three word – classes are relevant: Referring expressions. Anaphors Pronominals The word ‘himself’ refers to the class of anaphors. The word ‘him’ belongs to the class of pronominals. Pronominals do not have antecedent that are nouns within the same clause. The crucial difference between anaphors, pronominals and referring expressions is the area of the sentence within which they can be bound; anaphors are bound within the clause. pronominals may be bound by NPS in other clauses or be free to take their reference outside the sentence. referring expressions are always free. An anaphor is bound in a local domain. A pronominal is free is a local domain. A referring expression is free.
- 19. For example: Jane wanted [the girl to help herself] Principle A applies because ‘herself’ is an anaphor and therefore bound to ‘the girl’ within the local domain of the embedded clause, not to the Jane in the main clause. Principle C also requires the referring expression Jane to refer to someone outside the sentence. Finally Binding theory demonstrates that grammar is not concerned with information specific to one language, say English, the Binding principles are couched at a level of abstraction that may be used for any human language.