GRAMMAR AND SYNTAX

Traditionally, grammar can be divided into two different areas of study but still interrelated each other. They are morphology and syntax. Morphology is the study of how words are
formed out of smaller units (called morphemes), while syntax is the study of the way in which
phrases and sentences are structured out of words.

UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR
In traditional grammar, the syntax of a language is described in terms of taxonomy or
classificatory list of range of different types of syntactic structures in the language. In
traditional grammar there is a central assumption underpinning syntactic analysis. The central
assumption underpinning syntactic analysis is that phrases and sentences are built up of series
of constituents (syntactic units) with each of which belong to a specific grammatical category
and serves a specific grammatical function. From this assumption, the task of linguist
analyzing the syntactic structure of any given type of sentence is to identify each of the
constituents in the sentence, to say what category it belongs to, and what function it serves.
Example
Students protested vehemently
Specific grammatical category

Students plural noun

Protested past tense verb
Vehemently adverb

Specific grammatical function

Students subject
Protested predicate
Vehemently adjunct

Different with taxonomic approach adopted in traditional grammar, Chomsky takes

another approach to the study of grammar. It is called cognitive approach. For Chomsky, the
goal of the linguist is to determine what it is that native speakers know about their native
language which enables them to speak and understand the language fluently. Hence, the study of
language is part of the wider study of cognition (i.e. what human beings know).
Example
When native speaker of English want to tell you the negative counterpart of I like
syntax, he or she will say I dont like syntax instead of I no like syntax.
From this example, we know that the native speakers know how to combine words together to
form expression in their language.
In the 1940s, Chomsky has drawn a distinction between competence and performance.
Competence is the speaker-hearers knowledge of his or her language, while performance is the
actual use of language in concrete situations or what people actually say or understand by what
someone else says on given occasion. A grammar of a language tells you what you need to
know in order to have native-like competence in the language (i.e. to be able to speak the
language like a fluent native speaker). Hence, it is clear that grammar is concerned competence
rather than performance.
In the terminology adopted by Chomsky (1986a, pp. 19-56), when we study the
grammatical competence of a native speaker of a language like English were studying a
cognitive system internalized within the brain/mind of native speaker of English. Our ultimate
goal in studying competence is to characterize the nature of the internalized linguistic system
(or I-language, as Chomsky terms it) which makes native speakers proficient in English.
Chomskys ultimate goal is to devise a theory of Universal Grammar/UG which
generalizes from the grammar of particular I-language to the grammars of all possible natural
(i.e. human) I-language. In the other words, UG is a theory about the nature possible grammars
of human languages. Hence, a theory of Universal Grammar answers the question : What are
the defining characteristics of the grammars of human I-languages?
There are a number of criteria of adequacy which a theory of Universal Grammar must
satisfy. The first criterion is universality. It means that a theory of Universal Grammar must
provide us with the tools needed to provide a descriptively adequate grammar for any and every

human I-language (i.e. a grammar which correctly describes how to form and interpret
expressions in the relevant language). The second is explanation. It means that a theory should
explain why grammars have the properties they do is conventionally referred to as the criterion
of explanatory adequacy. The third condition which we have to impose in our theory of
language is that it be maximally constrained. A theory which is constrained in appropriate ways
should enable us to provide a principled explanation for why certain types of syntactic structure
and syntactic operation simply arent found in natural languages. One way of constraining
grammars is to suppose that grammatical operations obey certain linguistic principles, and that
any operation which violates the relevant principles leads to ungrammatically.

PRINCIPLES OF UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR

The language faculty must incorporate a theory of Universal Grammar/UG (developed
by Chomsky) which enables to develope a grammar of any natural language on the basis of
suitable linguistic experience of the language. In seeking to determine the nature of the
language faculty, we are in effect looking for UG Principles (i.e principles of Universal
Grammar) which determine the very nature of language.
The changing of non-echo question into echo question includes auxiliary inversion and whmovement, e.g :
I.
II.

He had said who would do what ?

Who had he said would do what ?

One of the principles of Universal Grammar incorporated into the language faculty is a locality
principle which can be outlined informally as : grammatical operations are local. The similar
locality condition of grammatical operations includes agreement and case assignment.

PARAMETERS
The language faculty incorporates a set of universal principles which guide the child in
acquiring a grammar. There are universal principles which determine the broad outlines of the
grammar of natural languages, there also seem to be language-particular aspects of grammar
which children have to learn as part of the task of acquiring their native language. Language
acquisition involves not only lexical learning but also some gramatical learning
gramatical learning : language acquisition
lexical learning : learning the lexical system/words in the language and their
idiosyncratic linguistic properties)
gramatical learning will be limited to the parameters (dimension or aspects) or
parametrised aspects of grammar (those aspects of grammar which are subject to parametric
variation from one to another language). parametric variation found in the grammars of different
(adult) natural languages.
In English, finite verbs can generally have only overt subjects, not null subjects.
Different to some other languages e.g Italian which is a null-subject language, English is nonnull-subject language. It is called as parametric variation, that the relevant parameter (termed
the Null-Subject Parameter) would appear to be a binary one.

A more familiar aspect of grammar which appears to be parameterized relates to word

order. Parameter of variation between languages is the wh-parameter. Another different type of
word order variation, concerning the relative position of heads and complements within
phrases. English is head-first language. Every phrase has a head word which determines the
nature of the overall phrase. Example :
Students of philosophy
Head

complements

The relevant parameter is termed the head-position parameter (parameter which

determines the relative positioning of heads with respect to their complements). If the headposition parameter reduces to a simple binary choice, and if the wh-parameter and the nullsubject parameter also involve binary choices, it seems implausible that binarity could be an
accidental property of these particular parameter.

PARAMETER SETTING
The theory of parameters outlined has important implications for a theory of language
acquisition. The innate of Language Faculty incorporates a set of universal grammatical
principles, and a set of grammatical parameters which impose severe constraints on the range of
grammatical variation permitted in natural languages. This theory is known as Principles and
Parameters Theory/ PPT.
The PPT model has important implication for the nature of the language acquisition
process. PPT hypothesizes that grammatical properties which are universal will not have to be
learned by the child.
This simplified parameters setting model of the acquisition of grammar has given rise to
a metaphorical acquisition model in which the child is visualized as having to set a series of
switches in one of two positions, each such switch representing different parameters.
This assumption that acquisition the grammar of a language involve the relatively simple
task of setting a number of grammatical parameters provides a natural way of accounting for the
fact that the acquisition of specific parameters appear to be a remarkably rapid and error free
process in young children. Thus, the earliest verb phrase and prepositional phrases produce by

young children acquiring English consistently show verb and prepositions position before their
complements, as structure such as the following indicate.

EVIDENCE USED TO SET PARAMETERS

As Chomsky notes (1981, pp. 8-9), there are two types of evidence which we might
expect to be available to the language learner in principle. Those are positive evidence and
negative evidence.
Positive evidence comprises a set of observed expressions illustrating a particular
phenomenon. Such as: if childrens speech input is made up of structure in which heads precede
their complement, this provides them with positive evidence which enable them to set the Head
Position Parameters appropriately. Negative evidence might be of two kinds direct or indirect.
Direct negative evidence might be come from the correction of childrens error by other
speakers of the language. Direct negative evidence might also take the form of self correction
by other speaker.
In any case, given the assumption that parameters are binary and single valued. Not only
that, it also given the assumption that the head parameter is a binary one and that each
parameter allows only a single setting.

ADDITIONAL NOTE
Grammar
The term grammar is used in a number of different senses Jacob (1995). Here it is of
interest to distinguish three senses, or three kinds of grammar. Those are mental grammar,
descriptive grammar and prescriptive grammar.
Mental grammar is the term grammar that used to refer to the rules and principles native
speakers use in producing and understanding their language.
Descriptive grammar is the term grammar that also used to refer to the set of
generalization formulated by grammarians, who examine grammatical expression, perhaps

compare them with other logically possible strings of words, and then try to determine the
properties that differentiate the well-formed strings of words.
Prescriptive grammar is the term grammar refers to certain kinds of language rules not
necessarily based on usage by the ordinary native speaker but on the kinds of English believed
characteristic of the most educated speakers of the language.