Question:
Can anyone point me to a complete, or semi-complete, set of Transformational
Grammar rules as applied to English. The ones I have come across have all
been obviously imcomplete. I hope I am using the right terminology here.
For example, something like the following:
S -> NP + VP
NP -> (DET) + N
Answer:
Those aren't transformation rules. Those are phrase structure rules.
Different thing entirely; they are essentially a Post production system
and specify the well-formedness conditions for phrase structures.
Transformations, by contrast, change one phrase structure into another, and
have names, like Passive, Subject-Raising, Tough-Movement, Slifting,
Extraposition, Equi-NP-Deletion, There-Insertion, or Sluicing, to name only
a few.
You can get a pretty decent list of one kind of transformations (cyclic
verb-governed alternations) in Beth Levin's book "English Verb Classes and
Alternations: A Preliminary Investigation", University of Chicago Press
1993.
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