Structure of language

The structure of language, or the way of morphemes are put together to form words and sentences that are both meaningful and correct.

We used the term syntax to refer to the way words are put together into phrases and sentences.

The term grammar refers to the overall set of rules for speaking and writing a given language.

Every language has syntactic rules that govern how words are put together. In English we say “the blue hat,” while in French one would say “the hat blue”.

It is not that one way is any better that the other but, rather that one way is agreed upon as “correct” in each language and the other is not.

We can all accept the statement “I sat on the chair,” but we know that a similar statement, “the chair sat on I,” is incorrect.

The words are the same, but the difference in order makes the second example nonsensical.

Using the same reasoning, we can accept a statement as correct even of we have never heard it before in exactly that way.

This fact led a linguist named Noam Chomsky to develop a new area of linguistic study called generative or transformational grammar.

Chomsky reasoned that of a native speaker can create an infinite number of grammatically correct statements without ever having heard of them, there must be a set of underlying linguistics rules that allow a person to generate his or her language.

The process of moving from those underlying rules (which Chomsky called deep structure) to the actual statement (surface structure) is termed a transformation.

In the same way, a native speaker can reject any statements that are not correct without ever having heard them before and usually without having to think about them.

Chomsky argues that the deep structure of all languages are the same, and that all born with an innate knowledge of deep structure.

They are also born with the capacity for making transformation, regardless of the deep and surface structures of their language.
Structure of language