Transformational grammar

Transformational grammar is a broad term describing grammars (almost exclusively those of natural languages) that have been developed in a Chomskyan tradition. The term is usually synonymous with the slightly more specific transformational-generative grammar (TGG).

"I-Language" and "E-Language"

In the 1980s, Chomsky proposed a distinction between I-Language and E-Language, similar but not identical to the competence/performance distinction. I-Language is taken to be the object of study in syntactic theory; it is the mentally represented linguistic knowledge that a native speaker of a language has, and is therefore a mental object — from this perspective, most of Linguistics is a branch of Psychology. E-Language encompasses all other notions of what a language is, for example that it is a body of knowledge or behavioural habits shared by a community. Chomsky argues that such notions of language are not useful in the study of innate linguistic knowledge, i.e. competence, even though they may seem sensible and intuitive, and are useful in other areas of study. Competence, he argues, can only be studied if languages are treated as mental objects.

Related Topics:
1980s - Linguistics - Psychology

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