Transformational Rule: Optional and Obligatory
Introduction
Changing of sentences from one form to another is a favorite exercise in public school English. Thus from a sentence like
John is writing a letter.
May be formed, among others, the following:
John isn’t writing a letter.
Is John writing a letter?
A letter is being written by John.
Very little is ordinarily given by way of clearly formulated rules for these processes, yet students seem to learn the technique more or less readily.
On the other hand, a little examination will show that changes of the sorts illustrated above can described structurally that is, in terms of the addition of elements, the rearranging of elements, or the altering of the form of elements. What specific portions of the sentence are involved, and how, can be very exactly stated. This is done, not in terms of their meanings, but on the basis of their structural position within the sentence. Not all operation of altering sentences to related sentences have the same linguistic interest. The ones involving structural changes stand apart from all the others. They will be called transformations.
Questions to be imposed:
• What is transformational rule?
• What are those rules and how its work?
After completing this report, you will be able to:
• Understand what is transformational rule
• Familiarize some rules in transforming sentences
• Distinguish optional and obligatory rules
• Transform affirmative and negative sentences interchangeably
• Transform interrogative and affirmative interchangeably and other kinds of sentences
A transformation is a statement of the structural relation of a pair of constructions which treats that relation as though it were a process. Hence, it is normally stated in the form of rules which may be applied to one of the pair--- an input --- altering it to produce the other --- an output. Note that transformations are directional.
As an example we might consider the following set of sentence pairs.
1. John is writing a letter. John isn’t
Changing of sentences from one form to another is a favorite exercise in public school English. Thus from a sentence like
John is writing a letter.
May be formed, among others, the following:
John isn’t writing a letter.
Is John writing a letter?
A letter is being written by John.
Very little is ordinarily given by way of clearly formulated rules for these processes, yet students seem to learn the technique more or less readily.
On the other hand, a little examination will show that changes of the sorts illustrated above can described structurally that is, in terms of the addition of elements, the rearranging of elements, or the altering of the form of elements. What specific portions of the sentence are involved, and how, can be very exactly stated. This is done, not in terms of their meanings, but on the basis of their structural position within the sentence. Not all operation of altering sentences to related sentences have the same linguistic interest. The ones involving structural changes stand apart from all the others. They will be called transformations.
Questions to be imposed:
• What is transformational rule?
• What are those rules and how its work?
After completing this report, you will be able to:
• Understand what is transformational rule
• Familiarize some rules in transforming sentences
• Distinguish optional and obligatory rules
• Transform affirmative and negative sentences interchangeably
• Transform interrogative and affirmative interchangeably and other kinds of sentences
A transformation is a statement of the structural relation of a pair of constructions which treats that relation as though it were a process. Hence, it is normally stated in the form of rules which may be applied to one of the pair--- an input --- altering it to produce the other --- an output. Note that transformations are directional.
As an example we might consider the following set of sentence pairs.
1. John is writing a letter. John isn’t
References: Books: Descriptive Linguistic. On-line: http://madang.ajou.ac.kr/~moon/intro/transformations.pdf http://www.thefreedictionary.com/transformational+rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformational_grammar