Syntactic Structures

Citation

Chomsky, N. (2002). Syntactic Structures (2nd ed., with an introduction by D. W. Lightfoot). Mouton de Gruyter. (Original work published 1957.)

Chapter Summary

The text is short: ten numbered chapters on about a hundred pages, followed by two appendices and a bibliography, in a volume of 117 pages plus front matter. The Mouton de Gruyter edition of 2002 is the second edition and adds an introduction by David W. Lightfoot to Chomsky's original text, first published in 1957. The publisher's description quotes an early assessment of the book as an attempt to build, within the tradition of scientific theory construction, a comprehensive theory of language: not a reorganisation of data into a catalogue, but a rigorous explication of intuitions about language in terms of an explicit system whose consequences can be compared with new data. The chapter titles show how that programme is laid out.

Chapter 1: Introduction

A short opening chapter of a few pages, before the argument proper begins.

Chapter 2: The Independence of Grammar

The title states the chapter's claim: grammar is independent of meaning and can be studied as a system in its own right. Chapter 9 returns to the relation between syntax and semantics.

Chapters 3–4: An Elementary Linguistic Theory; Phrase Structure

Chapter 3 presents an elementary linguistic theory, and Chapter 4 develops phrase structure, the description of sentences as nested constituents.

Chapter 5: Limitations of Phrase Structure Description

At fifteen pages, one of the longer chapters. It examines the limits of phrase-structure description and so leads into the transformational proposals of Chapter 7.

Chapter 6: On the Goals of Linguistic Theory

A chapter of about twelve pages on what a linguistic theory is supposed to achieve.

Chapter 7: Some Transformations in English

The longest chapter, at about twenty-five pages, and the centre of the book: it presents transformations in English. The rules it develops are illustrated further in Appendix II.

Chapters 8–9: The Explanatory Power of Linguistic Theory; Syntax and Semantics

Chapter 8 takes up the explanatory power of linguistic theory, and Chapter 9 turns to the relation of syntax and semantics.

Chapter 10: Summary

A short summary of the argument, about three pages before the appendices.

Appendices I and II

Appendix I, Notations and Terminology, covers the notation used in the text. Appendix II, Examples of English Phrase Structure and Transformational Rules, gives examples of the rules.

Key Concepts

Chapters 2–5: Grammar and phrase structure

• Independence of grammar: the claim that grammatical structure can be studied apart from meaning.
• Phrase structure: description of sentences as hierarchies of constituents, and its limitations.

Chapters 6–10: Theory, transformations and explanation

• Goals of linguistic theory: what a theory of grammar is supposed to achieve.
• Transformations: rules that relate sentence structures, applied to English.
• Explanatory power: the criterion by which a grammar and a theory are judged.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Brevity. Roughly a hundred pages carry the whole argument, so the book can be read in a sitting or two and then reread.
• Explicit structure. The chapter titles show a progression from independence of grammar, through phrase structure and its limits, to transformations and explanation.
• Reference material in the appendices. Appendix I collects the notation and Appendix II gives examples of English phrase-structure and transformational rules, which lets a reader check a rule against the text.
• Historical value. As the original statement of the transformational programme, it is the primary source behind later textbook accounts.

Limitations

• Early formulation. The theory is that of 1957. Later frameworks, such as those in Carnie's text, which covers Merge, and in Chomsky's own Knowledge of Language (1986), differ considerably, so the book is not a guide to current syntax.
• A research monograph, not a teaching text. It is a short, original statement of a theory, not a course text built to teach analysis step by step; the descriptive introductions in the course do that.

Where It Fits in the Course

Burton-Roberts's Analysing Sentences and Tallerman's Understanding Syntax are descriptive first courses that teach how to analyse sentences, and Carnie's Syntax: A Generative Introduction is the undergraduate textbook in the generative framework. Chomsky's Knowledge of Language is a later, theoretical account of knowledge of language. Syntactic Structures is the historical source: read it after a first course, so that phrase structure trees are familiar, to see where the generative approach began.

It is not a place to start learning to parse sentences. It is better used as a primary text alongside Carnie, or as a short historical complement to a theory course.

How to Use This Book

Readers need a basic idea of constituents and trees, and comfort with formal notation. It suits undergraduates in a syntax or history-of-linguistics course and graduate students who want the original.

A reading plan:

• First pass: Chapters 1 to 5, to follow the case against phrase structure alone.
• Second pass: Chapters 6 to 8, with Chapter 7 slowly and the rules in Appendix II beside it.
• Close: Chapters 9 and 10, and the introduction by Lightfoot that the second edition adds.

Re-derive a few of the transformations by hand, and compare each analysis with its treatment in a current textbook.

Two further habits help. First, keep a short list of the claims each chapter makes about what a grammar must do, and check at the end whether Chapter 10 states them the same way. Second, after finishing, read the opening chapters of Knowledge of Language and a chapter of Carnie on the same topic, to see which questions of 1957 were kept, which were reformulated and which dropped. For a course that treats the book as a primary source, the brevity makes it practical to assign whole, and the chapter order (independence of grammar, phrase structure and its limits, transformations, explanation) is a ready outline for a discussion or a short written summary.