Transformational and Unification Grammars

Abstract

Noam Chomsky started a revolution in the study of Linguistics as scholars became convinced that the study of syntax revealed something about the structure of the brain itself. Even so, the Chomskyan approach to grammatical analysis is not the only one available and has been aggressively challenged, particularly since the advent of Chomsky’s Minimalist Program. This paper offers an overview of the historical development of Transformational Grammar and its main form of competition, Unification Grammar. It is hoped that the reader will understand how and why these different approaches developed in the way that they did. It is also hoped that the reader will begin to question which of these approaches offers the best hope as a simpler, and therefore more truly minimalist, approach to linguistic inquiry.