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The Uneme Noun Phrase
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Government and
Binding theory is propounded by Noam Chomsky. The theory is named after
Chomsky’s book; lectures on Government and Binding (1981). Sanusi
(1996:21) describes Government and Binding (GB) as a modular deductive
theory of universal Grammar (UG) which posits multiple levels of
representation related by the transformational rule (move-alpha). The
application of move-alpha is constrained by the interaction of various
Principles which act as conditions on possible representation.
Government and Binding theory is a modular deductive theory of grammar.
Proponents of GB often maintained that there is no such thing as roles
of language. But only the principles and parameters whose values can
vary from one language to the other do exist with specified units.
According to cook (1988:86), the theory of Government and Binding is
described as an interlocking arrangement of principles and sub-theories
which interact in many ways in the analysis of human language. Also,
Radford (1988:419) defines transformation as the rule that deals with
the act of changing the structure of one sentence to another structure
through the concept of movement known as move-alpha (move α). This
theory (Government and Binding) was developed to correct the lapses in
transformational generative grammar (T.G.).
Nevertheless,
Government and Binding is misleading because it gives prominence to the
two elements of Government and binding whose status was not
fundamentally superior to the other sub-theories like X-bar,
theta, case and bounding theory.
Government and Binding
proposes seven sub-theories of grammar. The structures generated at
various levels are constrained by a set of theories, which define the
kind of relationship possible within a grammar. The following are the
sub-theories of Government and Binding;
(i) X-Bar Theory (XI theory)
(ii) Theta theory (θ theory)
(iii) Case theory
(iv) Bounding Theory
(v) Binding Theory
(vi) Control theory
(vii) Government theory.
The
above listed sub-theories of Government and Binding theory are closely
related in their operation as a theoretical framework. Each of these
transformations operates on the D-Structure and maps the D -Structure
into the S-structure. This can be illustrated by the diagram below:
Syntactic Components
The base: *Phrase structure rules Transformation
* Lexicon Rules
Deep structure
Surface structure
Semantic - Phonetic –
Interpretation Interpretation
Fig 1.2 (Adapted from Horrocks 1987:27)
The transformational rules operate in-between the Deep Structure and
the surface structure. It should be noted that within the movement
theory, we have three major concept involved;
(i) Extraction site
(ii) Landing site
(iii) Intervening gap.
Horrocks (1987:29) says that “the core grammar of a given language is
derived automatically from the interaction of the sub-theories of
universal grammar? Each of the sub-theories accounts for grammaticality
or ungrammaticality of any sentence. All these sub-theories of G.B
theory operates in a modular form, and this theory itself is referred to
as to as a modular form, and this theory itself is referred to as a
modular deductive theory of grammar. Each of these sub-theories will
be analyzed one after the other.
1.5.1 X-Bar Theory (XI Theory)
X-bar theory is the theory used in this research work. The X-bar
theory “provides principles for the projection of phrasal categories
from lexical categories and imposes conditions on the hierarchical
organization of categories in the form of general schemata†(Horrocks
987:101). X-bar theory is designed to formalize the traditional notion
called ‘head’ of a construction and to constrain the system in the
recognition that the lexical categories; Noun, verb, adjectives,
preposition are the heads and project to their phrasal nodes NP, VP, AP,
PP, respectively. For example, Noun phrase is headed by a Noun. It
comes after possible constituents in the example below.
The Man
NP
Spec N1
Det N
The man
Crucially, X-bar theory makes explicit the notion ‘head of a phrase’.
It may be that grammars vary according to the extent to which they
utilize the resources made available by X-bar theory.
Chomsky Noam himself has entertained the idea that there are languages
in which sentences is simply of a string of words without any higher
level organization. Culicover (1997:134) states that,
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