Transformational Grammar

This book is a contribution to the study of General linguistics and African languages. The study tested the extent to which the transformational generative framework can handle data concerning transformational processes in an African language in relationship to the constraints and conditions on syntactic transformations proposed by Chomsky (1971), Ross (1967) and Schwartz (1972). The resultant analyses revealed that there are various transformational rules that apply to the language, namely; NP-MOVEMENT, WH-MOVEMENT, RAISING, TOPICALISATION, PP-PREPOSING and ADVERB PREPOSING. When related to the various constraints proposed by Chomsky, Ross and Schwartz, it was found, for example, that none of the transformational processes could extract a constituent out of a relative clause. Furthermore, the language is subject to the COMPLEX NOUN PHRASE CONDITION which forbids extraction of constituents from adnominal clauses and the SUBJACENY CONDITION that does not allow the application of transformations that are not cyclical. It can be concluded that the framework had both descriptive and explanatory adequacy to handle data from the language.