Generative linguistics is based on the idea of a set of rules that generate an infinite variety of grammatically correct sentences. It assumes human language is innate and based on logical rules. The concept was first applied in syntactic theory and has since expanded to other fields. Noam Chomsky’s book Syntactic Structures is considered the birth of generative linguistics.
The branch of linguistics known as generative linguistics is based on the idea of a generative grammar, a set of rules that generates an infinite variety of sentences that are considered grammatically correct and no sentences that are not. The set of assumptions underlying the philosophy of generative linguistics includes two important ideas. The first is that the human ability for language is innate, and the second is that human language is based on a set of logical rules that allow a speaker to produce new sentences that can be understood by others who speak the same language. .
The idea that a set of formal rules can be used as a model of the human cognitive ability to create language is said to be structure-dependent. In other words, the formal rules of a generative grammar must refer to the structural units of the language. Once the structural units have been defined, it is possible to write algorithmic rules to model the processes of construction of the cognitive language which are the basis of spoken and written language.
The concept of generative grammar was first applied in the field of syntactic theory, where it was employed in an attempt to describe the human ability to construct sentences. The generative linguistics approach has since been expanded — vigorously — and has become useful in the fields of phonology, morphology, and semantics. There are now many different generative grammar models that attempt to explain how the human mind processes language.
Several assumptions underlie the philosophy of generative linguistics. The first is the idea that the human ability for natural language is innate. Furthermore, the generative approach assumes that a speaker of a given language must be in control of certain linguistic knowledge to produce grammatically correct or well-formed sentences in that language. This linguistic knowledge theoretically includes a generative grammar that allows the speaker to construct sentences that have never been spoken before. Other speakers of the language who hear those sentences use the same grammar to decode them, and are therefore able to understand sentences they have never heard before.
The first technical use of the term generative within the discipline of linguistics occurred in 1957 when Noam Chomsky, a famous linguist, published a book entitled Syntactic Structures. In the book, Chomsky proposed a theory of generative grammar which he called “transformational grammar”. Many consider the publication of Syntactic Structures as the birth of generative linguistics as a subfield of linguistics.
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