Adam's message

[SHALOM LAPPIN]

Hi Bob,
   Many thanks for the illuminating passage on generative grammar from
Chomsky's early paper. It is interesting to see that the term was
originally used to denote the class of formal grammars, and now,
apparently, has been appropriated by Neil Smith to refer to
transformational grammar. Computational linguists tend to restrict
generation to the procedures involved in actually constructing a
string with associated syntactic structure and to contrast this process
with parsing. Therefore, it might promote clarity of discussion if we
simply used the expression 'formal grammar' to describe a grammar or
linguistic theory that is intended to provide a precise mathematical
model of the formal properties of a natural language (or of the set of
possible natural languages). We can then ask whether Chomsky's
Government Binding and Minimalist frameworks are alternatives to formal
grammar. Happy new year. With best regards.
                               Shalom