Analyzing Syntax & Semantics Textbook: A Self-Instructional Approach for Teachers and Clinicians

CHAPTER 7 Pronominalization

CHAPTER 7 Pronominalization The units in this chapter deal with complexities in sentences, such as questions, imperatives, negatives, passives, and pronominalizations. In generating sentences with such complexities, rules are required in addition to those for the formulation of noun and verb phrases in the basic sentences. Early syntactic theory held that kernel (basic) sentences were generated with phrase structure rules. The kernel sentences were grammatical strings of NP +VP, as presented in the basic sentence patterns. These kernel sentences represented what Noam Chomsky (1965) referred to as deep structures. Grammatical operations upon single kernel sentences that result in more complex constructions in the sentences were called single-base transformations. These operations, or transformations, could be performed by the following methods. a. the rearrangement of words or constituents in sentences: kernel sentence: The baby is crying. transformation: Is the baby crying? b. deletions: kernel sentence: You close the door. transformation: Close the door. c. substitutions: kernel sentence: John came home. transformation: He came home. d. additions: kernel sentence: The boys are coming. transformation: The boys are not coming. e. or combinations of a, b, c, and d: kernel sentence: A girl hit John. transformation: John was hit by a girl. The second sentence in each of these pairs would be a transformed sentence derived from the first one in the pair. The speaker was thought to first generate a kernel sentence and then to alter it with a transformational rule prior to uttering the sentence, which in its spoken form constituted the surface structure. 62 PERSONAL PRONOUNS 63 Current theory explains single transformations from deep structure (underlying meaning and relationships) to surface structure differently. It is thought that the speaker encodes the sentence in its entirety, that is, a fully formed complex sentence is encoded from nodes in deep structures that specify modality changes. Kernel sentences, according to Kretschmer and Kretschmer, could now be defined as "the various predicate-argument propositions underlying the sentence" (1978, p. 31). Predicate, used in this sense, refers to the state or action in a sentence, and argument refers to the noun or nouns involved in the action or state. A sentence used by a speaker may entail one or more propositions, or single bits of information. The basic sentences presented in the preceding chapters were single proposition sentences, except in those instances where possessives, adjectives, or noun adjuncts were used as noun modifiers. The following chapters deal with complexities in sentences. These complexities require additional rules and conventions that one must learn in order to master the language. Also, in assessing the language of children, we must look at how they use these rules and conventions so as to more adequately evaluate their performance and chart their growth. Unit 1: Personal Pronouns Objectives • Identify personal pronouns in sentences • Specify the person, number, case, and gender of given personal pronouns • Identify and distinguish between nominative, accusative, and dative pronouns in sentences • Specify the appropriate personal pronouns when given the person, number, gender, and case • Change noun phrases in sentences to personal pronouns • Differentiate backward pronominalization from forward pronominalization in sentences A more apt term for pronouns, defined in traditional grammar as words that take the place of nouns, might be pronominais, since pronouns represent full noun phrases, and, in some instances, sentences or ideas. Pronominalization, then, is a transformational operation that involves a substitution. Pronouns are words such as she, eueryone, himself, and this, which are used to streamline discourse. They refer to old or known information and are used to eliminate 64 PRONOMINALIZAnON the necessity of repeating a noun phrase, a sentence, or even sentences, except for clarity. Speakers and writers use pronouns when they have already identified what or whom they are speaking or writing about. Personal pronouns occur with high frequency both in oral communication and in writing. For appropriate use of the personal pronouns, the features of person, number, gender, and case must be observed. In addition, personal pronouns have the feature [+definite], which negates their use with the expletive there in the there transformation. The sentence They are in the class cannot be transformed to *There are they in the class. The pronouns he, she, and it are masculine, feminine, and neuter, respectively. Table 6 shows the number and person of the personal pronouns. Table 6 Personal Pronouns: Person and Number Person Number [+Singular] [-Singular] First we Second (you) you Third he, she, it they The pronoun I, used...