Talk:Generative grammar

message: * Should it not be mentioned that this is an obsolete theory?
* i don't know about other fields but this is still relevant in computer science
* This is still a relevant theory in the basic study of linguistics.
* it is still a releant theory and not a dead one although popularity has declined. it shold not be merged with gen. ling.
It is far from "obsolete", though there is much argument about its meaning in linguistics. Rainwarrior 02:29, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not a paradigm, it's just structuralism that claims not to be structuralism. In fact it's a structuralism taken to the extreme. Chomsky's rebellion against his predecessors was mainly with behaviourism. The fact that the structuralist skeletons have never been cleaned out of the closets accounts for the tendency of generativists to claim attested diachronic changes (that is, the results of diachronic processes) as synchronic processes. I agree however that generativism is not obsolete, it is sadly receiving still a staggering amount of funding.--AkselGerner (talk) 20:53, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Obsolete

message: * Looks like two article about the same subject. Merge Kerowyn 00:36, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's been a few months and we seem to have more against than for. Mostly it seems people are uninterested in comment. Anyhow, I've decided to remove the merge suggestion. Rainwarrior 07:53, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Don't merge. --IceHunter 04:57, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree. The Generative Linguistics article seems to be little more than a stub. If there is more to say about it apart from a technical description of various flavors of generative grammar, then it needs a lot of expansion. But if, as I believe to be the case, there is not much to add there, then the Generative Grammar page should be incorporated there. I also agree that there should be a different page for a CS audience. Ailun (talk) 16:18, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge?

message: On July 9th, 2006, 62.192.140.219 made changes to this page which, even if new information was added (it is difficult to tell), removed several pieces of useful information, pictures, wiki links, and formatting; furthermore, it was written in a very poor style (it reads like an undergraduate essay). I have reverted this edit. - Rainwarrior 17:59, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert of 62.192.140.219's changes 

message: It's not that I don't think that there may be some candles of truth in this article's description of the theory presented, BUT for the most part the page is written in such a fashion that it sounds like a lot of BS masquerading as intelligent discourse -- sort of what you would present to a college professor in an oral exam if you wanted him to think you knew what you were talking about -- but really didn't cause instead of studying you had stayed up too late partying the evening before.Fungible 09:01, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Really? To me it sounds technical, if a little overdone for an encyclopedia.  Most BSing I've done on college papers, at least, hasn't included appropriate references to very technical and specific facets of the ideas being discussed.  Although I do think this article needs improvement and better organization, in particular w.r.t. its subject matter's applications in other areas. Space Dracula 05:22, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Huh? 

message: :Some linguists go so far as to claim that the set of grammatical sentences of any natural language is indeed infinite.
Isn't this obvious, though? You can make an infinitely long sentence. All you have to do is stack clause upon clause upon clause. I doubt there is a language where such a thing isn't possible, because this sort of flexibility with clauses is an essential feature of language. It logically follows that if you can generate an infinitely long sentence, then there is an infinite number of possible sentences. - furrykef (Talk at me) 21:53, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, this statement is not true. If you look at formal definitions of rewrite grammars, all generated sentences are finite. Of course you can generate infinitely many of them, groing longer and longer, but the sentences itself are finite. See my grammar theory text book. Some footnote in the intro chapter and also in the discussion part of the book. Chomsky never claimed that one can have infinitely long sentences. The question is whether one should assume infintely many. This is also disputed. See GT textbook Section 13.1.8. StefanMülller (talk) 07:59, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Infinite" possibilities 

message: *Seems to me that this page needs some work to make it more balanced. It seems to give little or no indication that there have ever been legitimate challenges to Chomskyan generative grammar. And although it's nice that it mentions other generative frameworks, it proceeds to provide an article about only one. At least LFG etc. should be included in the history section. On the other hand, if it is considered appropriate to only provide links to articles on LFG, etc, then this should be made a disambiguation page and almost all content here should become a page with a more specific title. Also, it seems to me very difficult to evaluate or even grasp Chomskyan generative grammar (at least) without a fairly thorough treatment of its fundamental assumptions and arguments (POS, etc.) along with, whenever possible, links to alternative arguments or approaches. I would try to do some of this myself but I'm pretty certain there are people here much better qualified than I. PS: I don't hate generative grammar. :) Ailun (talk) 16:36, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Balance?

message: In my opinion the topics of transformational grammar and generative grammar would best be handled in one article. There's content in the TG article that should really be covered here (e.g. e-language, i-language). Perhaps a Chomskyan could help us out here. ----Action potential  t c 12:17, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a mistake. Generative grammar and transformational grammar are different things. Transformational grammar is a kind of generative grammar. But so is relational grammar, Lexical-Functional Grammar, Minimalism-linguistics, Government and Binding theory, and Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar. These are not transformational grammars, but they are generative grammars. (A generative grammar is one in which the set of grammatical sentences are generated (in the mathematical sense of the term, not the psychological sense) via a set of rules and constraints. A transformational grammar is one that uses a particular kind of rule, known as a transformation to do this. Please do not merge. AndrewCarnie (talk) 17:29, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: (PS, I do agree that the TG article needs some work, if I have time later this semester I'll do my best)AndrewCarnie (talk) 17:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I've removed the merge proposal. ----Action potential  t c 00:26, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge TG with Generative grammar article

message: In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_grammar#Frameworks the article says "The term generative grammar has been associated with at least the following schools of linguistics: " and then lists, inter alia, Categorical Grammar as an instance. However, in the article about syntax, they are described as something completely different (http://en.wikipedia.osyrg/wiki/Syntax#Generative_grammar and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax#Categorial_grammar). This seems to be incoherent, at least to the naive reader. An explanation might rectify this, otherwise Categorical Grammar should be removed from the list.
92.233.157.159 (talk) 23:20, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Please keep Categorial Grammar in this list. It is true that there to readings: Generative grammar (with a lower-case grammar) is any grammar with recursive rules which enable it to generate an infinite number of sentences from a finite set of symbols (say, words). This is also true for TAG, HPSG, Categorial Grammar and other grammars listed under monostratal grammars in the article. On the other hand, Generative Grammar (with a capital second G) is a collective term for all the Generative grammar conceptions Chomsky proposed. In the past, these were usually transformational grammars, but recently, Chomsky seems to start listening to psycholinguists and perhaps computational linguists who have never believed in transformations. In summary, transformational grammar used to be the better term for Chomsky's Generative Grammar, but since the Minimalist Program it probably is no longer. Perhaps Principles-and-Parameters approach is the better term for Chomskyan Generative Grammar. --Thüringer ☼ (talk) 01:04, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is Categorial grammar an instance of generative grammar or not ? 

message: The first paragraph ends with the phase "the morphology of a sentence."  Looking at the linked article on morphology (linguistics), I find that morpohology is all about the forms of words, not sentences.  Therefore, the phrase "the morphology of a sentence" seems defective, unless the article about morphology is defective instead.  Looking at the history of this article, I see that this phrase has been standing for over a year and a half, but nonetheless, it is a little confusing.  (As it stands right now, I still don't know what "morphology of a sentence" exactly means, if anything.)  Could someone who knows the subject well clear this up?
It may be of interest to note that the editor that originally composed this sentence wrote it as:
In most approaches to generative grammar, the rules will also predict the semantics and morphology of a sentence.
This edit on 21:28, 21 January 2008 was made by G.broadwell, who on that day apparently rewrote (and overall substantially improved) the introductory section.  The sentence was modified about two months later to remove "semantics and"; here is the edit history record:
13 March 2008 AkselGerner (talk | contribs) m (8,915 bytes) (Chomsky himself said that Semantics has no place in linguistics. Sentence semantics cannot be calculated.) (undo) 
Since one claim of the original sentence (it appears) was incorrect, the rest of the sentence can be questioned.  From what I knew about generative grammar before reading this article, I can see why a generative grammar might indicate a lot about the morphology of individual words (if "of words" is not redundant here) in that grammar, but that is not clearly what the sentence says, and certainly a reader with no prior exposure to generative grammars could not be expected to see that.  A generative grammar necessarily defines the structure of sentences, so it is possible that what "morphology of sentences" means to say is redundant and underly definite, like saying, "A cat is a carnivorous four-legged furry mammal.  Most cats are quadrupedal and warm-blooded."
71.242.6.231 (talk) 12:49, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Small point of detail 

message: Hey, how about we explain how the deep structure of a sentence can be represented in a variety of ways using contrasting tree diagrams?  Example (do tree diagrams for the following sentences):  "The dog ate the bone."  Vs.  "The bone was eaten by the dog."  Is this a good idea for this page?Xetxo (talk) 18:19, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contrasting tree diagrams to show their utility 

message: Could someone go through the article of Ad Neeleman? I came across it referencing unreferenced BLPs. the article states that Neeleman is part 'of the tradition of generative grammar' (but I couldn't find him here). Secondary sources establishing notability and extra information however would be welcome. Should he not pass WP:notability (academics), a deletion proposal might be in order; but I am not capable of adding or further judging this... L.tak (talk) 00:49, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Ad Neeleman]] 

message: I think we should study to have a historical sense.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.154.125.226 (talk) 12:48, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why should one study it? 

message: I noticed that when I create a pdf version of this article, the subsubsection 1.1.6 is not listed. I guess it is because it only contains a link to the main article on Minimalist program. Now, this whole section acts as a list of subsequent stages of Chomskian linguistics, so the title of this subsubsection should definitely be included in the offline version. How do I achieve that? Anša (talk) 23:36, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  minimalist program not listed in printed version 

message: In view of the fact that the generative school of thought is highly debated in linguistics, it is a bit surprising there is no section devoted to the criticism of the theory. I am no specialist in the history of the critique, but it would be useful if someone added such information. It is also somewhat misleading to include some theories such as Dependency Grammars as part of Generative Grammar, when from the outset some of them were designed as a critique of the generative view. בוקי סריקי (talk) 16:06, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism of the theory 

message: This has to be changed. Chomsky states that's it not a theory but a program, hence the name. "Chomsky presents MP as a program, not as a theory, following Imre Lakatos's distinction." - Wikipedia.
Why was it written on this page that it's a theory? When jumping to MP page it says that it's not a theory.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Senethys (talk • contribs) 10:34, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minimalist PROGRAM not theory.  

message: In the subsection "Standard Theory (1957–1965)" we have the following sentence and no other publication cited for this interval: "The so-called Standard Theory corresponds to the original model of generative grammar laid out in Chomsky (1965)." To me it is not clear why the time interval should start at 1957, if there hasn't been any publication before 1965. If it is meant that Chomsky and other scholars only started working at that theory in 1957, then this should be made clear. If this is not meant, then there should be cited a publication in 1957. Indeed, Syntactic Structures was published in 1957.
Garrafao (talk) 16:08, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unclear dates or citations 

message: It is somewhat surprising that this page describes none of the criticisms of the generative approach, which span the beginning (e.g. Hockett, Robert Hall) until now (e.g. Dan Everett). Of course detailed discussion of critics at every moment wouldn't be appropriate, but presenting the whole school as essentially unchallenged is certainly POV. Tibetologist (talk) 06:06, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticisms 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Whatever about the verb phrase has been said is totally abusive. Nothing is clear-cut. A short of Greshm's rule is applied on the modern learning. Under the name of Generative Grammar every discipline of English Grammar has been polluted. Your so-called Generative Grammar is rubbish. Your Chomsky is rubbish.  Birbal Kumawat (talk) 18:37, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  False assumption of verb phrase  

message: I undid edits made by User:Botterweg14 on March 3, 2020 because these consisted of the deletion of most of the sourced information on the page. Wikipedia is meant to be a site for information on science, and this includes descriptions and criticisms. It is useful to know the background of generative grammar and its differences from the previous structuralist models to understand what it is all about. It is likewise necessary for people to be able to find out whether scientific claims made by generative grammarians are founded on research. While some restructuring is possible, it is not possible to remove well-sourced information only because it is uncomfortable. Weidorje (talk) 08:37, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I've restored my edits, which did not remove most of the sourced information on the page. Particular points: 
Botterweg14 (talk) 14:07, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: These are all false statements, based on the souces. Since Botterweg14 is not adding anything to the discussion – in fact, he's only broken previous links – I will keep his changes deleted. Weidorje (talk) 15:08, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

text: Botterweg14, can you rather add a "quote needed" tag or something wherever you'd like it, so this does not develop into an unnecessary edit war. The point from Wikipedia is to give people truthful information, and whatever it is, it must be found here. We're not trying to hide anything. Weidorje (talk) 15:24, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: FWIW:  Botterweg14 (talk) 17:32, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: So what's the innate structure then, if not the object placed into the VP? Note that even if there will be further (ubstantiated) claims, this does not mean the first one should not be evaluated in its own right. We're not writing an essay. Weidorje (talk) 06:44, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: This comment still doesn't address any of my concerns, so I'm reverting the article to the previous version. Botterweg14 (talk) 13:57, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Botterweg14, your concerns do not need to be addressed as such. What you write up above is not based on the cited sources, it's something different. If there's solid evidence somewhere, let's have a look at it. Weidorje (talk) 14:32, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Each of my concerns above comes with a cited source. Moreover, part of my concerns come from the fact that the current article text does not accurately reflect the sources already cited in the article, e.g. the Pullum and Scholz citation. Botterweg14 (talk) 14:37, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Undoing edits by Bottterweg14  

message: I'd like to request comment on the "lack of evidence" section as well as the lede. I am concerned about their current form for reasons I have laid out above.Botterweg14 (talk) 17:47, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: For my part I would like to explain that there is no NPOV issue because there is no evidence for the claims made by generative grammar. There are no brain modules, no Chomsky gene, and the object is not in the VP, according to research. I am fully aware that these are more or less actively studied as if they were real, but doing such research itself does not prove the underlying assumptions. Generative grammarians feel that the framework has not been rebuffed properly because there is always a slight possibility the claims are true. This is exactly what the main man Noam Chomsky is saying, which only means generative grammar needs to be treated differently from sciences. Like neuro-linguistic programming, it appears much like a cult of personality and a quasi-science. Weidorje (talk) 06:37, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I take it you're talking about Schwarz-Friesel's article. It is a review article and not original research at all. It explains how the brain works, pointing out that there are modules in a certain understanding: language is processed differentlly from other types of information, and in somewhat different locations around the brain. This, however, is not in line with what the generativists are claiming. The passage is too long for the reference, so I add it here: "As in the past, two antagonistic camps dominate the field of cognitive linguistics: the holistic CL1 and the modular CL2. Basically, the modular CL2 position aims at a further development of the generative linguistic theory. Unfortunately, CL2 supporters are also frequently mentally closed regarding the examination of their working premises and the consideration of data from different theoretical accounts. Many CL2 researchers disregard scientific results which are not presented according to formalist rules. The Institute for Cognitive Linguistics (CL2) in Frankfurt defines cognitive linguistics as follows: ‘‘Cognitive linguistics is the branch in the modern science of language that deals with the biological foundations of language and describes them with the help of genetically determined principles.’’8 This sounds like neuropsychology. If so, it should deal with synapse activity, neurotransmitters and neuronal columns in the brain. But instead, CL2 scholars (not only in Frankfurt) usually produce formalist analysis in the Chomskyan tradition. Frequently, formalizations are offered instead of explanations. These formalizations are in many cases nothing else than the translation of one form of description into another one, without any heuristic or explanatory advantages attached. Often, the formalistic ‘explanation’ is little more than pseudo-science, with a wide gap remaining between the theoretical assumptions and the concrete applied methodology. Summing up the ‘state of the art’ in cognitive linguistics, one is forced to remark that CL1 and CL2 behave exactly like the famous input systems (postulated by Fodor (1983)): ‘domain specific’ and ‘informally encapsulated.’ They work autonomously and produce, unfertilized by other scientific resources, a ‘shallow output.’ According to Fodor modules are domain specific processing systems of the mind (they cope with a restricted class of inputs). The outputs of a module are shallow in the sense of being nonconceptual. Hence, shallow means that they have relatively simple outputs. They generate information of a certain sort, but they do not deal with thought. Mandatory in their processing they ignore the input from other domains. Finally, modules are isolated from the remaining domain of cognition (i.e. informationally encapsulated), since they cannot be guided by information at higher levels of processing." Weidorje (talk) 15:01, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

text: I added this source. Botterweg, can you stop editing this article. Your changes are not constructive. Weidorje (talk) 15:28, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: RfC: NPOV and other concerns in "lack of evidence" section and lede

message: In the article, it is stated that there is no proof when it comes to the existence of generative grammar. However, it is a misconception that confuses both pyschology and neurology. That is, generative grammar does NOT try to be the theory of neurology. Instead, it aims to be a part of cognitive psychology, which is consequently fair to ask whether these rules really exist in the brain. To be more precise, how can one find a real description of GG in the brain, meanwhile there are tons of neurons firing away there? That means, neurology examines concreteness, but cognitive psychology aims to model the abstract events in the mind whose results can be realized concretely(for example, memory, perception and so on) and this is exactly what GG wants to do, since one can of course not find the real concrete language rules by studying in the field of neurology. Kuzeytaylan (talk) 00:03, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely, I think your definition of cognitive science is quite correct. However, whatever kind of model one constructs, it will need to be based on something. Rules can exist in the brain in many different ways, but we want to know whether what it is that Chomsky precisely says is true. We can agree there is no evidence without saying that generative grammar has been proved wrong. It has not and never will be. But some critics have pointed out that the evidence is not there while Chomsky believes it will appear one day. Fingers crossed. Weidorje (talk) 04:32, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

text: I think it's clear that different languages have different rules, and that these rules are represented in the cognition or the unconscious mind. This is what de Saussure argued although the idea is age-old. Chomsky's idea is however much more specific because he argues that rules are innate and therefore universal (i.e. manifested in all languages). GG models are different from others in that they have the binary branching NP VP (NP) structure which is not semantically motivated, so it is claimed to be innate and caused by a genetic mutation. When we look at the evidence, there is nothing for innateness or a specific language gene so far. Also, there have been some studies on how English speakers process the NP - NP distinction, and there was nothing specific supporting the idea of VP (NP), that the object is processed as part of the verb phrase. The section and the article is however unfinished because there's been an agreement that it will not be edited until me and Botterweg have agreed on the details. The sources need to be reviewed and partially changed to better ones, and it will be added that many scholars argue that GG is pseudoscience and a cult of personality. In the history section it needs to be added that the GG idea is derived from Thomas of Erfurt's 'Speculative Grammar' (ca. 1300–1310). Weidorje (talk) 08:27, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  GG in terms of The Neurological Research 

message: Concerning recent edits made by Kuzeytaylan. Some of it was good because now it's clear what the problem with the research was. Next, you're claiming that the research however proved that constituents are cognitive. I'm not arguing that they aren't, but I don't suppose the research you're citing was on that topic. I'll check it soon. Next, you're claiming that the sources don't contain the information that GG was rejected (and pushed into the margins, as it said before your edits). Now, why are you doing that because the matter was already discussed above? I'm duplicating some of it here:
:GG is generally seen as a declining paradigm and its proponents now tend to stay away from conferences like AAAL (the American Association of Applied Linguistics) and University of Boston Child Language Development conferences, as a cursory count of papers on the basis of abstracts shows ... In my view, it is no coincidence that in Levelt’s (1989) ground-breaking book on language production there is only one reference to Chomsky, and that is not N. but C. Chomsky. In the psycholinguistic community, the idea of innateness and a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) were seen as problematic, and the leading institute in the world, the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen was ostensibly anti-GG. This is also reflected in Levelt’s early criticism of the GG model in his 1975 work What Happened to LAD? There is also a sociological component in the debate about the position of GG at universities. Starting from the 1960s, GG was seen as the new way to go and many linguistics departments turned Chomskian, which led to serious conflicts with linguists of other persuasions who felt sidetracked. Now that generation of GG linguists is retiring and there is a tendency in many universities not to replace them with younger scholars of that school, but rather appoint UB oriented linguists. There is almost a euphoria that the grip of the nativists on what constitutes linguistics is gone and that other approaches and more social orientations are seen as meaningful alternatives. Others try to explain the reasons for the decline of GG ... Some informants are quite outspoken about the role of GG in AL. William Grabe states: “Fundamentally Chomsky is wrong and we wasted a lot of time. In 1964 Chomsky’s Aspects was published. Now, in 2014, we are 50 years later. What impact has all of that had in real world language use? This is an overstated theoretical direction.” Jan Hulstijn summarizes: “Generative linguistics has had no noticeable (or durable) impact.”
You should not have removed the criticism. Weidorje (talk) 07:01, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The piece of information you are referring to is out of place in the GG article. If it was a quote from a published source, a generativist explaining why neurologists cannot falsify their claims, it could be considered maybe somewhere else on the page. Also, neurology is basically another name for neuropsychology, so it is relevant for psychology. It is specifically claimed that UG is hard-wired in the brain. The question is how such claims have been founded in evidence. There could be many kinds of evidence for GG: psycholinguistic, genetic, maybe even linguistic. However, there is nothing to be seen. It is very clearly stated by generativists that their approach is a particularly scientific one. To my understanding, scientific only means the same as being based on hard evidence. As such, GG is not supported by research. This is what the reader wants to know. Weidorje (talk) 11:33, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

text: As regards the idea that words are realised as constituents in the mind, I haven't seen such research. Maybe it's your interpretation of the cited study. If there's one it could be discussed in the article, but not as concerns the criticism of POS. It doesn't belong there. Weidorje (talk) 11:33, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

text: Thanks, Kuzeytaylan, it is a matter of improving this article. (Also see my answers above - there was an edit conflict because we were writing simultaneously.) The cited source was removed because the statement only repeated what was already said. The word 'cognitive' is a reference to cognitive psychology. If there's a POV bias it can be fixed, although if the topic is unfounded, the POV can be mainly negative. See e.g. Neuro-linguistic programming. Generative Grammar is no worse than Lakoff's cognitive linguistics or Tomasello's usage-based linguistics as comes to scientific evidence. There are claims of evidence, but critics argue that these claims are false. To me it seems that you want to show that language is organised as a rule-based grammar in the mind, and not like Lakoff claims. I think this has been the kind of juxtaposition that is fully avoided by the article as it is. You could start a section discussing the matter, but don't say anything has been proved if it hasn't, and don't say that Chomsky and Lakoff are the two alternatives that researchers must choose from - they don't. Thanks. Weidorje (talk) 11:33, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

text: Also notice that the current wording in Evidence is generous. It now says it is a a proven fact that children are able to manipulate the constituent structure, implying that rules are real. However, it is also says it is not a proven fact that they are innate. Weidorje (talk) 12:29, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  No change in facts since last time 

message: Generative grammar and generative linguistics should be two separate articles. Generative grammar is just about the tecnical concept, while generative linguistics is a more general article about the linguistic approach/paradigm, its epistemiological/philosophical assumptions and foundations, history, subfields, and relationship with other approaches.--OpenNotes1 (talk) 22:56, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. The article as it is now seems to conflate the two (and suffers from WP:NPOV and WP:BALASP besides). Compare with Model-theoretic Grammar, which provides a better (and more concise) definition of generative grammar than this page does. EstraKC (talk) 18:02, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree as well. Botterweg14 (talk) 23:20, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Who says generative linguistics is different from generative grammar? I haven't heard that before. OpenNotes1, the link you posted is your own redirect from generative linguistics to "formalism". But formalism is a reference to philosophy of mathematics, see https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/formalism-mathematics . The term is quite ambiguous because Chomsky's point is that language is not purely axiomatic. I do understand advocates of GG would like to change this article to a more favorable one, but I'm not sure what OpenNotes1 wants to do. Is your point that the mathematical calculus, or what is also called transformational grammar, should be separated from GG? Weidorje (talk) 07:31, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: , I'm drawing from Müller's "Grammatical Theory: From transformational grammar to constraint based approaches", particularly Chapter 14 where he makes the comparison between the two clear. There's definitely a tendency in the field to use "generative grammar", "generative linguistics", "chompskian linguistics", etc. interchangeably. Perhaps there ought to be a disambiguation page, one for "Generative-Enumerative Grammar", the technical concept (a formal grammar that contains the rules that generate the set of grammatical sentences), and one for "Generative Linguistics", which "Generative Grammar" can redirect to. EstraKC (talk) 22:51, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree there's Chomskyan GG, other GG models, and then there are non-GG approaches to mathematical grammar in general linguistics. The terminology is tricky. Weidorje (talk) 06:48, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Generative grammar]] and [[generative linguistics]] should be two separate articles 

message: Is 'generative grammar' written with or without caps? This article changes randomly between the two; there are even instances of one element being capitalized but not the other.--Megaman en m (talk) 21:49, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia guidelines tell us to avoid unnecessary capitalization, so I think it should not be capitalized although I suppose it's usually capitalized elsewhere. There's also the possibility that Generative Grammar refers to the Chomskyan idea in particular, and generative grammar to the general concept. I find it currently only once capitalized, depending on different editor styles. I wouldn't mind if it was consistently capitalized, though. What do you think? Weidorje (talk) 19:40, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd be for ditching all capitalization of this term, I don't see a use for it.--Megaman en m (talk) 20:56, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, done. Weidorje (talk) 14:06, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalization of generative grammar 

message: I understand that this theory is mostly obsolete and is not accepted/ proved by linguists in general anymore, but the language of the page is highly negative (with uses of words such as "so-called", for example). This feels unnecessary and the comment of Chomsky saying that "it's only a theory that will be understood later on" feels more like a personal opinion rather than anything that is pertinent to the theory itself. 267 17:06, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. For example, the neuroscience stuff from 1993 citing Kluender & Kutas seems trivial and makes it seem like the editor was trying to pile up criticisms. Overall a pretty poor article as it stands. D emcee (talk) 07:50, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

text: This theory is not "mostly obsolete." It's obviously controversial, which is how you get people saying it's obsolete, but it's still very popular in the United States, though less so in Europe. This really just adds onto your point, the "so-calleds" are strange. ZeldaGaladriel (talk) 04:05, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I removed them all. I think it is better now. Femke 01 (talk) 07:59, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality 

message: There should be plenty of criticism cited here. The paper cited at the end of the opening section, Modern language models refute Chomsky’s approach to language, is not representative of it, nor does it hold up to any scrutiny. It's not published anywhere and clearly motivated by some extra-scholastic factors. 
To serve the topic the link tries to provide: I would suggest there can even be a section disambiguating the goals and results of LLMs vs. the goals and results of human language theory. But the current article cited doesn't even address the same question the theory is attempting to: Chomsky's theory tries to answer how  do humans arrive at their grammar that produces language, whereas this paper is focused on how a different computational process simulated human language - the result, not the how. 100.2.102.27 (talk) 23:29, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove/Improve footnote 16 about refutation of theory