generative grammar

generative grammar

noun Linguistics.
1.
a linguistic theory that attempts to describe the tacit knowledge that a native speaker has of a language by establishing a set of explicit, formalized rules that specify or generate all the possible grammatical sentences of a language, while excluding all unacceptable sentences. Compare transformational grammar.
2.
a set of such rules.

Origin:
1955–60
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Generative grammar is always a great word to know.
So is syntax. Does it mean:
the study of the rules for the formation of grammatical sentences in a language
the part of a sentence that communicates new information about the topic
Collins
World English Dictionary
generative grammar
 
n
Compare transformational grammar a description of a language in terms of explicit rules that ideally generate all and only the grammatical sentences of the language

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
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