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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.


generative grammar

noun

  1. a description of a language in terms of explicit rules that ideally generate all and only the grammatical sentences of the language Compare transformational grammar


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Word History and Origins

Origin of generative grammar1

First recorded in 1955–60

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Example Sentences

He called the rules of this device universal grammar, and his method of studying the rules he called generative grammar.

I sensed that I found a symbol for generative grammar, and I worked on the [theory of] recursivity in my animation.

So, geometry elaborates a lot on recursivity in generative grammar.

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generative cellgenerative phonology