I don't have a copy of _Syntactic Structures_, and it's been a lot of years
since I read it, but Dennis's memory sounds familiar. In his _Aspects of the
Theory of Syntax_ (which I do have), Chomsky gives his meaning of
"generative grammar" as follows: "A system of rules that in some explicit
and well-defined way assigns structural descriptions to sentences" (8). This
seems far more direct to me than the mathematical definition.

Paul E. Doniger
The Gilbert School

----- Original Message -----
From: Dennis s. Lebofsky <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2001 7:08 AM
Subject: Re: generative grammar


> My understanding is that the term <generative> derives from the aim of the
> grammar to "generate" (i.e., produce) all the possible grammatical
> sentences of English.  I don't have my copy of <Syntactic Structures>
> handy but would bet that Chomsky makes some such statement early in the
> work.
> Dennis Lebofsky, Temple University
>
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