CHOMSKY’S GENERATIVE GRAMMAR AND HALLIDAY’S SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR: TWO SIDES OF A COIN IN SENTENCE ANALYSIS

Chinelo J. Ezekulie, Maryam Julde-Adura

Abstract


This paper makes a comparative study of the approaches adopted by Chomsky’s Generative Grammar and Halliday’s Systemic Grammar in the analysis of English sentences with a view to ascertaining their significant differences and similarities. The imperative for the comparison derives from the popularity enjoyed by these two theories among grammarians and researchers. The specific areas examined are their positions on sentence generation, rank scale, thematic roles, category levels, endocentricism of the head of a phrase/group, deep and surface structure, models for representing syntactic structures, and levels of language. The study reveals that each of these two influential linguistic theories has its unique contributions to sentence analysis which cannot be totally dwindled by the merits of the other theory. It concludes that the two theories are complementary to each other given that the seeming weaknesses of one theory are remedied by the other.

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