Generative grammar

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Generative grammar is a theoretical approach in linguistics that regards grammar as a domain-specific system of rules that generates all and only the grammatical sentences of a given language. In light of poverty of the stimulus arguments, grammar is regarded as being partly innate, the innate portion of the system being referred to as universal grammar. The generative approach has focused on the study of syntax while addressing other aspects of language including semantics, morphology, phonology, and psycholinguistics.^[1][2]

As a research tradition, generative grammar began in the late 1950s with the work of Noam Chomsky.^[3] However, its roots include earlier structuralist approaches such as glossematics.^[4] Early versions of Chomsky's approach to syntax were called transformational grammar, with subsequent variants known as the government and binding theory and the minimalist program.^[5][6] Recent work in generative-inspired biolinguistics has proposed that universal grammar consists solely of syntactic recursion, and that it arose recently in humans as the result of a random genetic mutation.^[7]