Kernel sentences are simple, active, declarative sentences containing no modifiers or connectives used in making more elaborate propositions. Did Chomsky define it in a different way at all? What examples could substantiate the direction of the answer?
I always took it to mean the basic meaning units so e.g. I went home could be expanded to Yesterday, when it was raining I went home but the basic main clause would be the kernel??
I suppose, in the pre-deep structure stage of Generative Grammar, it is the phrase structure before the first transformation (Chomsky, Syntactic Structures, ch. 5.5). It's essentially what you say, but to my knowledge, this is nowhere mentioned explicitly.
In his book Syntactic Structures ( 1957) Chomsky defined a kernel sentence as the sentence which involves only obligatory transformational rules and no optional rules. For eample, John likes music'
Involves only Obligatory T-rules such as subject-verb agreement and affix hopping and is a kernel sentence.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Linguistics