ABSTRACT

Wehaveseeninchapter4thatagenerativegrammarpresupposes notonlyaninventoryofthesentencesofalanguage,butalsoa grammaticaldescriptiontogowitheachsentence.Buthowcanthe validityofthesedescriptionsbeensured?Howcanweevenknow whatthemost appropriatemodeofrepresentationisforgrammaticaldescriptions,treediagrams,listsoffeaturesorwhateverelse? Theonlysuremethodistoscrutinizethesentencesandcarefully examinetherelationsbetweenthemandtherelationsbetweentheir parts.Grammaticaldescriptionsneedtobejustified,andtheonly wayofjustifyingthemisbyakindofgrammaticalanalysis.Thereis, ofcourse,noautomaticwayofhittinguponcorrectgrammatical descriptions,buttheleastweshouldaimforisthat,whenwearrive atadescription,wehavesomewaysofshowing whyitisareasonabledescription.