ABSTRACT
This chapter gives a description of some of the work in diachronic generative syntax. It begins with some general remarks on the relationship between historical linguistics and generative linguistics and, because Universal Grammar is crucial for a generative account of language change. The chapter considers the major contributions of generative grammar to historical linguistics. Historical linguistics and generative grammar have had an uneasy relationship. Proponents of generative grammar love data that are elicited from native speakers and that is impossible in historical linguistics. In the 1950s, Chomsky’s generative grammar introduces an alternative to the then current behaviourist models of language acquisition and the structuralist models of language description. Chomsky’s work in the 1950s inspired a formal approach to linguistics. The early generative phonology is fairly abstract with lots of rules. Most sound change is seen as change in the phonological rules, either by rule loss, addition, and restructuring/ simplification.
