ABSTRACT
ThenotionofTRANSFORMATIONhasbeenimplicitinlinguisticstudies forcenturies,butthetermitselfisrelativelynew.Itwasfirstusedby Harrisintheearly1950s,andlaterconsiderablyextendedby(his pupil)Chomsky.Basically,ithasbeenusedtorefertosituations wherethereisacomplexrelationshipbetweentheexpression aspectofalinguisticelementanditsmeaningorfunction.Ina linguist'sparadiseeverylinguisticelementwouldhaveaseparate singlemeaninganditspositioninthesentencewouldmakeits contributiontothemeaningunequivocal;inpractice,languageisso complexthatasinglemeaningmayhavemultiplerealization,a singlegrammaticalpatternmayhavevariantmeanings,grammaticallylinkeditemsarenotalwaysadjacentt·Jeachother(recallour discussionofdiscontinuousconstituentsinchapter6),andingeneralgrammaticalcomplexitycannotalwaysbeaccommodatedsimplyintermsofbracketedconstructionswithlabelledconstituents.
