REPRESENTATION OF AUXILIARIES (AND MODALS) IN SUCCESSIVE MODELS OF GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

Abstract

This paper is an assessment of the class of verbs known as auxiliaries within the linguistic framework of Generative Grammar. Largely scientific in approach, a number of linguists within its scholarly precincts have lent their voices to its study since its Chomskyian emergence in the late 1950s, leading to different versions. Some of these include, among others: Transformational Grammar, Standard Theory, Revised Extended Standard Theory, Relational Grammar and the Minimalist Program. The descriptive survey method, which is a research approach that is used to gather data about a particular phenomenon or population, was adopted for this assessment. As such the study’s data was sourced from existing discussions and views expounded by the main proponents of Generative Grammar, including particularly model sentences represented in tree diagrams, which were used for analysis. From the assessment, it was observed that auxiliaries are generally categorized as a sub-set of verbs, and not a different lexical category. This is because they are represented as part of the Verb Phrase (VP) in the majority of the different versions of Generative Grammar, except the x-bar model in which modals are categorized as a separate class of items from both the non-modals and the main verbs. It is concluded that auxiliaries should be treated as a component part of the verb phrase, a position that is attested to in various models of Generative Grammar.