The deep grammatical structures of our thoughts give rise to the surface level structures that make up our everyday speech. We present here what may approach this deep grammar. A grammatical schema consist of grammatical variables [...] and conceptual variables (...). The values of grammatical variables are further grammatical schemas, and the values of conceptual variables are specific concepts. The grammar below generates a large part of our natural language thought. We assume that the grammatical schemas at issue are physical arrangements that are configured somewhat as they are drawn in the two figures below.

Consider, for example, the proposition (the mayor gave a speech that was unpopular). The generation of the structure of this proposition can be written as the following sequence:

[prop]
[subj][pred]
((the)(noun))((verb)[subj])
((the)(noun))((verb)((some)(noun)[prop,x]))
((the)(noun))((verb)((some)(noun)([subj,x][pred])))
((the)(noun))((verb)((some)(noun)((it,x)((be)(adjc)))))
((the)(mayor))((gave)((a)(speech)((that)((was)(unpopular)))))

An important feature of the generation of propositions is the dynamic allocation of the values of the grammatical variables. To see this dynamic allocation in progess Click here.

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 Copyright 2003, A. vander Nat. All rights reserved. Email avande1@luc.edu. 08-2003