generative grammar

noun Linguistics.

a linguistic theory that attempts to describe the tacit knowledge that a native speaker has of a language by establishing a set of explicit, formalized rules that specify or generate all the possible grammatical sentences of a language, while excluding all unacceptable sentences. Compare transformational grammar.
a set of such rules.

Origin of generative grammar

First recorded in 1955–60

Words nearby generative grammar

generation xl, generation y, generation z, generative, generative cell, generative grammar, generative phonology, generative semantics, generative-transformational grammar, generativist, generator

British Dictionary definitions for generative grammar

generative grammar

noun

a description of a language in terms of explicit rules that ideally generate all and only the grammatical sentences of the language Compare transformational grammar