What is "transformational grammar"

n. (context linguistics English) A generative grammar, especially of a natural language, developed in the Chomskyan tradition of phrase structure grammars (as opposed to dependency grammars), and involving the use of defined operations called transformations to produce new sentences from existing ones.

In linguistics, a transformational grammar or transformational-generative grammar (TG, TGG) is a generative grammar, especially of a natural language, that involves the use of defined operations called transformations to produce new sentences from existing ones. The concept was originated by Noam Chomsky, and much current research in transformational grammar is inspired by Chomsky's Minimalist Program.