This involves presenting a native speaker with a series of sentences and having them decide whether the sentences are grammatical (acceptable) or ungrammatical (unacceptable). For example: The man is happy. Happy man is the. A native speaker would judge the first sentence to be acceptable and the second to be unacceptable.

These rules allow for the combination of elements in a language to form new expressions. For example, a generative rule might state that a verb must be followed by a subject, such as “John runs.” This rule would be used to generate sentences like “John runs quickly,” “John runs slowly,” and “John runs to the store.”