Generative metrics[a] is the collective term for three distinct theories of verse structure (focusing on the English iambic pentameter) advanced between 1966 and 1977.
Inspired largely by the example of Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures (1957) and Chomsky and Morris Halle's The Sound Pattern of English (1968),[1] these theories aim principally at the formulation of explicit linguistic rules that will generate[b] all possible well-formed instances of a given meter (e.g. iambic pentameter) and exclude any that are not well-formed.
In addition, the Stress Maximum "lap", since it occurs on a W position, violating (ii)-3, should get a third underline, rendering the line unmetrical.
[10] Derek Attridge has pointed out the limits of the generative approach; it has “not brought us any closer to understanding why particular metrical forms are common in English, why certain variations interrupt the metre and others do not, or why metre functions so powerfully as a literary device.”[11] Generative metrists also fail to recognize that a normally weak syllable in a strong position will be pronounced differently, i.e. “promoted” and so no longer "weak."
They similarly propose that iambic pentameter consists of a 10-position line of Odd and Even slots: However, in other meters these slots retain their identities of odd = "not metrically prominent" and even = "metrically prominent", so that (for example) trochaic tetrameter has the structure: They then label each syllable in the verse line, according to the presence (+) or absence (-) of 4 linguistic features: Word Onset, Weak, Strong, Pre-Strong.
"[14] Their revised theory claims to generate the vast majority of canonical English iambic pentameter using only 2 features — Strong (ST) and Pre-strong (PS) — and only 2 Base Rules constraining neighboring syllables in E O slots:[15] with the limitation that these Base Rules do not apply across line-juncture or major syntactic boundary.
"[17] However, Derek Attridge considers that David Chisholm's modification of Magnuson–Ryder — along with Kiparsky's theory — "capture the details of English metrical practice more accurately than any of their [generative] predecessors".
[19] Though retaining the now-familiar 10-position line, he reintroduces metrical feet (a concept explicitly denied by other generative metrists) by "bracketing" Weak and Strong positions: Furthermore, Kiparsky's account "is based on a specific theory of English stress elaborated by Liberman and Prince (1977) as a counter-proposal to Chomsky and Halle's Sound Pattern of English.