2. is a theory in
linguistics, usually
credited to Noam
Chomsky,
proposing that the
ability to learn
grammar is hardwired into the
brain.
3. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR (UG)
The theory suggests that linguistic ability manifests itself
without being taught and that there are properties that all
natural human languages share. It is a matter of observation
and experimentation to determine precisely what abilities are
innate and what properties are shared by all languages.
4. • Linguist Noam Chomsky made the argument
that the human brain contains a limited set of
rules for organizing language. In turn, there is
an assumption that all languages have a
common structural basis. This set of rules is
known as universal grammar.
CHOMSKY'S
THEORY
• Chomsky has stated "I think, yet the world
thinks in me", which exemplifies the fact that
he believes that since humans have
undergone evolution and have been created
by nature, that Universal Grammar is a
biological evolutionary trait, and therefore
common to all humans.
5. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR (UG)
• Speakers proficient in a language know what expressions are
acceptable in their language and what expressions are
unacceptable. The key puzzle is how speakers should come to
know the restrictions of their language, since expressions which
violate those restrictions are not present in the input, indicated
as such. This absence of negative evidence—that is, absence
of evidence that an expression is part of a class of the
ungrammatical sentences in one's language—is the core of
the poverty of stimulus argument. For example, in English one
cannot relate a question word like 'what' to a predicate within
a relative clause (1):
• (1) *What did John meet a man who sold?
6. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR (UG)
• Such expressions are not available to the language learners,
because they are, by hypothesis, ungrammatical for speakers of
the local language. Speakers of the local language do not utter
such expressions and note that they are unacceptable to
language learners. Universal grammar offers a solution to the
poverty of the stimulus problem by making certain restrictions
universal characteristics of human languages. Language learners
are consequently never tempted to generalize in an illicit fashion.
7. ETYMOLOGY:
• The concept of universal grammar has
been traced to the observation of Roger
Bacon, a 13th-century Franciscan friar and
philosopher, that all languages are built
upon a common grammar. The expression
was popularized in the 1950s and 1960s by
Noam Chomsky and other linguists
8.
9. • "In cracking the code of language, . . .
children's minds must be constrained to pick
out just the right kinds of generalizations from
the speech around them. . . . It is this line of
reasoning that led Noam Chomsky to propose
that language acquisition in children is the key
to understanding the nature of language, and
that children must be equipped with an innate
Universal Grammar: a set of plans for the
grammatical machinery that powers all
human languages.
10. This idea sounds more controversial than it
is (or at least more controversial than it
should be) because the logic of induction
mandates that children make some
assumptions about how language works in
order for them to succeed at learning a
language at all. The only real controversy is
what these assumptions consist of: a
blueprint for a specific kind of rule system,
a set of abstract principles, or a
mechanism for finding simple patterns
(which might also be used in learning
things
other
than
language)."
11. • "Generative grammarians believe that the human species evolved a
genetically universal grammar common to all peoples and that the
variability in modern languages is basically on the surface only."
(Michael Tomasello, Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory
of Language Acquisition. Harvard Univ. Press, 2003)
12. • "There is a broad measure of agreement that the following are
universal:
• - some lexical categories (noun and verb);
- structure-dependency;
- phrases containing a head of the same type as the phrase;
- a phrase structure consisting of Specifier, Head, and Complement.
UG theory accepts that languages may deviate to some degree from the
universal pattern. A language user's competence is said to consist of a core
grammar of universal principles and parameters and a periphery of features
specific to the language in question, which cannot be explained by reference
to UG. They might be survivals from an earlier stage of the language, loans
from other languages or fixed idioms."
(John Field, Psycholinguistics: The Key Concepts. Routledge, 2004)
13. • "I and many fellow linguists would estimate that we only have a
detailed scientific description of something like 10% to 15% of the
world's languages, and for 85% we have no real documentation at
all. Thus it seems premature to begin constructing grand theories of
universal grammar. If we want to understand universals, we must
first
know
the
particulars."
(K. David Harrison, linguist at Swarthmore College, in "Seven
Questions for K. David Harrison." The Economist, Nov. 23, 2010)
15. The presence of creole languages is sometimes
cited as further support for this theory,
especially
by
Bickerton’s
controversial
language bio program theory.
16. CREOLE LANGUAGES
• Creoles are languages that are developed and formed
when different societies come together and are forced to
devise their own system of communication. The system used
by the original speakers is typically an inconsistent mix of
vocabulary items known as a pidgin. As these speakers'
children begin to acquire their first language, they use the
pidgin input to effectively create their own original
language, known as a creole. Unlike pidgins, creoles have
native speakers and make use of a full grammar.
17. • According to Bickerton, the idea of universal grammar is
supported by creole languages because certain features
are shared by virtually all of these languages.
For example,
their default point of reference in time (expressed by bare
verb stems) is not the present moment, but the past. Using
pre-verbal auxiliaries, they uniformly express tense, aspect,
and mood. Negative concord occurs, but it affects the
verbal subject (as opposed to the object, as it does in
languages like Spanish). Another similarity among creoles is
that questions are created simply by changing a declarative
sentence's intonation, not its word order or content.
