Noam Chomsky is a renowned linguist who developed the theory of Universal Grammar. He believes that children are born with an innate, natural ability to learn and understand grammar that allows them to combine words like nouns and verbs into meaningful sentences, regardless of where they are raised. Chomsky's theory of Universal Grammar holds that there is grammatical information hardwired in the brain that facilitates language acquisition in children during a critical period between birth and puberty. His views diverged from behaviorists like B.F. Skinner who believed language is a result of conditioning and psychologists like Jean Piaget who linked language to cognitive development.

1. Universal Grammar(UG) by
Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky the radical linguist born in Philadelphia on
7 December 1929.
He was inspired by his father’s work as a Hebrew scholar,
Noam Chomsky studied his work and began teaching
linguistics in 1955.His teaching lead him to formulate
ground braking theories related to children’s language
development.

2. Notable work
• Feb,1957. published his first work “syntactic
structure.
• 1966,published aspects of the theory of
syntax
• 1966,topics in the theory of generative
grammar.
• 1966 ,Cartesian linguistics, a chapter in the
history of linguistic thought.

3. Universal grammar theory
• Chomsky believes that children will never require the knowledge to
process an infinite number of sentences if the language acquisition
mechanism was dependent on language input alone.
• The theory of universal grammar was proposed suggesting that all
children are born with ability to acquire ,develop and understand
grammar regardless of where they are raised noun/verb category
• Universal grammar holds the grammatical information needed in
order to combine categories of language such as verb and nouns in
to phrases.
• Children have the natural ability to combine nouns and verbs in to a
correct and meaningful order.

4. Critical period of language
• The critical period in which children learn
language the most effectively take place
between birth until puberty.
• Chomsky believes that children pass through a
linguistic alertness stage, where the ability to
understand language has the capability to
influence them during later period.

5. Language acquisition in children
• Language acquisition is a process that requires
children to understand implicit rules that help
spread knowledge of language.
• Chomsky believes that language is used to
express, ideas, messages and emotions therefor,
it is subject to constant modification and revision
by others.
• Children make-up and use their own language
until they become familiar with the proper way to
use words and sentences.

6. contd
• Chomsky says God has designed the human
brain with the innate capacity to learn
language.

7. Challenges to Chomsky theory
• Chomsky views are different than those of
other behaviourist B.F Skinner who believed
that language is result of conditioning and
those of psychologist Jeon Piaget who thought
that language acquisition is related to a child's
cognitive development.
• Constructivist also believe that children are
sensitive to pattern in language.

8. How can we benefit from learning
about Noam Chomsky's UG theory.
• We learn and understand how language is
developed from a young age.

9. The End