Everything about Universal Grammar totally explained
Universal grammar is a theory of
linguistics postulating principles of
grammar shared by all languages, thought to be innate to humans (
linguistic nativism). It attempts to explain language acquisition in general, not describe specific languages. Universal grammar proposes a set of rules intended to explain
language acquisition in
child development. The application of the idea to the area of
second language acquisition (SLA) is represented mainly by the
McGill University linguist
Lydia White.
Some students of universal grammar study a variety of grammars to abstract generalizations called
linguistic universals, often in the form of "If X holds true, then Y occurs." These have been extended to a range of traits, from the phonemes found in languages, to what word orders languages choose, to why children exhibit certain linguistic behaviors.
as they considered issues of the
Argument from poverty of the stimulus to arise from the
constructivist approach to linguistic theory. The contrasting school of thought is known as
functionalism.
History
The idea can be traced to
Roger Bacon's observation that all languages are built upon a common grammar, substantially the same in all languages, even though it may undergo accidental variations, and the 13th century
speculative grammarians who, following Bacon, postulated universal rules underlying all grammars. The concept of a universal grammar or language was at the core of the 17th century projects for
philosophical languages.
Charles Darwin described language as an
instinct in humans, like the upright posture
The idea rose to notability in modern linguistics with theorists such as
Noam Chomsky and
Richard Montague, developed in the 1950s to 1970s, as part of the "
Linguistics Wars".
Chomsky's theory
Linguist Noam Chomsky made the
argument that the
human brain contains a limited set of rules for organizing language. In turn, there's an assumption that all languages have a common structural basis. This set of rules is known as
universal grammar.
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
poverty of stimulus argument. For example, in English one can't relate a question word like 'what' to a predicate within a relative clause (1):
(1) *What did John meet a man who sold?
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 don't utter such expressions and note that they're 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.
The presence of
creole languages is cited as further support for this theory. These languages were developed and formed when different societies came together and devised their own system of language. Originally these languages were
pidgins and later became more mature languages that developed some sense of rules and
native speakers.
The idea of universal grammar is supported by the creole languages by virtue of the fact that all or most of these languages share certain features. Syntactically, they use
participles to form future and past tenses and multiple negation to deny or negate. Another similarity among creoles is that a question can be implemented by changing
inflection rather than changing words.
Criticism
Some linguists oppose the universal grammar theory.
Geoffrey Sampson maintains that universal grammar theories are not
falsifiable, arguing that the grammatical generalizations made are simply observations about existing languages and not predictions about what is possible in a language.
Some feel that the basic assumptions of Universal Grammar are unfounded. Another way of defusing the
poverty of the stimulus argument is if language learners notice the absence of classes of expressions in the input and, on this basis, hypothesize a restriction. This solution is closely related to
Bayesian reasoning. Elman et al. argue that the unlearnability of languages assumed by UG is based on a too-strict, "worst-case" model of grammar.
James Hurford argues that the postulate of a "
language acquisition device" essentially amounts to the trivial claim that languages are learnt by humans, and that the LAD isn't a theory so much as the
explanandum looking for theories.
The
Pirahã language has been claimed by the linguist
Daniel Everett to be a counterexample to Universal Grammar, showing properties allegedly unexpected under current views of Universal Grammar. Among other things, this language is alleged to lack all evidence for
recursion, including
embedded clauses, as well as
quantifiers and
color terms. Some other linguists have argued, however, that some of these properties have been misanalyzed, and that others are actually expected under current theories of Universal Grammar. While most languages studied in that respect do indeed seem to share common underlying rules, research is hampered by considerable
sampling bias. Linguistically most diverse areas such as tropical
Africa and
America, as well as the diversity of
Indigenous Australian and
Papuan languages have been insufficiently studied. Furthermore,
language extinction apparently has affected those areas most where most examples of unconventional languages have been found to date.
Neurological evidence
Recent evidence suggests part of the human brain (crucially involving
Broca's area, a portion of the left inferior frontal gyrus), is selectively activated by those languages that meet Universal Grammar requirements.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Universal Grammar'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://universal_grammar.totallyexplained.com">Universal grammar Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
