Universal grammar is a theory of linguistics postulating principles of grammar shared by all languages, thought to be innate to humans. It attempts to explain language acquisition in general, not describe specific languages. This theory does not claim that all human languages have the same grammar, or that all humans are "programmed" with a structure that underlies all surface expressions of each and every specific human language. Rather, universal grammar proposes a set of rules that would explain how children acquire their language(s), or how they construct valid sentences of their language. Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. ... For the topic in theoretical computer science, see Formal grammar Grammar is the study of rules governing the use of language. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... In linguistics, a sentence is a unit of language, characterized in most languages by the presence of a finite verb. ...

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. A linguistic universal is a statement that is true for all languages. ...

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 in them 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. Later linguists who have influenced this theory include Noam Chomsky, Edward Sapir and Richard Montague, developing their version of the theory as they considered issues of the Argument from poverty of the stimulus to arise from the constructivist approach to linguistic theory. The application of the idea to the area of second language acquisition (SLA) is represented mainly by the McGill University linguist Lydia White. For the Nova Scotia premier see Roger Bacon (politician). ... Speculative grammar is a fourteenth-century movement in medieval philosophy, which assumed that the analysis of the grammar of ordinary language was the key to metaphysics. ... It has been suggested that Vorlin be merged into this article or section. ... Avram Noam Chomsky (Hebrew :אברם נועם חומסקי Yiddish: אברם נועם כאמסקי) , Ph. ... Edward Sapir. ... Richard Merett Montague (1930–1971) was an American mathematician and philosopher. ... The Argument from Poverty of the Stimulus (or APS) is the common name for a popular argument in favour of linguistic nativism. ... McGill University is a publicly funded, co-educational research university located in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. ... Lydia White is a leading figure in the area of second language acquisition (SLA). ...

Grammar and the brain

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.^[1] Brocas area is the section of the human brain (in the opercular and triangular sections of the inferior frontal gyrus of the frontal lobe of the cortex) that is involved in language processing, speech production and comprehension. ...

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 is an assumption that all languages have a common structural basis. This set of rules is known as universal grammar. Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. ... Avram Noam Chomsky (Hebrew :אברם נועם חומסקי Yiddish: אברם נועם כאמסקי) , Ph. ... A sketch of the human brain by artist Priyan Weerappuli, imposed upon the profile of Michelangelos David. ...

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 cannot relate a question word like 'what' to a predicate within a relative clause (1): The manner in which a child acquires language is a matter long debated by linguists and child psychologists alike. ...

(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 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.

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. A creole language, or simply a creole, is stable language that originated from a non-trivial combination of two or more languages, typically with many features that are not inherited from any parent. ... A pidgin, or contact language, is the name given to any language created, usually spontaneously, out of two or more languages as a means of communication between speakers of different tongues, and usually a simplified form of one of the languages. ... First language (native language, mother tongue) is the language a person learns first. ...

The idea of universal grammar is supported by the creole languages by virtue of the fact that such languages all share certain features. Each language, syntactically, uses participles to form future and past tenses and multiple negation to deny or negate. Another similarity is that by changing inflection rather than changing words, a question can be implemented. Inflection of the Spanish lexeme for cat, with blue representing the masculine gender, pink representing the feminine gender, grey representing the form used for mixed-gender, and green representing the plural number. ...

Criticism

Some linguists oppose the universal grammar theory; it is outspokenly opposed by Geoffrey Sampson, who maintains that it is possible for children to learn a language without being born with grammatical rules. Sampson believes 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. Geoffrey Sampson is Professor of Natural Language Computing in the Department of Informatics, University of Sussex, England. ... This page discusses how a theory or assertion is falsifiable (disprovable opp: verifiable), rather than the non-philosophical use of falsification, meaning counterfeiting. ...

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. The poverty of the stimulus (POTS) argument is an argument in favour of linguistic nativism, which is the claim that humans are born with a specific adaptation for language that both funds and limits their competence to acquire specific types of natural languages over the course of their cognitive development... Bayesian inference is statistical inference in which evidence or observations are used to update or to newly infer the probability that a hypothesis may be true. ...

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.^[2] 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.^[3] 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^{[citation needed]}. The Pirahã language is a language spoken by Pirahã people of Brazil. ... Daniel Everett is a linguistics professor at the University of Manchester. ... A visual form of recursion known as the Droste effect. ... A dependent clause (or subordinate clause) cannot stand alone as a sentence. ... In language and logic, quantification is a construct that specifies the extent of validity of a predicate, that is the extent to which a predicate holds over a range of things. ... Color is an important part of the visual arts. ... In general, a sample is a part of the total, such as one individual or a set of individuals from a population (of people or things), a small piece or amount of something larger, a number of function values of a function, or part of a song. ... A world map showing the continent of Africa Africa is the worlds second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. ... World map showing the Americas CIA political map of the Americas The Americas are the lands of the Western hemisphere or New World consisting of the continents of North America[1], Central America and South America with their associated islands and regions. ... The Australian Aboriginal languages comprise several language families and isolates native to Australia and a few nearby islands, but by convention excluding Tasmania. ... The term Papuan languages refers to those languages of the western Pacific which are neither Austronesian nor Australian. ... It has been suggested that Moribund language be merged into this article or section. ...

See also

• Language
• Broca's area
• Universal Networking Language
• Principles and parameters

Brocas area is the section of the human brain (in the opercular and triangular sections of the inferior frontal gyrus of the frontal lobe of the cortex) that is involved in language processing, speech production and comprehension. ... In machine translation, Universal Networking Language (UNL) is an artificial pivot language, that relies on the semi-automatic translation from the initial text in a natural language into its pivot equivalent. ... Principles and parameters refers to a popular framework in generative linguistics. ...

Notes

1. ^ Musso, et al., Broca's area and the language instinct
2. ^ Everett, Daniel L. "Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã: Another Look at the Design Features of Human Language." Current Anthropology 46.4 (2005): 621-646.
3. ^ Nevins, et al., Pirahã Exceptionality: a ReassessmentPDF.

Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for desktop publishing use. ...

References

• Baker, Mark C. The Atoms of Language: The Mind's Hidden Rules of Grammar. Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 019860632X.
• Chomsky, N. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. MIT Press, 1965. ISBN 0-262-53007-4.
• Elman, J., Bates, E. et al. Rethinking innateness. MIT Press, 1996.
• Sampson, G. The "Language Instinct" Debate. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005. ISBN 0826473849.
• Tomasello, M. Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Harvard University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-674-01030-2.
• Window on Humanity. A Concise Introduction to Anthropology. Conrad Phillip Kottak. Ed. Kevin Witt, Jill Gordon. The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 2005
• White, Lydia. "Second Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar". Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-521-79647-4
• Zuidema, Willem. How the poverty of stimulus solves the poverty of stimulus. "Evolution of Language: Fourth International Conference", Harvard University, March 2002.