Universal Grammar and Language Acquisition Device

Universidad de Santiago de Chile

Facultad de Humanidades

Departamento de Lingüística y Literatura

Teoría Gramatical I

June 2014

Universal Grammar

and Language

Acquisition Device.

Authors:

Geraldine Lara

Valeria Pérez

Director:

Horacio Miranda

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Universal Grammar and Language Acquisition Device.

Table of contents.

1 Introduction..........................................................................................................3

2 Theoretical background......................................................................................4

2.1 Chomsky........................................................................................................4

2.2 Generative grammar......................................................................................4

2.3 Innate theory..................................................................................................6

3 Body......................................................................................................................7

3.1 Communication and Language......................................................................7

3.2 Universal Grammar (UG)...............................................................................8

3.3 Language Acquisition Device (LAD)............................................................12

3.4 Chomsky’s review of Skinner’s verbal behaviour........................................13

4 Summary...........................................................................................................15

5 Activities...........................................................................................................16

6 Conclusions.....................................................................................................18

7 References........................................................................................................19

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1. Introduction.

This paper will delve into the issues of Universal Grammar (UG) and

Language Acquisition Device (LAD) presented by the great Noam Chomsky.

It is important to be able to understand every one of the points that are

developed in here. For this reason basic concepts are defined in order to clarify

what we are talking about.

The aim of this is to present data collected through intensive research, with

some examples and quotes from the same author of these theories and others. For

which purpose, the information is presented in a way that facilitates the

understanding for those who have never heard about these issues.

Also, activities for eventually developing in a classroom are attached at the

end of this paper.

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2. Theoretical Background.

2.1 Noam Chomsky.

Avram Noam Chomsky had born on December 7, 1928. He is an American

linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, logician, political commentator and activist

who is commonly consider “Father of modern linguistics.” Besides his work in

linguistics, Chomsky is internationally recognized as one of the most critically

engaged public intellectuals alive today.

Chomsky is a prolific author whose principal linguistic works after Syntactic

Structures (1957) include Current Issues in Linguistic Theory (1964), The Sound

Pattern of English (with Morris Halle, 1968), Language and Mind (1972), Studies on

Semantics in Generative Grammar (1972), and Knowledge of Language (1986),

among others. (The Noam Chomsky Website)

Chomsky is also a very important linguist because he created a revolution.

As one linguist remarked: "The extraordinary and traumatic impact of the publication

of Syntactic Structures by Noam Chomsky in 1957 can hardly be appreciated by

one who did not live through this upheaval" (Maclay, 1971)

2.2 Generative linguistics.

It is a school within linguistics whose centre is the "Generative Grammar",

which in turn means that innumerable syntactic combinations can be generated by

means of a complex series of rules. This term is attributed to Noam Chomsky

(1957).

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The term "Generative linguistics" is often applied to the version of Chomsky's

transformational grammar, in which Chomsky distinguishes two grammatical

sentence structures: a surface, linked to the phonetic aspect of these sentences;

and a deep structure that rules refers to deep linguistic competence of an individual

in a particular language. Those rules transform a sentence with a given grammatical

structure into a sentence with a different grammatical structure but the same

essential meaning.

For example: John saw Mary Mary was seen by John.

The basic ideas of the models included in this school have their origin in the

"Standard Theory” (1957–1965) formulated by Noam Chomsky. The common core

of all generative models would be trying to design a formal device which allows

describing, analyzing and specifying the natural language sentences in a general

way.

Chomsky built on earlier work of Zellig Harris to formulate the generative

theory of language. This set of rules is called Universal Grammar, and for Chomsky

describing it is the primary objective of the discipline of linguistics. While formulated

as a way to explain how human beings acquire language and the biological

constraints on this acquisition.

Generative linguistics has two important brunches: Acquisition and Learning,

where the first is referred to a subconscious process which is implicit in a natural

environment (native speakers) and in the other hand, Learning is referred to a

conscious process which is explicit and given in a non natural environment (foreign

language).

This school is in contrast with the previous one (Structuralism) because the

first studies the human capacity to generate an potentially number of sentences with

a finite number of elements for subsequently doing the so called performance of the

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language. In the other hand, Structuralism studies the form and function with total

exclusion of meanings of the language’s phrases.

(Searle, 1972)

2.3 Innate theory.

The general question asked in this theory is: How one can claim to know

something when one does not even know what knowledge is? The answer to this

question is Innateness. The claim is that one does not need to know what

knowledge is before gaining knowledge, but rather one has a wealth of knowledge

before ever gaining any experience.

Chomsky formulated something that accounting for the gap between

knowledge and experience, a new term that he called “Plato’s problem”. Plato was

the first one who thinks in how do knowledge and experience interact so he wrote a

dialogue (Meno) in which he theorizes about the relationship between these two

concepts and provides and explanation for how it is possible to know something that

one has never been taught. Plato believed that we posses innate ideas that precede

any knowledge that we gain through experience. Shortly, Chomsky refers to a point

in the Meno dialogue when Socrates is talking with an uneducated servant and

shows that this one knows the Pythagorean Theorem though he has never been

explicitly taught any geometry. How does the servant know without been taught?

Plato’s suggestion is that people have innate knowledge.

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3. Body.

3.1 Communication and Language.

In order to somehow be able to explain and to fully understand the main

content of this paper (which will take place below) it is necessary to define basic

concepts that are involved: What is communication? What is language? How do

these two concepts relate to each other?

In an article titles “The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did

it evolve?” (2002) Chomsky and others present 3 hypotheses for how language

evolved and brought humans to the point where we have a UG:

1. States that the Faculty of Language in the Broad sense is strictly

homologous to animal communication. This means that homologous aspects of the

Faculty of Language exist in non-human animals.

2. States that the Faculty of Language in the Broad sense is a derived,

uniquely human adaptation for language. This hypothesis believes that individual

traits were subject to natural selection and came to be very specialized for humans.

3. States that only the Faculty of Language in the narrow sense is unique

to humans. It believes that while mechanisms of the faculty of language in the broad

sense are present in both humans and non-humans animals, that the computational

mechanism of recursion is recently evolved solely in humans.

The last one of this three is the hypothesis that most closely aligns to the

typical theory of UG championed by Chomsky.

In simple words: “Communication” is the meaningful exchange of information

between two or more participants (human and non-human) through sounds,

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gestures, movements, etc., those things constituent isolated signals to transmit very

specific messages. On the other hand, “Language” is the human capacity for

acquiring and using complex systems of communication.

But now, have you ever wondered: Where does language come from? Are

we born with it or is a large learning process? How and when we really acquire

language? Is it a conscious or subconscious process?

3.2 Universal Grammar (UG).

The term Universal Grammar (commonly known as UG) is the name that

Noam Chomsky gives, as the very name implies, to those grammatical features that

are shared by all derivations of human language.

It says that the ability to learn grammar is manifested by itself without being

taught. Rather than this aspect of UG being specific to language, it is more

generally a part of human cognition because UG determines what abilities are

innate and what properties are shared by them.

UG proposes that if human beings are brought up under normal conditions

(this is not conditions of extreme sensory deprivation), they will always develop

language with a certain property X. And if X holds true, then Y occurs.

For example: A property X can be distinguishing nouns from verbs or

distinguish function words from content words. Also, in the second case, if a

language has a word for blue, it will have a word for green.

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The idea of UG can be traced back to Roger Bacon’s observations (all

languages are built upon a common grammar even though it may undergo

accidental variations), the 13th century speculative grammarians (who postulated

universal rules underlying all grammars), the 17th century projects for philosophical

languages (in which the concept of a UG was at the core), the Scottish school of

universal grammarians from the 18th century (that created an article on “Grammar”

in the 1st edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica which contains an extensive

section titles “Of UG”), with Chomsky and Montague the idea rose to notability in the

1950s to 1970s but in contrast, during the early 20th century, language was usually

understood from a behaviourist perspective. (Wikipedia)

Also, Universal Grammar involves 3 factors:

1. GENETIC ENDOWMENT : Sets limits on the attainable languages, thereby

making language acquisition possible. (Universal grammar in the first theoretical

sense).

2. EXTERNAL DATA : Converted to the experience that selects one or another

language within a narrow range. (Linguistic data to which the child is exposed).

3. PRINCIPLES NOT SPECIFIC TO FL: FL is the faculty of language, whatever

properties of the brain cause it to learn language.

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(Hariyanto, 2011)

Chomsky's theory proposes that the human brain contains a predefined

mechanism (UG) that is the basis for the acquisition of all languages. “In analogy,

the brain can be thought of as a kind of partially programmed machine ready to be

configured”. (Tronolone) So, Chomsky says that a person individual grammar is

developed from the interaction between the innate UG and the input from the

environment (primary linguistic data):

(McGilvary, 2005)

Chomsky has stayed “I think, yet the world thinks in me”. This is an evident

example of his theory: humans are natural beings and have undergone evolution

(UG) common to all humans. One way to approach this concept is posing a

hypothetical question: Why does a child learn the language the way it does?

If we come back to Plato’s problem: the problem of finding and explanation

for how a child acquires language though the child does not receive explicit

instruction and the input a child receives is limited, we will be able to identify a

limited environmental stimulus referred to a Poverty of stimulus. This means that

natural language grammar is unlearnable given the relatively limited data available

to children learning a language, and therefore that this knowledge is supplemented

with some sort of innate linguistic capacity. And also humans are born with a

specific representational adaptation for language that both funds and limits their

competence to acquire specific types of natural languages over the course of their

cognitive development and linguistic maturation.

The Poverty of stimulus arguments attempts to explain how native speakers

form a capacity to identify possible and impossible interpretations through ordinary

experience. Essentially, stimulus (from the environment necessary to develop an

UG + input = Grammar.

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individual’s grammar via UG) is not an entirely adequate way to explain the process

of learning. Therefore, human beings must have some form of innate linguistic

capacity that provides additional knowledge to language learners.

For example: Consider that a child might hear this:

Who do you think that Jack will kiss first?

Who do you think that Jack will kiss first?

From this, the child might determine that the word “that” is optional and

analogize to the following sentence.

Who so you think that will kiss Jill first?

Who so you think that will kiss Jill first?

Clearly, the second example is not grammatically well-formed but How does

the child know, without being taught that the ungrammatical example is, in

fact, ungrammatical? From the Chomsky’s perspective the answer is that

some knowledge pre-exist as part of UG.

Speakers in a language know which expressions are acceptable in their own

language and which are unacceptable but How speakers come to know these

restrictions of their language since expressions that violate those restrictions are not

present in the input? Chomsky argued that this Poverty of stimulus means Skinner’s

behaviorism perspective is wrong because it cannot explain this. But, in the other

hand, UG offers a solution to this problem by making certain restrictions universal

characteristics of human languages.

A further support for the Chomsky’s UG theory is the presence of Creole

Languages not only because are formed and developed when different societies

come together and are forced to devise their system of communication to create a

new one, but also because Creole Languages makes use of a full grammar. In

simple words, the system acquire by the speakers of the new language (Creole) is a

subconscious mix of vocabulary which effectively create their own original

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language.

3.3Language Acquisition Device (LAD).

Chomsky asserts that in the brain exists an innate device to acquire

languages. This is what he called “Language Acquisition Device”, which allows

people learning and using the language almost instinctively; and is essentially

identical in all speakers, which is the basis of communicative ability, and also in

itself is a brain mechanism present in all humans: this means that language is

acquired because humans are biologically programmed to do so, regardless of the

degree of difficulty of the language.

Chomsky says that children do not need any kind of learning to acquire

language, because it is obtained and developed based on each person scheduled

mechanism, which begins to develop immediately when exposed to the

environment. So, the exposure to the language used in your environment is the only

requirement needed to acquire language.

Besides the language acquisition device, Chomsky states that children born

with the basic structure of language internalized, which is something innate in all

humans (Universal Grammar).

For Example: A Child of Argentine parents who is born in China would have

the same capacities and facilities to acquire Chinese as a mother tongue as

any other child with Chinese parents, because the environment facilitates the

acquisition of this language. Also is important to say that not because his

parents are Argentine means that the child is pre-programmed to learn the

language of their parents (Spanish), in fact his brain is not programmed to

learn Spanish but any other language of the world. So, it is possible to say

that language is not a matter of inherited but rather an innate capacity in

every person.

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As the same Chomsky said: “We are designed to walk... that we are taught to

walk is impossible. And pretty much the same is true of language. Nobody is taught

language. In fact, you can’t prevent the child from learning it”. (The Human

Language Serie 2, 1994)

3.4Chomsky’s review of Skinner’s Verbal Behaviour.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner published a book called “Verbal Behaviour” (1956)

in which he analyses the human behaviour, specifically covering language. Based

on it, he specifies that language is no more than a behaviour brought under the

same variables than any other controllers of an operating behaviour.

For him, verbal behaviours can be classified as mand, tact, echoic. Mand is a

verbal operant in which the response is reinforced by a characteristic consequence

and under the functional control of relevant conditions of deprivation or aversive

stimulation. (Jurnal Linguistik Terapan.) In other words, the person will repeat the

verbal behaviour.

For example: “take it”—if the command or demand is met by other person.

The book ''Verbal Behaviour'' is almost theoretically complete, involving little

experimental research in the work itself. In response to this book, Noam Chomsky

published an article called “A review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behaviour'' (1959).

Chomsky reviews were and are more popular and more known than the Skinner's

book, who never answered the criticisms of Chomsky. In this article Chomsky

wanted to prove that behaviourism was wrong in explaining the emergence,

acquisition and development of language. Behavioural strategy, therefore, was an

inadequate and a wrong way to understand everything about the human language.

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The central part of this review says that the circumstances in which the

Skinner's experiments were realized could easily take the animals to achieve what

is wanted from them (in the laboratory), losing credibility because under normal

circumstances and, in contrast, daily life the answers could be totally different,

besides saying that Skinner used experiments as scientific evidence to explain the

language but the experiments were performed on animals and not on humans

beings who are those that possess language:

[Skinner]...utilizes the experimental results as evidence for the

scientific character of his system of behaviour and analogical guesses

(formulated in terms of a metaphoric extension of the technical vocabulary of

the laboratory) as evidence for its scope. This creates the illusion of a

rigorous scientific theory with a very broad scope although, in fact, the terms

used in the description of real-life and of laboratory behaviour may be mere

homonyms with at most a vague similarity of meaning. To substantiate this

evaluation, a critical account of his book must show that with a literal reading

(where the terms of the descriptive system have something like the technical

meanings given in Skinner's definition) the book covers almost no aspect of

linguistic behaviour, and that with a metaphoric reading, it is no more

scientific than the traditional approaches to this subject matter, and rarely as

clear and careful. (Chomsky N. , 1959)

Besides, Behaviourist perspective suggests that language learning could be

explained by a succession of trials, errors, and rewards for success like any other

kind of learning. That is to say children learn their mother tongue by simple

imitation, listening and repeating what adults said. (Tool Module: Chomsky’s

Universal Grammar, 2010)

For example: When a child says “apple” and the mother will smile and give

him some apple as a result, the child will find this outcome rewarding,

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enhancing the child’s language development.

4. Summary.

To help the understanding of this research, we create a diagram and a brief

explanation, which summarizes all the information presented above.

The aim of linguistic theory is to describe the initial state of this faculty and

how it changes with exposure to linguistic data. Chomsky (1981)

characterizes the initial state of the language faculty as a set of principles

and parameters.

LAD consists in setting these open parameter values on the basis of

linguistic data available to a child.

The initial state of the system is a UG.

Noam Chomsky

Generative Linguistics

Learning

Tree structure diagrams

Deep structure

Surface structure

Acquisition

Innate theory

UG

Poverty of stimulus

Creole Language

LAD

Plato's problem

Skinner's Verbal

Behaviourist≠

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Grammar constitutes the knowledge of particular languages that result when

parametric values are fixed.

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5. Activities.

1. Do as requested:

1.1 Fill in the gaps with the correct word.

A. Noam Chomsky is an ____________, ____________, ____________, etc.

B. Behaviourist theory was proposed by ____________.

C. Innate theory was proposed by ____________.

D. _____________ is the human capacity for communication.

E. Chomsky is the _____________ of modern linguistics.

F. _________________________ is the grammatical features that are shared

by all derivations of human language.

1.2. State if the following sentences are true (T) or false (F).

A. ( ) The Language acquisition device is innate in people, animals and plants.

B. ( ) Chomsky was agreeing with Skinner's theory.

C. ( ) Verbal Behaviour was published in 1956.

D. ( ) Universal grammar stipulates that it is necessary a stimulus and a

response, among others.

E. ( ) Chomsky distinguishes two grammatical sentence structures (surface

and deep structures).

F. ( ) Structuralism is the school to which Chomsky belongs.

American linguist – Skinner – Philosopher – Language – Chomsky –

Cognitive scientist – Father – Universal Grammar.

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2. To really understand the difference between Skinner's model and

Chomsky's model, the following activities will be performed:

2.1 Repeat after the exponents: (Skinner: Repetition)

.

Amor (Love):

Eu te amo. (I love you)

Você me ama. (You love me)

Nós amamos. (We love each other)

2.2 Make a phrase as the used in number 1, with the following words:

(Chomsky: Innate capacity)

Example: Eu te odeio.

Odeio: (hate) .

I hate you __________________________________________________

You hate me _______________________________________________

We hate each other __________________________________________

Adoro (adore) .

I adore you ________________________________________________

You adore me ______________________________________________

We adore each other __________________________________________

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6. Conclusions.

At the end of this paper it can be concluded that the theories of Noam

Chomsky are very useful in this days because they allow us to understand many

questions about how different languages are learned and how these interact

between themselves.

In our personal opinion, we believe that Chomsky is right when he talks about

the innate ability we all have to learn whatever language is in front of any of us but

we also consider necessary the intervention of the environment in order to achieve

an adequate language development.

For example: if we compare a person who knows English versus a person

who also knows English but it has never been implemented because this

person has not interacted with other person who speaks the same language,

eventually we will find different results considering the degree of the

language evolution that has taken place over the years.

For this reason, we also think that it is necessary to include a part of

Skinner's theory in terms of acquire and develop a language, because we believe

that is necessary to have someone who teach you how to speak and make

repetitions to be able to understand and learn, despite we have in our brains the

LAD. Furthermore we think that with a little of these two theories we can understand

this complex thing called language acquisition. To clarify this aim we create a

diagram:

SkinnerBehaviourist

ChomskyInnate

capacity

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7. References.

Chomsky, N. (1959). A review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior.

Chomsky, N. (1957). Syntactic Structures.

Chomsky, N. (1994). The Human Language Serie 2.

Chomsky, N., D. Hauser, M., & S. Fitch, W. (2002). The faculty of language: what is

it, who has it, and how did it evolve? SCIENCE'S COMPASS .

Cruse, D. (n.d.). Chomsky and the Universal Grammar.

Hariyanto, S. (2011). SLA MAJOR THEORETICAL VIEWS: Putting the Jigsaw

Pieces Together.

Jurnal Linguistik Terapan. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://jlt-polinema.org/?tag=innatist

Maclay, H. (1971). Overview.

McGilvary, J. (2005). The Cambridge Companion to Chomsky.

Searle, J. R. (1972). Chomsky's Revolution in Linguistics.

The Noam Chomsky Website. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.chomsky.info/index.htm

Tool Module: Chomsky’s Universal Grammar. (2010). Retrieved from

http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/capsules/outil_rouge06.html

Tronolone, C. (n.d.). Quine: terms in translation.

Wikipedia, T. F. (n.d.). Universal Grammar. Retrieved from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_grammar#History

Wilson, A. (n.d.). Poverty of Stimulus and Ecological Laws. Retrieved from

http://psychsciencenotes.blogspot.com/2010/03/poverty-of-stimulus-and-

ecological-laws.html

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Universal Grammar and Language Acquisition Device