One of the main tasks of linguistic theory is to define what a possible human language is. In the pursuit of this end linguists seek to identify those facts, which are true of all human languages (attested or possible); generalizations that correctly describes all human languages are known as Language Universals. Any characterization of a possible human language needs to comply with such generalizations.
In this sense, the search for the universals is central to the enquiry of the nature of language. The quest for language universals should be restricted to those statements that tell something interesting about the nature of human language; but this begs a good many questions: among other things, the level of abstractions at which research should be conducted becomes an important issue. This particular issue has an important role in language universal studies. The question of explaining language universals has also contributed to the methodological and theoretical differences between the two main approaches of linguistics study: Chomskyan and Greenbergian. While Chomsky advocates the innate principles as the only comprehensive explanation, Greenbergian approach has an open mind on possible explanations considering, psychological and functional (discourse & pragmatics) factors. The Chomskyan approach to language universal is a particular description based on a theory specific meta language and constrained universal meta language as explanation. 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.
Chomskyan account:
The linguistic theory of Chomsky is based on one of the empirical facts that a subject knows linguistic facts without instruction or even without direct evidence. This predetermined knowledge is some "notion of structure", in the mind of the speaker, which guides the subject in acquiring a natural language of his own. His important hypothesis about Universal Grammar (UG) 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 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. In this context the quest for universal properties of language takes a very important character. It is the search for the universally valid principles of linguistic structure which innate UG makes available to the child at the onset of the acquisiton process.
In the context of Generative linguistics, a theory of linguistic structure should aim for explanatory adequacy (Chomsky, 1965) which incorporates an account of language universal and it attributes tacit knowledge of these universals to the child. Understood in this sense, implications for language universals are:
- They are part of internal language or I-langauge and cognitively represented.
- Since universals are part of I-langauge, they must be abstract.
- Linguistic universals will not be falsifiable by the actual diversity of languages and will be sufficiently rich and explicit to account for the rapidity and uniformity of language learning.
- The study of language universals is the study of the properties of any generative grammar for a natural language. Particular assumptions about language universals may pertain to either the syntactic, semantic, or the phonological component, or to interrelations among the three components.
- In Generative linguistics there is no sense to say that a statement is near universal. Universals are either part of UG or not. Therefore, universals must hold absolutely and be true of all languages.
- In Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965), Chomsky classifies language universals as formal or substantive. Substantive universals concern the vocabulary for the description of language. They generalize about language categories:
- Categories that must be present in each human language (e.g. vowel, noun)
- Set of all possible categories available in any human language (e.g. ±voiced, ±uvular)
In his 1981account of linguistic theory, Chomsky states that absolute universals need not to be learned. Mastery of a language is not learning these principles. Rather, being equipped with UG (with its parameter) and exposed to language, the child constructs the grammar of his language. Our ability to speak is based on- the innate principles, parameters available in UG and the triggering experience of exposure to a specific langauge. When the parameters are fixed in one of the permitted ways, a particular grammar is determined: the ‘core’ grammar of that language. In a highly idealized picture of language acquisition UG can be taken to be a characterization of the child’s pre-language initial state. As the child grows up, he/she goes on learning new words through out their lives. In addition, we also learn certain less usual construction of the language. These exceptional or marked patterns of the language are not taken to be part of core grammar. They belong to the marked ‘periphery’ of the language and may be acquired later.
The next stage of development in Generative paradigm is the Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1995). Here the main concern of theoretical linguistics is to devise a theory of grammar. According to generativists, a theory of grammar must satisfy four criteria. One obvious criterion is universality, in the sense that a theory of grammar must enable us to devise a descriptively adequate grammar for every natural language: in other words, the ultimate goal is to develop a theory of Universal Grammar. The other conditions to be fulfilled are explanatory adequacy, restrictability (the theory should be constrained so that it can be used only to describe natural language) and learnability (theory must provide grammar which are learnable by young children via relatively short period of time). A related requirement is that linguistic theory should provide grammar which makes use of minimal theoretical apparatus, in other words, grammar should be as simple as possible. In fact, Minimalist Program is motivated to minimize the complex structure and principles of 1980s syntax and the acquisition burden placed on the child and thereby maximize the learnability of natural language grammars. The program assumes that the langauge (I-language) has two components: a computational component and a lexicon. The computational system takes elements from the lexicon and form structural descriptions (SDs). The SD provides information about the properties of each linguistic expression, including its sound (PF) and meaning (LF). These two levels must satisfy three basic conditions of adequacy:
- It must be universal in the sense that any actual or potential human language or meaning of an expression is representable within it.
- It must be an interface, in that its elements have an interpretation in terms of sensory motor systems for PF and for LF, elements have an interpretation in terms of other systems of the mind/brain involved in thought.
- It must be uniform, in that its interpretation is uniform foe all languages, so as to capture all and the only properties of the system of languages as such.
Besides this the program also seeks an explanation for the uniformity and rapidity in the pattern of child language development. The answer is the claim of possessing a biologically endowed language faculty, the defining characteristics of which are the universals of human language, because, if we are making the assumption that the language faculty does not vary from one human being to another, those innately determined aspects of language faculty will also be universal. As it has been stated above that a theory of grammar should be restrictive. Universal principles should constrain the range of grammatical operations permitted in a language. One such universal is Structure Dependency Principle (all grammatical operations are sensitive to the grammatical structure of the sentences they apply to). These universals have important implications for the nature of the language acquisition process. This model vastly reduces the complexity of acquisition process. The learning task is further simplified since parameters are characterizable in a series of binary choices. The model also explains why children manage to learn the relative order (suppose, of head & complements) in a language in such a rapid and free fashion.
Explanation:
- Innateness is the only explanation for language universals having assumed that to speak a natural language we need:
- Deep Structure (DS)
- Intermediate structures
- Surface Structure (SS)
- Rules of transfer from DS to SS
- Innateness is justified as an explanation for universals on the ground that the evidence children have available through the language they hear around them is insufficient for them to develop a complex, abstract grammar, which underlies any language.
- Rules are subject to complex and abstract constraints and having observed that children acquire any language (as L1) easily it seems to be a necessary conclusion that crucial abstract principles of Transformational-Generative Grammar are innate.
These innate principles are neutral with respect to differences among languages, i.e. they are universal. That is, language universals are innate ideas that facilitate L1 learning.
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