- "Universal grammar (UG), in modern linguistics, is the theory... usually credited to Noam Chomsky."
A study of universal features of language that are present across all languages, such as grammar and syntax.
Phonetics and Phonology: The study of sound patterns and systems in human language.
Morphology: The study of the internal structure of words, including how they are constructed and how they interact with other words in a sentence.
Syntax: The study of grammatical structures and rules governing the formation of sentences.
Semantics: The study of meaning in language, including how words and phrases are used to convey different shades of meaning in various contexts.
Pragmatics: The study of how language is used in social interactions and the contextual factors that shape communicative meaning.
Typology: The study of how different languages are classified based on their structural and typological features, such as word order, morphology, and syntax.
Universal Grammar: The theory that there are innate linguistic structures and principles that underlie all human languages.
Language Acquisition: The study of how children acquire language, including the role of genetic predispositions, cognitive mechanisms, and social interactions.
Language Evolution: The study of the origins and history of human language and how it has evolved over time.
Language Contact: The study of how languages interact and influence each other, including the emergence of creole languages and language borrowing.
Linguistic Diversity: The study of the variation and diversity of human languages and the social, cultural, and historical factors that have shaped them.
Cognitive Linguistics: The study of language as a reflection of human cognition, including how our conceptual structures and mental processes shape the structure and use of language.
Phonemic Universals: These refer to the universal sound distinctions made across all human languages, such as between consonants and vowels.
Syntactic Universals: These refer to the universal grammatical rules governing the structure of sentences across all languages, such as the use of subject-verb-object word order.
Semantic Universals: These refer to the universal meanings of certain words or concepts across all languages, such as the distinction between "past" and "present" tenses.
Morphological Universals: These refer to the universal ways in which words are formed through the use of prefixes, suffixes, and other affixes across all human languages.
Lexical Universals: These refer to the universal meanings of individual words or base morphemes across all languages, such as the concept of "water" or "mother.".
Pragmatic Universals: These refer to the universal ways in which language is used to communicate, such as through the use of tone or gesture.
Cultural Universals: These refer to the universal features of human culture that influence the way in which language is used, such as norms of politeness or taboos around certain words.
Cognitive Universals: These refer to the universal ways in which the human mind processes and organizes language, such as through the use of schemas or mental models.
Historical Universals: These refer to the universal patterns of language change and evolution over time, such as through the process of language contact or borrowing.
Typological Universals: These refer to the universal patterns or tendencies observed in the distribution of linguistic features across different languages, such as the prevalence of certain sound or grammatical structures in different typological categories.
- "The basic postulate of UG is that there are innate constraints on what the grammar of a possible human language could be."
- "When linguistic stimuli are received in the course of language acquisition, children then adopt specific syntactic rules that conform to UG."
- "The advocates of this theory emphasize and partially rely on the poverty of the stimulus (POS) argument..."
- No direct quote provided in the paragraph.
- "However, the latter has not been firmly established..."
- "...as some linguists have argued languages are so diverse that such universality is rare..."
- "...the theory of universal grammar remains controversial among linguists."