THE MODEL OF UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR BY NOAM CHOMSKY
Noam Chomsky, a noted linguist and philosopher, has had a profound impact on the
understanding of syntax and its relationship to the psychology of language. His theory,
known as Generative Grammar, revolutionized the way researchers and academics
think about human language. Chomsky proposed that the ability to acquire and use
language is innate in humans, meaning that all individuals are born with a biological
predisposition to learn and understand language.
Initially, Chomsky proposed that language development could be explained by the
Universal Grammar. This idea proposes that there is an underlying structure common
to all languages, the Universal grammar. This theory suggests that, despite the
superficial differences between languages, they all share fundamental principles that
are innate in the human mind. This implies that human beings not only learn language
through imitation or repetition, but also use rules and mental structures that allow them
to generate new and complex sentences.
In the realm of syntax, Chomsky introduced key concepts such as the distinction
between deep and surface structure of sentences. Deep structure refers to the
abstract representation of a sentence, which contains its essential meaning, while
surface structure is the way in which that sentence is expressed in a particular
language. This distinction is crucial to understanding how speakers can manipulate
and transform sentences without losing their underlying meaning. For example:1.
Deep structure: "The dog bites the man." - This sentence has a deep structure that
represents the relationship between the subject (the dog) and the object (the man)
and the action (biting).2. Surface structure: "Man is bitten by the dog." - This is a
different way of expressing the same idea, where the word order has been changed
and a passive construction has been used, but the underlying meaning (deep
structure) remains the same. In summary, although surface structures may vary
between different languages or grammatical constructions, deep structure reflects the
fundamental meaning they share.
Chomsky also developed the concept of "transformations", which are rules that allow
a deep structure to be converted into different surface structures. Here are some
examples:
1. Passive Transformation: In an active sentence such as "The dog bites the man", the
deep structure can be transformed into a passive sentence: "The man is bitten by the
dog". Here, the subject and the object change places, and the verb adapts to the
passive form.
2. Question Transformation: To transform an affirmative sentence such as "The child
eats an apple" into a question, you can apply the inversion transformation: "Does the
child eat an apple?" In this case, the verb is placed before the subject.
3. Negation Transformation: In the affirmative sentence "She goes to the movies," you
can apply the denial transformation to get "She doesn't go to the movies." Here, the
word "no" is added to change the meaning of the sentence.
4. Movement Transformation: In the sentence "The book I read is interesting", it can
be transformed into "What is the book I read?". In this case, the interrogative element
is moved to the beginning of the sentence. These transformations are part of
Chomsky's approach to understanding how different surface structures can be derived
from the same deep structure, reflecting the complexity and richness of human
language.
More recently, Chomsky propsed two additional factors are considered crucial for the
acquisition of language: experience and third factors. Experience is the source of
language variation. The linguistic environment where a child is raised shapes the deep
structure of sentences to have a specific surface structure. In other words, Universal
Grammar give us the deep structure while Experience give us the surface structure of
sentences.
Finally, he also proposed external factors, what he called Third factors. These factors
include principles about reasoning and conditioning, such as hypothesis formation,
induction and deduction processes in addition to instrumental conditioning. The
research has found that all that processes are important in linguistic learning.
From the perspective of language psychology, Chomsky's theories have led to
increased interest in how humans process language in real time. Researchers have
begun to explore how Chomsky's theories, especially his concept of generative
grammar, have influenced the understanding of language acquisition and processing.
Chomsky proposed that humans are born with an innate ability to learn language,
which has led to studies on how this predisposition manifests itself in language
development in children.
BIBLIOGRAFY
Birchenall, L. B., & Müller, O. (2014). La Teoría Lingüística de Noam Chomsky: del Inicio a
la Actualidad. Lenguaje, 42(2), 417–442. https://doi.org/10.25100/lenguaje.v42i2.4985
Chomsky, N. (2005). Three Factors in Language Design. Linguistic Inquiry, 36(1), 1–22.
Linguistic Inquiry, 36(1), 1–22.
Yang, C., Crain, S., Berwick, R. C., Chomsky, N., & Bolhuis, J. J. (2017). The growth of
language: Universal Grammar, experience, and principles of computation. Neuroscience
and Biobehavioral Reviews, 81, 103–119.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.12.023
