Universal Grammar and language universals

Principles and Parameters Model

• proposed by Chomsky (1980)

• an attempt to explain what linguistic knowledge consists of and how it is acquired

• it is a further development of the theory of UG

“Universal Grammar may be thought of as some system of principles, common to the species and available to each individual prior to experience” (Chomsky, 1981, p. 38).

Universal Grammar

• UG is a restrictive system

• principles – universal, invariant properties of all human languages

• parameters – account for cross-linguistic variation; they are abstract rules that exhibit different values across different languages.

• The process of parameter setting leads to the construction of a core grammar where all relevant UG principles are instantiated (unmarked features).

• Parameter setting takes place through receiving and processing the input.

• The final steady state of language development does not comprise only the knowledge of UG but also pragmatic competence, the knowledge of peripheral grammar and lexis (marked features, outside the theory).

Language universals

• Submitted by Chomsky (1965) and Comrie (1981)

• Language universals are innate ideas, the same for every child irrespective of the language of her parents or remote ancestors.

• substantive formal

(vowels, nouns, NPs) (inversion)

• Due to the knowledge of language universals, the child can acquire any language effortlessly, depending on the language community she is brought up in.

• implicational non-implicational

(VSOÞprepositions) (vowels in languages)

• absolute tendencies

(no exceptions) (allow exceptions)

• The two distinctions can be combined.

• absolute non-implicational: all languages have vowels

• absolute implicational: if a language has VSO basic word order, then it has prepositions, e.g. Irish Fhaca me mo mháthair. sa teach

• implicational tendencies: if a language has SOV as its basic word order, it will probably have postpositions, e.g. Turkish

sen-in için

you-GEN for

ev-emiz-in arka-sin-da

our house behind

• non-implicational tendencies: nearly all languages have nasal consonants; 2.3% of languages contain no nasals, e.g. Chimakuan, Salish, and Wakashan.

• non-implicational tendencies: in 4% of languages front vowels are rounded, e.g. Hungarian, Turkish, German, French, Finnish, Estonian