31 Universal Grammar and the Theory of Principles and Parameter

Dr. Vamshi Krishna Reddy

Learning Outcome

This module introduces the basics of the Universal Grammar and the Theory of Principles and Parameter. While outlining the theoretical framework of Noam Chomsky, the module discusses various components of language and language acquisition. Multiple-choice exercises will help readers in assessing their knowledge and understanding the debates and discussion around Universal grammar.

Introduction

Linguists, right from early 20th century, theorized language acquisition and human ability to speak from the behaviourist perspective. They, therefore, argued that language learning is similar to any other kind of learning, could be substantiated by series of trials and errors. In a way, children acquire mother tongue by simple listening to, repeating and most importantly imitating the adults around. Hence, imitation is constituted as fundamental premise on which any language learning is played out.

However, this behaviourist perspective is contested at a later stage by the American linguist Noam Chomsky. For Chomsky, acquiring language capabilities cannot be deduced to mere formulating a stock list of responses to stimuli, because each sentence that anyone develops can be completely new combination of words. When one speaks, it is a combination of finite number of components; the words of our language, to produce an infinite number of bigger structures and sentences.

Moreover, language is regulated and governed by a number of rules, conventions and principles, especially those of syntax, that decide the order of words in sentences. The term “generative grammar” pertains to the set of rules that enables everyone to comprehend sentences of which we are generally unaware of. Most of the times, we realise the error in the sentence but cannot explain why is it so. In the same way, we tend to make grammatically correct sentences even if we are not particularly aware of the rules. It is precisely because of generative grammar that we say “that’s how you say it” instead of “how that’s you it say”, or the words such as “Bharath” and “him” does not mean the same person is in the sentence “Bharath loves him.” It should also be noted that generative grammar has nothing much to do with core grammar rules and textbooks but only indicates what is grammatically correct and incorrect in a given language. Even at the age of five, children can, without possessing any formal instructions in grammar, persistently produce and render sentences that they have never encountered before. It is this significant ability to deploy language despite of having partial exposure to the practical and permissible syntactic variants that propelled Chomsky to come up with his “poverty of the stimulus” theory, which is the foundation for the distinct approach that he contended in the early 1960s.

Contours of Universal Grammar

Universal Grammar espouses the idea that all languages, as phenomenally diverse as they are, however, share some fundamental similarities, and that these can be attributed to innate principles singular to language: that deep down, there is only one human language (Chomsky 1995: 131). This idea has generated an enormous interest in linguistics, philosophy, psychology, and other social and cognitive sciences. According to Chomsky, the reason that children so eloquently articulates the complex structures of language is that they have innate knowledge of certain principles that drive them in producing the grammar of their language. In other words, Chomsky argues that language learning is assuaged our brains which have for certain innate structures of language. All the languages in the world share certain structural properties that are common. In fact, Chomsky and other generative linguists reasoned that the more than 6000 languages in the world, despite of having different grammars, share a set of common syntactic rules and principles. These linguists strongly affirm that “universal grammar” is innate and is embedded in the neuronal circuitry of the human brain. And children choose, from all the sentences that come to their minds, only those that conform to a “deep structure” encoded in the brain’s circuits.

Universal grammar is broadly defined as a theory that consists of a set of ‘unconscious constraints’ that let us decide if a sentence is correctly structured or not. However, this phenomenon of mental grammar is not necessarily similar for all languages. According to Chomskyian theorists, the evolution by which, in any given language, some sentences are discerned as correct while others are not is independent of meaning and universal. Hence, we subsequently understand that the sentence “Bharath essay writes the” is not correct English, despite of the fact that it make sense to us and have an idea of what it means. In the same way, we understand that a sentence such as “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.” (This sentence is proposed by Noam Chomsky in his book Syntactic Structures (1957)) is grammatically correct English, even though it does not make much sense semantically.

Likewise, a child has the ability to speak any number of languages, depending upon region and country he/she is born in, and the speech is determined by the child but certain preferred, innate structures will be adopted subsequently. One of the ways to describe these innate structures is that children don’t learn things but things happened to them. This phenomenon is similar to children’s natural physical development over the years and children naturally learn to speak, and not to chirp.

Chomsky and Language Question

Until universal grammar is propounded by Chomsky in the 1960s, the empiricist school dominated the discourse on language and its acquisition among children. They argued that children minds are like blank slates and any imprint on them is possible through imitation by the peer groups as well as the adults around them. However Chomsky’s theory had impacted the way linguistics is studied and researched for a long time with the arrival of ideas of universal grammar. The established ideas of behaviorist theories have been severely challenged.

Further research in the cognitive sciences with juxtaposition with tools of linguistics, psychology, philosophy, and computer science, soon borrowed assistance to the theory of universal grammar. For instance, linguists found that children of few days old can differentiate the phonemes and seem to have an innate framework for processing the speech of the human voice. Hence, right from birth, children seem to have certain linguistic abilities that indoctrinate them not only to possess a complex language, but also to create one if required. Evolution of Pidgin language is often cited in order to explain this phenomenon. During the era of brutal slavery, the slaves who were brought from several regions to work in various plantations had different mother tongues. Therefore, they developed pidgin languages to communicate with one another. Pidgin languages are not languages in a typical linguistic sense, because they deploy words and expressions so chaotically. We find tremendous variation in word order, and importantly very little grammar. But the children of the slaves, despite of being exposed to various pidgins at very young age when they generally acquire their first language, did not imitate them. Rather, the children spontaneously introduced grammatical complexity into their speech, thus in the space of one generation creating new languages, known as creoles.

Evolution of Language

Many researchers, taking the approach of evolutionary psychology, believe that language is shaped by natural selection. They view that certain random genetic mutations are chosen over thousands of years to provide individuals with a decisive adaptive advantage. Whether this advantage facilitated by language in situations like hunting, warning of danger, or various communications remains uncertain. But, Chomsky disagrees that our linguistic faculties are possessed or as having originated from any particular selective pressure, but rather as a sort of fortuitous accident. He bases this view, among other things, on research that found that recursion; the ability to embed one clause within another, as in “the boy who was singing

yesterday had a lovely voice” might be the only specifically human component of language. As part of universal grammar, recursion is formally developed not to assist us to communicate, but rather to aid us to figure out other problems interconnected. In things such as social relations and numerical quantification, humans are not capable of deploying complex language until recursion is attached with the other motor and perceptual abilities required for this purpose. At this juncture, Chomsky and his followers argue that there is nothing to suggest that this connection is achieved through natural selection. They strongly espouse that this phenomenon is the result of some kind of neuronal reorganization.

The Minimalist Program

After 1990s, Chomsky’s research started throwing light on the idea called the “minimalist program”, which seem to exhibit that the brain’s language faculties are the minimum faculties that can be anticipated, given some external conditions that are imposed on us independently. In a way, Chomsky starts placing less focus on something such as a universal grammar embedded in the human brain, and more emphasis on a large number of plastic cerebral circuits. And as part of this the brain then proceeds to cohort sounds and concepts, and the rules of grammar that we follow automatically the consequences, or side effects, of the way that language works.

Theory of Principles and Parameters

The fundamental premise of Principles and Parameters theory is to distinguish the invariants of human language, the principles from the major points of cross linguistic variation, the parameters. Both principles and parameters are considered to manifest innately determined and biological characteristics of the human brain. In the normal course of child growth, principles and parameters diverge distinct ways. The principles component seems to function in much the same way in all children, with minimum sensitivity to their milieu, while the parameters take on unique values as a function of the child’s linguistic input.

The term parameter is usually held for points of restricted variation. The Principles and Parameters framework also recognises that languages vary in ways that are relatively unconstrained by Universal Grammar. The origins of this framework addresses two fundamental issues of modern linguistics; what exactly do you know, when you know your native language? And how did you know it? A satisfactory and probable answer to such questions must address the Poverty of the Stimulus which also includes the reality that children are not constructively rectified when they make grammatical errors. Despite of the presence of poverty of the stimulus, at the age of five, we discover “uniformity of success” at language acquisition (Crain and Lillo-Martin 1999). Barring the conditions such as isolation from natural-language input or medical abnormality, every child acquires a grammar that nearly correspond the grammar of his/her guardians. Moreover, even when a child is still engaging in the process of language acquisition, in his young age, phenomenally certain logically probable errors are observed in the child’s spontaneous speech (Snyder 2007). Thus shows clearly, children do not necessarily acquire grammar via simple trial and error learning process. Researchers working in the Principles and Parameters framework have arrived at conclusion that significant grammatical content/information must be present in the child’s brain at birth. Though several languages across the world showcase different grammars, however, the primary argument in Principles and Parameters is that the options for variation in grammar are extremely limited. In this approach, the task of the child in acquiring language is similar to ordering food in a hotel: One needs to select from the menu, not order the recipe to the chef.

Language Acquisition within a Principles and Parameters Framework

The Principles and Parameters framework is initially espoused for syntax, in the context of Government and Binding Theory (Chomsky 1981, 1986). Still, the framework is substantially more general. Firstly, this same basic architecture is applied to phonology, notably in the framework of Government Phonology (Lowenstamm, and Vergnaud 1990), and also to some extent to morphology and semantics. Secondly, recent phonological and syntactic research in the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995, 2001) and in Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 2004) considers Principles and Parameters framework seriously.

Within the framework of Principles and Parameters, research on children’s language acquisition brings lot of importance such as how in principle is the factual grammar chosen from the proposed options, using merely certain types of linguistic input that children really require for successful acquisition of language? This language acquisition research can assist to decide the types of linguistic input are (and are not) in fact necessary for children to succeed at language acquisition. Language acquisition belief within the Principles and Parameters framework dwells in testing the acquisition predictions of projected linguistic principles. Everything else being equal, if one intends that a provided component/property of language is an innate principle of Universal Grammar, then one anticipates the principle to be functional in children as early as we can test. A unique exception is discussed in the work of Hagit Borer and Ken Wexler in 1992, who argued that certain specific linguistic principles experience maturational change during childhood. For instance, Stephen Crain and Mineharu Nakayama (1987) conducted a language acquisition test of “structure dependence,” in which syntactic movement is sensible to hierarchical structure. The study examined the prediction that structure dependence, as an innate principle, ought to be operative very early. The study was carried on 3-5 year old children who are acquiring English and helped them with some prompting. Interestingly, children didn’t produce errors of the form.

Various Debates in Principles and Parameters Theory

This module puts forward two significant areas of debates within the Principles and Parameters approach to child’s acquisition of language, along with others. First is what kind of parameters are the child supposed to set? And secondly, what are the detectable consequences of an “unset” parameter? One point of dissent in the Principles and Parameters pertains to the proper construction of parameters. A classic concept that Chomsky (1986, 146) attributes to James Higginbotham, is the switchbox metaphor: Each parameter is like an electrical switch, with a small number of possible settings.

However, this is one only way out of many possibilities that parameters can work. Another radically dissimilar concept is found in Optimality Theory, which postulates a universal set of violable constraints. Instead of picking certain settings for switches in a switchbox, the learner ranks the constraints properly. The outcome is a narrowly constringent set of choices for the target grammar, as required by the Principles and Parameters framework. Another approach to parameters is to colligate them to the lexicon. This is conceptually appealing since the lexicon is independently required as a depository of information that diverges across languages. Hence, what it means to attach parameters to the lexicon is open to interpretation. Another idea is to colligate abstract grammatical variation to the paradigms of inflectional morphology. Conceptually, paradigmatic morphology is to be stored in the lexicon, and may provide access to encode parametric choices. Another appropriate example is Pierre Pica’s (1984) theory to deduce cross linguistic variation in the binding domain of a reflexive pronoun from the pronoun’s morphological shape.

Second disagreement with Principles and Parameters framework is about various concerns of the consequences of “unset” parameters. For further discussion on it, we look at the switchbox model: is a switch positioned in an intermediate, unset position? Instead, can a child sometimes arrive at ephemeral use of a setting which is not in fact deployed in the  target language? If so, what are the aftermath results for the working of the language faculty? One school of thought argues that there is no such thing as an unset parameter: Each parameter is permanently in a fixed setting, be it an arbitrary setting (cf. Gibson and Wexler 1994), or a pre-determined “default” setting (e.g. Hyams 1986). Under this condition, ephemeral mis-settings may be common throughout the period whilst language acquisition is still underway. Another school of thought by Charles D. Yang (2002) asserts that the children begin the language acquisition process not with a single grammar, but with a multitude of various grammars and each competes against one another. Each grammar agreeing to an allowable array of parameter-settings is admitted. As a result, competing values of the same parameter could be in play, at the same time. Another cross-cutting interpretation is that children might momentarily entertain non-adult parameter settings. Subsequently, children then might produce utterances that deploy a grammatical structure available in some of the world’s languages, yet not in the target. In this view, what is important is merely that the learner must eventually make it to the target parameter setting, irrespective of what parameter settings are temporarily acquired along the way. This is the learning issue that is covered by Edward Gibson and Wexler’s (1994) who cited the example of, Trigger Learning Algorithm.

In the same context, another substitute version is that the child earmarks assessment on any available parameter setting till child posses’ sufficient information to set it with authority. At the beginning, the parameter is in an unset state, however, this time the result is that none of the grammatical options attached to a specific setting of the parameter is in fact promoted by the child. Snyder (2007) takes up this interpretation when he espouses that children who are communicating spontaneously, in a natural setting, make surprisingly few of the logically expected grammatical errors.

Acquisition of language is a research area that has great potential. Principles and Parameters Framework plays a central role in any research on the human language faculty and language acquisition.

Critical Note on Chomsky’s Work

Chomsky is one of the most popular public intellectual at this moment. However, there are many scholars who contested his ideas and theories. Both his Universal Grammar and Principles and Parameters theory is immensely discussed and debated. Let us look at some of the criticism that is aimed at his work.

Chomskyians continue to affirm that language is “pre-organized” in some way or  other within the neuronal structure of the human brain, and that the milieu only constructs the configuration of this network into a specific language. Their approach and assessment thus persists drastically contrast to that of Skinner or Piaget, whose theories of language is constructed majorly via nominal interaction with everyday social environment. These behaviorist systems, in which the language acquisition is nothing but a spin-off of general cognitive progress depended on sensorimotor interaction with the world, appear to have been isolated and abandoned subsequently as the result of Chomsky’s theories.

Despite of the arguments put forwarded by biologists who undermined Chomsky preposition that it may be only the brain’s general abilities that are pre-organized, Chomsky advanced his theories with lot of passion and determination. The biologists argue that we should try to comprehend language not from the standpoint of syntax, but rather from that of evolution and the biological structures that have resulted from it. Philip Lieberman, for instance, argues that language is not an instinct encoded in the cortical networks of a “language organ”, but rather a learned skill based on a “functional language system” distributed across numerous cortical and subcortical structures. Even though Lieberman recognizes that human language system is by far superior and the most sophisticated form of communications in the world, he does not agree that it is a substantially different form, as Chomsky proclaims. He asserts no need to postulate a huge leap in evolution or a specific location of the brain that would have been the evidence of this discovery. In fact, on the contrary, he argues that language can be described as a neurological framework consisted of several distinct functional abilities.

Apart from Lieberman, Terrence Deacon and other researchers have exhibited that it is the neural circuits of the system but not certain “language organ”, that control/constitute a genetically premeditated set which commands the possible components of a language. In a way, these scholars conceive that our ancestors discovered forms of communication that are compatible with the brain’s natural abilities. And the problems latent in these natural abilities would then have illustrated themselves in the universal structures of language.

We find another theory that attempts to bring a substitute to Chomsky’s universal grammar is generative semantics, progressed by linguist George Lakoff of the University of California at Berkeley. While contesting Chomsky’s theories, for whom syntax is independent of certain components such as context, meaning, knowledge, and memory, Lakoff demonstrates that context, semantics and other components can come into play in the rules that command syntax. Moreover, metaphor, which is considered by early researchers as a mere linguistic device, turns for Lakoff a theoretical construct that is fundamental and essential to the development of thought.

Conclusion

Likewise, though there are many linguists who strongly agree with Chomsky’s universal grammar, however, put forward several conflicting positions, depending upon the linguistic and social context, especially the way universal grammar evolved over the time. For example, Steven Pinker, brings a new adaptationist theory that significantly abdicates from the theory/idea proposed by Chomsky. However, Chomsky’s theories have great impact on modern linguistics. He made study of linguistics thoroughly a scientific one. He is also considered as father of modern linguistics. His theory of Universal Grammar provides a path breaking idea that substantiates as how languages work and how do they constitute certain components, how are they so innate in every human brain and how does this innateness bring out certain principles and parameters in language acquisition of children.

Reference

• Borer, Hagit, and Ken Wexler. (1992). “Bi-unique relations and the maturation of grammatical principles.” Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 10:147-189.
• Chomsky, Noam. (1981). Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris.
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• Pinker, S. (1996). Language learnability and language development: with new commentary by the author. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.
• Prince, Alan, and Paul Smolensky. (2004). Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
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• Yang, Charles D. (2002). Knowledge and Learning in Natural Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.