The “grammar” in Universal Grammar: A biolinguistic clarification

Abstract

This short piece addresses the confusion over terminology that has reigned, and partly still reigns, when it comes to the concept of Universal Grammar (UG). It is argued that whilst there might be changes in terminology and theory, conceptually UG cannot be eliminated. From a biolinguistic perspective, UG is not a hypothesis by any rational epistemological standard, but an axiom. Along these lines, the contemporary evolutionary perspective on the language faculty (FL) is briefly discussed to then argue that UG is necessarily part of FL in both a narrow and broad sense. Ultimately, regardless of terminology, UG is inevitably one of the factors determining the growth of FL.Keywords: Universal Grammar (UG), Faculty of Language (FL), I-language, language universals, minimalism, evolution of language, biolinguistics, cognitive science IntroductionDespite having been in active use by (mostly generative) linguists for a long time, the technical term Universal Grammar (UG) has led to ample confusion amongst linguists and non-linguists alike. As a consequence, Boeckx and Benítez Burraco (2014) have supplanted the label UG with talk about the "language-ready brain." Yet, conceptually, nothing has changed: A language-ready brain is a brain shaped by UG. In turn, UG is defined as genetic endowment with regard to language (Chomsky, 2005) and is one of the factors influencing the initial growth and further development of the human language faculty (FL). This short piece addresses the confusion over the "grammar" in UG because both, terminology and the concept of UG, have been subject to a multitude of debates and misunderstanding. Confusion over terminologyWith regard to terminology, UG was labelled as such as an homage to the ideas expressed in the Grammaire générale et raisonnée, the Port-Royal grammarians, and the Western philosophical tradition associated with them (in this context see McGilvray, 2009, pp. 24-35). Originally, the term UG was used by (mainly generative) linguists to denote whatever it turns out to be that humans bring along to the process of language acquisition. It was understood that the properties of FL are ' [...] determined by the nature of the mind' (Chomsky, 1967, p. 9). Decades after the cognitive revolution (Miller, 2003), presumably due to the success of Government and Binding theory (Chomsky, 1981(Chomsky, /1988, the term UG acquired a narrower and more specific meaning, denoting merely the genetic endowment enabling language growth (this change in terminology is critically evaluated by Boeckx and Leivada, 2014; for a more general summary of discussions on the past and present of UG also see Irurtzun, 2012, as well as the 2014 Language Sciences special issue).Generally speaking, the label UG has lead to ample confusion. Non-linguists as well as researchers who oppose the "biolinguistic research agenda" (Hauser and Bever, 2008) kind of a "theoretical biology" (Sklar, 1968) would often take the term Universal Grammar literally, thus interpreting it to imply that there in fact are aspect...

Biolinguistics: A Scientometric Analysis of Research on (Children’s) Molecular Genetics of Speech and Language (Disorders)

“…In another work by Bolender [ 43 ], however, biolinguistics inspiration is used in conjunction with calculi as an attempt to consolidate the link between biolinguistics and natural sciences through Merge and language recursive operation. Other works can be classified as primarily linguistic based, falling within the subfield of syntax; for instance, Trettenbrein’s [ 44 ] work on UG as an axiom and not a hypothesis or the work of Brody’s [ 45 ] on one-dimensional syntax. This is beside works investigating language acquisition such as Feeney’s [ 46 ] work on dual-processing and Rahul and Ponniah’s [ 47 ] work on incidental vocabulary learning.…”

A Variety of Turkish in Mid-south Turkey: Arabic-Turkish Inter-language

“…The dominance of Universal Grammar studies (Flynn, 1987;White, 1990;Cook, 1997;Trettenbrein, 2015) in second language acquisition has downgraded the importance of cultural, social and psychological factors in this field. These studies often emphasized the significance of biological factors for several decades resulting in lending support to merely children" effortless acquisition of first or second language.…”