Debating Grammar Pt. 3: grammar vs. Grammar”
February 20th, 2009 | View Comments
Eagle-eyed blog readers may notice that in my previous posts about grammar, I did not capitalize “grammar” except at the beginning of sentences and in the titles. This is because in the world of linguistics, there is a difference between “grammar” and “Grammar”.
grammar with a small g, refers to language specific patterns and structures.
Grammar with a capital G, refers to Universal Grammar.
Universal Grammar, often noted as UG, is another contribution to linguistics made by Chomsky.
But what is universal grammar? It is Chomsky’s theory that there are certain principles about language that are found in all languages and innate to humans. Through it, he attempts to explain the fact that newborns have an ability to learn any language, so long as the environment for it is provided.
The most compelling evidence for UG is the existence of creole languages. Creoles are formed when two or more languages’ vocabularies are blended together for communication’s sake. This first version forms a pidgin, which is highly unstable and unsystematic. Often it is just the “bare bones” of a language. No inflections, no affixes, no case markers, gender markers, very basic SVO (subject-verb-object) syntax, etc.
However, after a generation or more, the children of pidgin speakers pick up the pidgin as their first language. They apply structural elements to it. This more structured version, with native speakers, is called a creole.
Since the parent language was lacking in inflection, prefixes, suffixes, case markers, etc. How did they get into the creole? Parents of creole speakers often do not apply the creole structures themselves, so the native speakers of creoles could not have been taught syntax or morphology.
These are my arguments for the existence of grammar. Feel free to add your thoughts to this ongoing debate.
Peter posted this on February 20th, 2009 @ 1:45pm in Grammar | Permalink to "Debating Grammar Pt. 3: grammar vs. Grammar”"
American-born Taiwanese girl who married a Japanese guy. And who forgot about six years' of Spanish grammar and most of the vocab.
E-mail Yvonne
nerissa
celiviel
yvonnekao
Korean-American girl who blogs under a Spanish pseudonym because being culturally confusing is fun. Native speakers say that she has outstanding Spanish (which is a definite compliment) and outstanding German (which is most assuredly not).
Elenita
American-born, Taiwanese guy who took five semesters worth of German and ended up with a major in Linguistics.
Subscribe
I think the World needs a spoken lingua franca as well.
I notice that Barack Obama wants everyone to learn another language, but which one should it be? The British learn French, the Australians study Japanese, and the Americans prefer Spanish. Yet this leaves both Mandarin Chinese and Arabic out of the equation.
Why not decide on a neutral non-national language, taught worldwide, in all nations?
An interesting video can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LV9XU
Evidence can be seen at http://www.lernu.net