| Let us take
up one more example to illustrate a particular rule of
English syntax which can be said to be part of the knowledge
or competence of a native speaker of English. Consider
the following two sentences: |
|
(2) Sita turned down my suggestion.
(3) *Sita turned the street down. |
|
| Not that
sentences (2) and (3) look very much alike in structure
though they have different meanings. Sentence (2) means
that 'my suggestion was not acceptable to Sita' and sentence
(3) means that 'Sita took a turn at the end of the street'.
Now a moment's reflection will tell you that the structure
of sentence (2) and (3) is not as similar as we thought
it to be. For instance corresponding to (2) we can have
(2a) with the same meaning. But corresponding to (3) we
cannot have (3a) which is indicated by an astreik before
it. |
|
(2a)
Sita turned my suggestion down.
(3a)
* Sita turned the street down. |
|
| We can explain
the structural difference between (2) and (3) in the following
manner. In (2) the word down is a verb participle which
goes with the verb turned. But in sentence (3) down is
not a verb particle. It is a prepositions which goes with
the noun phrase the street. The grammar of English has
a rule by verbal position to the end of a clause as in
sentence (2a). But this rule of particle movement cannot
be applied to a preposition as is clear from the ungrammaticality
of (3a). |
|
| These are
then some of the subtle types of structural details which
constitute the knowledge of native speakers. A grammar
should be able to capture the knowledge that a native
speaker depicts in the use of his languages. |
|
| Let us now
consider the second position, namely how does one get
to possess such a knowledge. One thing that is very clear
is that all normal children show an excellent knowledge
of the rules of their grammar at a remarkably young age.
Yet the system of rules underlying human language is so
complex and subtle that it is not likely that the child
acquires it purely from the speech input that he receives
from his surroundings. Let us take a concrete example.
In the spontaneous speech of Deepa a bilingual Tamil-Telugu
child the following utterances were found to occur, when
she was 1 year 7 months old: |
|
(4) ammaa taataa ceppi poodaam
mother Tata having said let us go
'Let us go saying Tata to mother' |
|
(5) kaallaa tappal pooti taataa pooyi
aykiim vaangi….
feet chappal having put on tata having gone ice cream
having bought
'putting on chappals, saying good bye, buying ice cream……..'
|
|
| The above
sentences are examples of participle clauses which are
very common in Indian languages. The structure of these
sentences involves a main clause having a finite form
of the verb, that is a verb form inflected for number,
gender and person agreement. In addition to the main clause
there can be a number of subordinate clauses consisting
of a participle or nonfinite form of the verb. Generally
in such sentences the subject of the main clause and that
of the subordinate clause(s) are identical. Once these
conditions are met it is theoretically possible to have
any number of subordinate clauses in such a sentence.
The question now it how did the child come to know that
in participle sentences the number of subordinate clauses
can be unlimited and need not necessarily be confined
to one or two. In fact it is likely that the instances
of participle sentences which the child had actually heard
from his interlocutors contained subordinate clauses not
exceeding two or three at most. In other words, principles
of rules of grammar are quite abstract in surface or spoken
form of the sentences that the children hear. Chomsky
therefore proposes that children must be guided by some
innate linguistic principles in the task of acquiring
their native language. |
|
| Another
problem in accepting the position that a child's grammar
is fully derivable from the input received is that it
is not that the child hears only well formed sentences
from the adults. The adults' use of their language often
includes, besides the well formed sentences, also those
sentences which are not well formed. Some of the sentences
that we produce could be badly formed in the sense that
they may involve a wrong start, an abrupt ending or change
of course from the intended structure. Instances of this
type are thus degenerate from the point of rules of grammar.
But a child is never told which of the sentences that
they hear are grammatical and which ones are not. These
details are not taught to the child explicity. The problem
then is how does the child learn the correct grammar of
his language? Yet another problem with the input that
the child receives is that it does not give the child
any information as to what is not possible in his or her
language. How does the child then get to know this? Chomsky's
argument then is it the child's language cannot be fully
determined by the language input available then we ought
to accept that human beings are born with some innate
linguistic rules and principles which enable them to acquire
the language they are exposed to within a short period
of time. This must be specially true given the fact that
the input that each child receives may not be identical.
It is these innate universal principles and rules which
are characterized as universal grammar in UG for short.
In other words UG consists of a set of abstract system
of rules which underlines all human languages. This universal
set of rule schemata limits the possible grammars for
natural languages. If the set of possible grammars was
not constrained language acquisition would become impossible
in principle. The major goal of linguistic theory thus
would be to find out what is this universal grammar? What
are its components, principles and system of rules? We
may approach this question by considering two sets of
linguistic universals namely (i) substantive universals
and (ii) formal universals. |
|
| Points
to Remember |
|
