Universal Grammar (UG)
* Theory: Proposed by Noam Chomsky, it posits that all human languages share an innate, underlying grammatical structure.
* Focus: Explains the shared characteristics of all languages, and how children acquire language with ease despite limited input.
* Nature: A hypothetical set of principles and parameters that guide language acquisition and development.
* Example: The idea that all languages have a subject-verb-object word order, even if they rearrange them in different ways.
Language Universals
* Empirical Observations: These are observed patterns and regularities found across all or most languages.
* Focus: Describes the commonalities observed in languages, without proposing an underlying explanation.
* Nature: Generalizations based on the analysis of language data.
* Example: The fact that all languages have nouns, verbs, and adjectives, though their specific categories may vary.
Here's a helpful analogy:
Think of a set of building blocks.
* Universal Grammar: The underlying rules and principles of how these blocks fit together, allowing for the creation of various structures.
* Language Universals: Specific features observed in different structures built with these blocks, like the presence of square or round blocks, but without explaining why those features exist.
Key Differences
* Theory vs. Observation: UG is a theoretical framework, while language universals are empirical observations.
* Explanation vs. Description: UG attempts to explain why languages share features, while language universals simply describe the shared features.
* Innateness vs. Acquisition: UG posits an innate grammatical structure, while language universals do not imply a biological basis.
In Conclusion:
While closely related, universal grammar and language universals represent distinct approaches to understanding the nature of human language. UG proposes an underlying system, while language universals focus on observed patterns across languages. Both contribute to our understanding of language, but from different perspectives.