Universal grammar

How it is used

Often shortened to UG. Supporters point to the speed of child language acquisition and the 'poverty of the stimulus' argument; critics, including usage-based linguists, argue that general learning abilities and rich input are enough.

Example sentences

1. According to universal grammar, children do not learn language only by imitation.

2. Whether adult learners can still access universal grammar is a long-running debate in SLA.

Common collocations

• Chomsky's universal grammar
• access to universal grammar
• UG-based approach
• principles and parameters

Related terms

• competenceA speaker's unconscious knowledge of the rules of their language, as opposed to performance, which is how they actually use it in real situations, with slips and hesitations.
• language acquisitionThe process by which people come to know and use a language, especially the natural way young children pick up their first language from the speech around them.
• critical period hypothesisThe idea that there is a limited time in childhood, ending around puberty, when a language can be acquired fully and naturally; after it, native-like mastery becomes much harder.
• grammarThe system of rules that shows how words change their form and combine into phrases and sentences in a language; also a book that describes these rules.

More terms: Language Acquisition

• first language
• second language acquisition
• interlanguage
• fossilization
• input
• overgeneralization
• language transfer