Universal Grammar — Transcript

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1. 0:00[Music]
2. 0:02foreign
3. 0:10[Music]
4. 0:16and when you say Universal it comes from
5. 0:19the universe it has to do with all the
6. 0:22languages of the universe so if we
7. 0:25encounter aliens and they speak
8. 0:28languages our Universal grammar should
9. 0:30cover it theoretically speaking
10. 0:34interestingly a lot of times in the
11. 0:36context of linguistics the word
12. 0:38Universal which is an adjective derived
13. 0:41from universe is actually used more
14. 0:44often as a noun for example you talk
15. 0:47about Universal grammar and which
16. 0:49Universal is an adjective but we also
17. 0:51talk about language universals and in
18. 0:55this sense the word Universal itself has
19. 0:57been used as a noun to refer to anything
20. 1:00that is universal about language it
21. 1:03could be a rule it could be other kinds
22. 1:05of statement about language
23. 1:08in linguistic Theory the term Universal
24. 1:11is a noun is used to refer to a
25. 1:14linguistic characteristic of language to
26. 1:17something that applies to all languages
27. 1:19of the world
28. 1:21the concept of universal grammar was
29. 1:24introduced in generative grammar
30. 1:27generative Linguistics with
31. 1:29transformational Linguistics which is
32. 1:31the theory that was introduced in the
33. 1:331950s by Noam Chomsky and that's because
34. 1:36generative grammar is obsessed with the
35. 1:39universality
36. 1:40we're not just happy to know about a
37. 1:42specific language like English we know
38. 1:44we want to know about all languages so
39. 1:46that's the desire underpinning Universal
40. 1:50grammar I don't want to just write a
41. 1:52grammar that is good for a language I
42. 1:54want a gram write a grammar that is good
43. 1:56for all languages
44. 1:58and these universals are sets of
45. 2:01constraints or set of rules or
46. 2:03principles that apply to our languages
47. 2:06when you engage in Universal grammar
48. 2:08Eugene you may make specific statements
49. 2:12about all languages but in a particular
50. 2:14domain of linguistics although the
51. 2:16statement or rule or principle is
52. 2:18universal it is still specific to a
53. 2:21particular domain for example you could
54. 2:24be making a statement about the
55. 2:25phonology of all languages or you could
56. 2:27be making a statement about semantic
57. 2:30Universal syntactic universals
58. 2:34in other words ug is concerned about
59. 2:37principles of human language all human
60. 2:40languages it is concerned about the
61. 2:42universal logical patterns of thought
62. 2:44that give rise to those principles it is
63. 2:48the theory of universal grammar
64. 2:51in linguistics especially generative
65. 2:53Linguistics Universal refers to a
66. 2:55property that is claimed to be common
67. 2:58among all languages in this sense one of
68. 3:01the main goals of linguistic theory is
69. 3:05to specify precisely what these
70. 3:08properties are to write a grammar that's
71. 3:12not about a language it's about all
72. 3:14languages it's a theory of human grammar
73. 3:18in other words the concept of universal
74. 3:21grammar itself is based on the
75. 3:23assumption that all of us as humans have
76. 3:26a cognitive system that is shared among
77. 3:28all of us it's something biological we
78. 3:32are endowed biologically not just with
79. 3:35the capability but with the specific
80. 3:37device that enables us to understand any
81. 3:41language in the world but also to speak
82. 3:44the language so as a child if I put you
83. 3:47in China you will grow up learning
84. 3:50Chinese but if you grow up in the U.S
85. 3:52you will learn English and these two
86. 3:54languages obviously have so many
87. 3:56differences so how is it that you're
88. 3:58capable of learning Chinese but you're
89. 4:00also capable of learning English and
90. 4:02you're capable of learning any other
91. 4:05language it is because you are born with
92. 4:09that device the biological device
93. 4:11so language universals depict the
94. 4:14general features of the way human
95. 4:16language is designed it provides so by
96. 4:20it I mean universal grammar provides the
97. 4:22theory of the human language faculty or
98. 4:24language and this Theory consists of
99. 4:26language properties that are said to be
100. 4:28biologically necessary and in this sense
101. 4:31language universals are one step along
102. 4:34the path of understanding all of the
103. 4:38intellectual capabilities of us as the
104. 4:41species as a human species
105. 4:50this seems a kind of abstract let me be
106. 4:53more specific and make a give you an
107. 4:56example of a particular thing that you
108. 4:59might encounter in Universal grammar
109. 5:01all languages have nouns all languages
110. 5:04have verbs in other words all languages
111. 5:07have noun phrases and verb phrases every
112. 5:09single language in the world has that
113. 5:12therefore this is a language Universal
114. 5:15it's a universal property of all
115. 5:18languages
116. 5:19in Universal grammar we have a universal
117. 5:22base it is the base from which all the
118. 5:26rules of all grammars can be generated
119. 5:28some of these rules have no exceptions
120. 5:31these are like hard rules these are
121. 5:34absolute universals but sometimes there
122. 5:36are relative universals which are
123. 5:39language universals which may come with
124. 5:41specific principled exceptions
125. 5:51the purpose of linguistic theory is to
126. 5:54discover Universal grammar we want to
127. 5:56discover all the laws of language human
128. 5:58language in the same sense that the
129. 6:00purpose of physics is to understand the
130. 6:03physical world to discover all the laws
131. 6:06of the physical Universe Universal
132. 6:08grammar is out there to discover all of
133. 6:10these laws but this doesn't mean that it
134. 6:12has already discovered it's just the
135. 6:14beginning the physical world is out
136. 6:17there to see observe and experience but
137. 6:19it doesn't mean our knowledge the
138. 6:21science of physics is perfect it's just
139. 6:24the science of physics it's just a
140. 6:25branch of science that constantly
141. 6:27involves you all know that there was
142. 6:30Newtonian physics and now we have
143. 6:32einsteinian physics and in the future
144. 6:33we'll have new forms and theories of
145. 6:36physics like people speak languages we
146. 6:39just do it but our theory of how we come
147. 6:42to speak these languages is constantly
148. 6:44evolving
149. 6:52Universal grammar provides for
150. 6:54properties that are abstract and account
151. 6:56for what laying Chomsky terms the
152. 6:58language acquisition device this grammar
153. 7:01of a specific language say Japanese or
154. 7:03English is a specific instance of UG and
155. 7:07may contain statements that are specific
156. 7:08to that language
157. 7:13all languages have a word order which
158. 7:16means that there's more or less a fixed
159. 7:18word order in every language although
160. 7:21some languages are more flexible in
161. 7:23their word order but if you have subject
162. 7:25verb object there is different
163. 7:27possibilities there's there could be sov
164. 7:30there could be SVO vso VOS
165. 7:33theoretically all of these are possible
166. 7:36but when you come to learn English you
167. 7:38learn that the dominant word order is
168. 7:40SVO in the same way that the dominant
169. 7:43World Order in Persian is sov subject to
170. 7:46object verb
171. 7:47in this sense Universal grammar tells
172. 7:50you that there's word order but a
173. 7:52language-specific grammar tells you what
174. 7:54that specific order in that specific
175. 7:56language is
176. 7:58since we don't know everything about all
177. 8:01languages of the world dead and alive
178. 8:04you need to know that that we don't know
179. 8:07yet how much language is have in common
180. 8:11so this is something that you could
181. 8:13debate in question like how do we really
182. 8:16know there is this underlying grammar
183. 8:19from which all these specific grammars
184. 8:22can be derived that's why there's
185. 8:24criticisms of universal grammar because
186. 8:27it's an ongoing process we are yet to
187. 8:29learn about all these languages dead in
188. 8:32living and Universal grammar are still
189. 8:36evolving
190. 8:38yeah it this was just an introduction to
191. 8:40Universal grammar
192. 8:54thank you