Here are the key points about Chomsky's theory of Universal Grammar according to the information provided:
- Chomsky argues that all human beings are born with an innate, biologically determined language acquisition device (LAD) in the brain.
- The LAD encodes the major principles of grammar that are common to all human languages, which Chomsky calls Universal Grammar.
- Universal Grammar consists of the core syntactic structures and rules that characterize natural language. It lays out the basic framework for a language.
- According to Chomsky, children could not learn language through imitation alone from the speech they hear, as adult speech is often ungrammatical.
- With the LAD, children are born with an inherent, innate ability to learn any