Chomskian Linguistics

Language Acquisition

100

First proposed by Noam Chompsky in the 1960s, this concept is an instinctive capacity which enables an infant to acquire and produce language.

What is Language Acquisition Device? (LAD)

200

In the context of Chomskian linguistics, language faculty in humans should not be excessively linked with (....) in terms its evolution.

What is "Communication"?

300

The predominant linguistic school of thought in the 1950s, that characterized the acquisition of language in young children as a process whereby children acquire language by learning a limited number of representative sentences and producing new sentences based on the pattern of the representative sentences.

What is Bloomsfieldian Linguistics/Structural Approach?

400

There is no evidence for human-like language syntax in any non-human species, which poses a major stumbling block for (….) of language evolution.

What is Comparative Analysis?

500

In the 1977 BBC Broadcast, Chomsky refutes this method as the mode by which language is acquired in humans.

What is Learned?

Minimalism

100

In this approach, Chomsky maintains that there is one single grammatical system for all languages. This approach eliminates the concepts of deep and surface structure.

What is Minimalist Approach/Universal Grammar?

200

A single operation that characterizes human language syntax by taking exactly two syntactic elements a and b and putting them together to form the set {a, b}. Ex. {the dog} Without this operation, there is no way to arrive at an essentially infinite number of syntactic language structures.

What is "Merge"?

300

The merge, according to the Minimalist theory, is the apparent “movement” of phrases from one position to another. (….) is not found in artificially constructed languages like computer programming languages.

What is "Displacement"?

400

Humans demonstrate this phenomenon in language, but it is absent from nonhuman species. This faculty requires merge, along with conceptual atoms of a lexicon.

What is Hierarchal Language Structure?

500

One of the most distinctive properties of human language syntax along with displacement. Ex. In the sentence, Guess what girls eat, “what” takes on the dual role and is interpreted in two places. First as the operator at the front of the sentence and second as the variable that serves as the argument of the verb eat.

What is Duality of Semantic Meaning?

Mentalism/Evolution

100

Also referred to as the Chomkian approach, this linguistic approach contrasts with the Bloomsfieldian mechanistic approach, in which a rigid set of rules is used to form grammatical utterances; this theory emphasizes the subconscious knowledge of the native speaker.

What is the Mentalist Approach?

200

This concept, which cannot be explained by the Mechanistic approach to linguistics, accounts for how young children can produce utterances that they have never produced or heard before and how an infinite number of utterances can be generated from a finite number of rules and lexical items.

What is Productivity?

300

In the 1977 BBC broadcoast interview with Noam Chomsky, Chomsky likens the acquisition of language to this process in humans.

What is Biological?

400

Chomky and other theorists face great difficulty in explaining how language has evolved from an evolutionary standpoint. When defective, this gene causes malfunctions and deficits in speech, which could promote the concept that humans are predisposed to language acquisition as Chomsky would speculate. However, this gene is just one of many that requires proper function to allow expression.

What is FOX2P gene?

500

This theory supposes that the “machinery” for language is presumed to have been present long before the human species evolved, which greatly eases the burden of speculating/proving how language has evolved in humans.

What is Strong Minimalist Theory (SMT)?