Universal grammar is a theory in linguistics, usually credited to Noam Chomsky, that the ability to learn grammar is hard-wired into the brain. The theory suggests that linguistic ability manifests itself without being taught, and that there are properties that all natural human languages share. It is a matter of observation and experimentation to determine precisely what abilities are innate and what properties are shared by all languages.
If hu...
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Universal grammar is a theory in linguistics, usually credited to Noam Chomsky, that the ability to learn grammar is hard-wired into the brain. The theory suggests that linguistic ability manifests itself without being taught, and that there are properties that all natural human languages share. It is a matter of observation and experimentation to determine precisely what abilities are innate and what properties are shared by all languages.
If human beings growing up under normal conditions (not conditions of extreme deprivation) always develop a language with property X (for example, distinguishing nouns from verbs, or distinguishing function words from lexical words) then property X is a property of universal grammar in this most general sense (here not capitalized).
There are theoretical senses of the term Universal Grammar as well (here capitalized). The most general of these would be that Universal Grammar is whatever properties of a normally developing human brain cause it to...
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