AP PSYCHOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Chomsky’s “inborn universal grammar” theory. Chomsky has argued that all languages do share some basic elements, which he calls Universal grammar. Ex: nouns, verbs, and adjectives as grammatical building blocks.

Detailed explanation-2: -Universal Grammar is usually defined as the “system of categories, mechanisms and constraints shared by all human languages and considered to be innate” (O’Grady et al., 1996, p. 734; cf. also Chomsky, 1986, p.

Detailed explanation-3: -All languages possess a finite set of phonemes (sounds) including vowels and consonants, that are strung together to form syllables, and words. All languages share the basic categories of words, such as nouns, verbs, description words, relative clauses, and a method for counting.

Detailed explanation-4: -universal grammar (UG) (noun): a theory in linguistics usually credited to Noam Chomsky that suggests that the ability to learn grammar is built into the human brain from birth regardless of language.

Detailed explanation-5: -All languages have a basic word order of elements, like subject, verb, and object, with variations. All languages have similar basic grammatical categories such as nouns and verbs.