Universal Grammar

Noam Chomsky's theory of Universal Grammar emerged not only as a linguistic proposal but as a fundamentally psychological theory of the human mind. From its inception, the Chomskyan program sought to explain language as a mental faculty: an internal, biologically grounded system that develops in the individual under conditions of limited and imperfect experience. In doing so, it challenged prevailing empiricist and behaviorist models of learning and placed the study of language at the center of cognitive psychology.

This book examines Universal Grammar primarily through this psychological lens. It treats it as a hypothesis about the initial state of the human mind, specifying the constraints and principles that make rapid, uniform, and creative language acquisition possible. Central to this perspective is the distinction between linguistic competence-an internalized system of knowledge-and performance, the use of that system under real-world cognitive limitations. This distinction, foundational to Chomsky's work, reframed language not as observable behavior but as an object of mental representation, accessible through theoretical abstraction and indirect empirical evidence.

Special emphasis is placed on the logical problem of language acquisition and the poverty of the stimulus argument, which together motivate the claim that significant aspects of linguistic knowledge cannot be derived solely from environmental input. These arguments are explored as psychological claims about learning, representation, and development, rather than as purely formal properties of grammatical systems. The book also considers how later developments, including principles-and-parameters theory and the Minimalist Program, refine the psychological interpretation of Universal Grammar by narrowing the assumed innate content and highlighting general cognitive constraints.

While the Chomskyan approach has been the target of sustained criticism from alternative psychological frameworks, its impact on theories of mind, modularity, and mental architecture remains profound. By focusing on the psychological commitments of Universal Grammar, this book aims to clarify both its appeal and its points of tension with contemporary research in cognitive science. In essence, it invites us to engage with Universal Grammar as a bold and evolving attempt to explain one of the most distinctive capacities of the human mind: the ability to acquire and use language.

Welcome to the Chomskyan world.