Universal Grammar Introduction

[DerEchteSenf]

Skinners theory does not explain anything. Never did. It's magic thinking.

[smart14ful]

thank you

[MrLamotta86]

excellent presentation, thank you

[DareneXx]

thank you

[dsanor]

If there were no UG, it would be difficult to explain the speed of language acquisiton in L1 and L2. If one doesn't like Chomky's approach to this, then there still is the empirical data that has been gathered by Joseph Greenberg and others. Google The Universals Achive for lots of empirical data on universals.

[mistersmith6000]

I have been a second-language teacher for nearly twenty years and I have been trying to learn a second-language during much of that time. Nothing in my experience, as a teacher or a second-language learner gives me a sense of an existence of a universal underlying skeletal proto- language that means 2nd lang learners just need exposure to lexical rules. In fact, relativity abounds everywhere I look, not universalism. It puts UG in a weak position as far as I am concerned.

[tvswnet]

@mistersmith6000 UG originally described L1 acquisition, as I understand it. I don't think that anyone (including Chomsky) thinks that "exposure to lexical rules" yields effective SLA.

[mistersmith6000]

@tvswnet On the contrary, I think it assumes just that. Universal Grammar assumes what it suggests, that in the brain, hard wired rules and constraints are inherited, and these are universal to all languages. While Chomsky et. al. are careful to distance its relevance to second-language education and manifestation of universals via the disclaimers, a) science hasn't developed yet 2) performance-competence gap 3) parameters 4) imbedded. Of course commonalities exist, but a universal system?

[tvswnet]

@mistersmith6000 "...but a universal system?" Good question, and no. As I understand it, it's not as much a universal system as a universal...hmm..."prewired" ability to operate cognitively within a linguistic system. I agree that the structures of some languages are VERY different than others and syntactic, lexical, etc. commonalities are few; however, the underlying communicative need is universal, and therefore the brain must be ready/able to "plug in" to encountered linguistic systems.

[mistersmith6000]

@tvswnet @tvswnet Why call it "Universal Grammar"? The entire proposal rests on all syntactic variations of all languages being made accountable to a common deeper set of universal rules (i language) and thus, Universal Grammar. Of course the brain is ready to communicate, but universal grammar? Chomsky says himself, we need not study other languages to know this. So much of language education has stood idle, and mute, for decades, demotivated by Chomsky inc./UG and in awe of its prestige

[MsKimellis]

Very good. Thank you.

[MERY7074]

this is a neat summery of UG in a nutshel

[guzsaj]

Thank you very much! Köszönjük szépen!

[Metal4rLyfe]

Very nice video, thank you.

Just a personal opinion, for your following videos, lower the pace a little and speak a little more clear, for you;re slower learners ;).

[onenhero]

ok i see why i cant freakin speak english after living in a english speaking country for half a decade!

[vsftin]

"the red ball" is "la palla rossa" in italian, not "la polla rosa"!

[Juefawn]

Hi, read my book, "Babel, a theory of communication" by Josh Alfred. There is no universal grammar. What he's talking about is the commonality of words representing, and words ordering, about the same things, and phenomena.

[grimgnaver]

@Juefawn Universal Grammar is just one of many theories, as is commonality of words or 'computational grammar' (I think it is called). Personally, I'm not a fan of UG, but it is always a good idea to familiarize yourself with the different theories in the field, and UG is one of them. I'm more inclined towards 'computational linguistics', which is actually closely related to what you call commonality of words, as well as the method Google uses to do websearches. Thanks for the input.

[Juefawn]

@grimgnaver I haven't really read anything on computational linguistics. Just Pinker, and Chomsky. Maybe I will get a new understanding, and may be able to add that to my current. Thanks for the suggestion.

[pontaven12]

@Juefawn Then It would be interesting to see what your account of Plato's problem is.

[Juefawn]

@pontaven12 I haven't written on that, much. I think it would be a conditioned inclination towards correlation. I have put it into one analogy. A child observers a ball going into a hole, and will be able to correlate that any object can go into a hole, thereafter, especially if the object and hole resemble the first experience (are property correlated).

[pontaven12]

@Juefawn Sorry, had meant to respond to your answer earlier. One of the most important parts of the poverty of stimulus argument is that there are many phenomena in Child language that can't be accounted for by this type of explanation. For example WH movement where children have been seen to say it in the landing site and in its trace position. As this does not appear at all in Adult English there is no way they could have learnt this. So I must respectfully disagree with you.

[Murphyalex]

Good video, glad stuff like this is on YouTube.

But what you wrote about the Minimalist Program isn't true, the minimalism framework was developed AFTER Principles-and-Parameters, because the individual explanations of the grammar were becoming as complicated as the languages in question, no observable consistency, thus not arguing the 'innate' theory very well, so Chomsky wanted to reduce this and create a more streamlined version of P&P, it's not about syntactic or lexical distinctions.

[abisfun]

Hi - great job! Is that a Dutch accent? Wish I had watched this before Friday's midterm.

[Baralbion]

Congratulations. This covers the ground well. May I ask why you distinguish between grammar and syntax? Most linguists consider syntax as being part of grammar.

[Baralbion]

Congratulations. This covers the ground well. May I ask why you distinguish between grammar and syntax? Most linguists consider syntax as being part of grammar.

[DRKnessinme]

Hi, thank you for the video but I have to report a mistake:

minute 5:12, using italian words you commit an error writtin "La polla rosa". I'm a spanish student of Modern Languages at UCLM University that's why I must say that that sentence makes a weird sense for a spanish speaker: (Polla = cock/dick in spanish). If you're looking for an italian translation of "ball" you must say "palla". ok?

Good video grimgnaver, I'm studiying linguistics right now. Thank you very much. ^^

[grimgnaver]

@DRKnessinme That is just wonderful, never thought I would learn to swear in Spanish or Italian :-) I'm afraid it has been a while since I uploaded and edited this video, I even graduated in the mean time, but I will add a caption, pointing to the mistake.

For the sake of the argument in the video, the mistake has no influence, but it is still pretty funny! Glad you appreciate it, I'm pretty sure the rest of the video is accurate enough for an introduction.

[barugna]

@grimgnaver Actually it is a little more complex than described. La palla rosa means the PINK ball, the RED ball would be la palla rossa (ss is a real S, one s between two vowels or before a voiced consonant sounds like a Z).

These balls are sometimes human testicles or bulls testicles (palle di toro, tuscan delicacy of poached fried bulls testes) but the epithet of WHAT BALLS! would usually be CHE COGLIONI. The equivalent of the polla (Spanish) in Italian is MINCHIA (pron MIN-KYA).

[ribanafish]

This is excellent! Thank you very much!

[ben4649]

Very nice and to the point. But why did you decide to leave out GB Theory?

[grimgnaver]

@ben4649 I only had 10 minutes, and did not have the time to go into GB. The video is meant as an introduction, and I think mentioning binding theory would be confusing. The amount of new terminology is already high. I agree, GB is important, but let's start a little below that. You don't learn the piano by starting with a symphony.

[ALGS78]

I found this really useful thank you, however if the speech pace was slightly slower it would be the icing on the cake.

Thanks

[grimgnaver]

@ALGS78 Thank you. I agree, but Youtube has a 10 minute time limit, so I had to speak quickly.

[blumisbel]

great to the point description of UG. Love it.  I agree with chomsky that language acquistion is innate not learnt for native language. But where to for helping those speakers needing second language acquistion, where would chomsky's theory lead to for them, cognitive or socio cultural context?? would you know hehe.

[fugendake]

I am not a fan of the theory of UG, but you did an excellent job of explaining it.

[grimgnaver]

@fugendake I actually agree, but never-the-less it has many followers, and is important to know about when studying language. I think we're on the same page here.

[apostleofsedition]

No way that's true.

[libiamac]

estoy tratando de hace rmi tesis acerca de esto grax!!!!!!

[Johnnyfortune82]

Cool!

[grimgnaver]

A few modifications have been made around at arond 1m 50s.

[weldkenitra]

I think it is very fast a little bit! However, you explaining helps me to grasp this matter !!thanks

[iiisssaaa16]

lot a ! thx

I mean.. thx a lote !

[odjanuszu]

Well done! I found that quite helpful when I was studying for my descriptive grammar exam. Thanks a lot!

[ClassicalWorkbooks]

Economical and clear. Each slide has about the right amount of information. A very good introduction. Thanks.

[trkrichardson]

this is really good. i'm studying sla at university and it's good to hear different presentations especially one that is straightforward like this.

[grimgnaver]

This video is part of an exam project. Please comment on how useful you found this introduction, or if you would like some changes.