Language Acquisition Device (LAD):

In the 1960s, Chomsky proposed that the human capacity for language was innate. The assumptions here are that:
(a) natural-language syntax is too complex for children to learn from what they hear around them, because
(b) adults offer such a distorted and imperfect source of data. And
(c) children learn their first language so fast that they must rely on some innate capacity, specifically for syntactic
categories and syntactic structure.
As Chomsky put it, The grammar has to be discovered by the child on the basis of the data available to him,
through the use of the innate capacities with which he is endowed. Moreover the existence of a specialized built-in
language acquisition device was also proposed. The assumption is that such a device must exist to account for
the speed and universality of acquisition in normal children. Two assumptions that children acquire all the major
syntactic structures of their language very early (by age four in most accounts) and that all (normal) children acquire
language are common to variations of this position.

Universal Grammar (UG):

This point of view consequently resulted in the theory of Universal Grammar (henceforth abbreviated as UG), a
linguistic concept devised by Noam Chomsky in the late 1950s and early 1960s, which has proven to be very
influential in various domains within linguistics (but also psychology), primarily syntax and Second Language
Acquisition (henceforth abbreviated as SLA). UG is proposed as an explanation of how it is that language acquirers
come to know, unconsciously, properties of grammar that go far beyond the input in various respects. In other
words, UG serves as an explanation for the discrepancy between input, i.e. the utterances which the child hears, and
output, i.e. the utterances which the child produces. This output might also be termed as child grammar and
clearly cannot be considered to be directly linked to the input. This problem is known as the' logical problem of
language acquisition', or in Chomskyan terms the poverty-of-the-stimulus argument, which focuses on the fact that
children are able to master the complexities of a language system in a relatively short time at a relatively young age
whereas adult second language (L2) learners need considerably more time and will never be able to reach the level
of a first language (L1) speaker. It is important to note that the grammatical knowledge of one's L1 is tacit
or subconscious, rather than explicit or conscious. Moreover, children cannot have learned language through
copying or imitation since numerous observational studies have shown that the two elements, input and output,
differ in almost every respect. For example, as Saville-Troike has pointed out, children often say things that adults
do not. Even if adults repeatedly ask for imitation of an utterance, the child's output still differs. Clearly, imitation
is not an underlying factor. The central aspect of the theory of UG is that it views the human language faculty as
comprising a priori knowledge about the structure of language. Importantly, knowledge of language is understood
as being internal to the human mind/brain, and the object of linguistic theory is therefore the mental grammar or
competence of the individual which Chomsky refers to as I-language, an internal entity of the individual, as
opposed to E-language, E suggesting external, that is, the overt products in language use. In slightly more
technical terms, Chomsky defines UG as the theory of human I-languages, a system of conditions deriving from
the human biological endowment that identifies the I-languages that are humanly accessible under normal
conditions. Chomsky's term 'I-language' denotes the innate linguistic system that makes a native speaker proficient
in a given language.

Principles and Parameters:

Although definitions have varied through time, UG is currently most commonly defined as a system of principles
and parameters which provide constraints on grammars in the course of L1 acquisition, as well as on adult nativespeaker grammars.
According to the principles and parameters approach to syntax, there is a set of universal principles shared by every
human language, and that these are known by all human beings. Knowledge of a particular language, then, consists

of knowledge of the settings of a finite number of parameters, which define exactly how the universal principles
need applying to construct grammatical sentences. If the parameters according to which languages may vary could
all be found, and a given human language could be completely described by the values it assigns to each parameter;
it would be the only human language with the parameters set in that way. To set this in example, one of the most
important principles can be the locality principle, which suggests that the element that is moved within the sentence
(as in wh-questions) cannot be too far from the sentence from which it originates. This principle is common to all
languages and such principles are the basis of universal grammar, which all humans are endowed with. Knowing
the finite number parameters will then be enough to fully know the grammar of the target language.
Therefore, UG is a universal generalization from the grammars of speakers' I-languages to the grammars of all
possible human languages, consisting of principles and parameters. Principles are universal facts about language
which are true for all languages, while parameters are rules that distinguish differences between individual
languages. For example, a principle is that all languages have subjects, and a parameter in this respect is the Null
Subject Parameter, which determines whether the subject of a sentence needs to be overtly spelled out or not In
English overt subjects are obligatory, whereas in Chinese they are not. Due to their universal nature, the parameters
are binary settings, that is, settings with only two options. Indeed, since children develop a L1 grammar at a young
age, in a short period of time and at roughly the same rate, there has to be a certain degree of simplicity and
uniformity in order to allow them to efficiently acquire their L1.