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THE LINGUISTICS STUDENT’S HANDBOOK 24
nowhere near sufficient to allow the acquisition of such a complex system if
they were not in some way predisposed towards it. They postulate that humans
are born with a hard-wired predisposition which tells them, somehow, how to
make appropriate generalisations from the input they receive. They call this
predisposition Universal Grammar (or UG), universal in the sense that it is
available to all humans, grammar in the sense that it helps people acquire the
specific grammar of the language they are to learn.
Conclusion
We now have a number of meanings for the word grammar: it can be (a volume
containing) a physical description of some part of a language; it can be the
subject matter of such descriptions (usually restricted to morphology and
syntax); it can be a set of rules for good behaviour in polite society constructed
by fallible humans for other fallible humans; it can be the mental ability we have
to produce language (including the sounds of language); it can be a model of
that mental ability; it can be the predisposing mental prerequisite to acquiring
such a mental ability. Perhaps the most surprising thing about this plethora of
distinctions is how often the context makes clear what is meant by grammar.
References
Chomsky, Noam (1957). Syntactic Structures. The Hague and Paris: Mouton.
Chomsky, Noam (2000). New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.