Pinker delves into Noam Chomsky's theory of Universal Grammar, which posits that all human languages share a common structural basis. He explains that children are innately equipped with a plan common to the grammars of all languages, allowing them to distill syntactic patterns from their parents' speech. Pinker writes, 'Children must innately be equipped with a plan common to the grammars of all languages, a Universal Grammar, that tells them how to distill the syntactic patterns out of the speech of their parents.' This idea has reshaped our understanding of how language functions in the human brain. | Steven Pinker | The Language Instinct

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Universal Grammar

Pinker delves into Noam Chomsky's theory of Universal Grammar, which posits that all human languages share a common structural basis. He explains that children are innately equipped with a plan common to the grammars of all languages, allowing them to distill syntactic patterns from their parents' speech. Pinker writes, 'Children must innately be equipped with a plan common to the grammars of all languages, a Universal Grammar, that tells them how to distill the syntactic patterns out of the speech of their parents.' This idea has reshaped our understanding of how language functions in the human brain.

-- Steven Pinker