http://www.gocomics.com/9chickweedlane/2016/04/24
Which reminds me that someday I should try to take a closer look at Chomsky’s Universal Grammar. From Wikipedia:
Universal Grammar (UG) is a theory in linguistics, usually credited to Noam Chomsky, proposing that the ability to learn grammar is hard-wired into the brain.[1] It is sometimes known as ‘Mental Grammar’, and stands opposed to other ‘grammars’, e.g. prescriptive, descriptive and pedagogical.[2][3] The theory suggests that linguistic ability becomes manifest without being taught (see the poverty of the stimulus argument), and that there are properties that all natural human languages share. It is a matter of observation and experimentation to determine precisely what abilities are innate and what properties are shared by all languages.
It seems to me that effective communications dictates that a grammar (a specification) must be followed in order to fulfill the functional requirement of communications, for otherwise you stray into irremediable ambiguities, and thence into nonsense; and that, if you can accept effective communications is generally a positive survival characteristic for the members of a group, once any sort of communications system comes into being, then a grammar must be followed for it to work. Naturally, it would be easier for all this to happen if the ability to accept grammar were hard-wired into the brain, but I do not see it as necessary. The general intelligence which we’ve evolved should be enough to comprehend instinctively (like I do 🙂 language grammar, simply because if we couldn’t, we’d be incommunicado and, shortly thereafter, dead. Or at least until recently.
I also mused on the way home that acceptance of the Universal Grammar implies acceptance of competing grammars. The Wikipedia page mentions them but provides no links. What would such grammars be based upon? Illogical systems? Doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Like I said, this would require some study.
