What We Know about Human Language
1. Wherever humans exist, language exists.
2. There are no “primitive” languages-all languages are equally complex and equally capable of expressing any idea. The vocabulary of any language can be expanded to include new words for new concepts.
3. All languages change through time.
4. The relationships between the sounds and the meanings of spoken languages and between the gestures and meanings of sign languages are for the most part arbitrary.
5. All human languages use a finite set of discrete sounds or gestures that are combined to form meaningful elements or words, which themselves may be combined to form an infinite set of possible sentences.
6. All grammars contain rules of a similar kind for the formation of words and sentences.
7. Every spoken language includes discrete sound segments, like p, n, or a, that can all be defined by a finite set of sound properties or features. Every spoken language has both vowel sounds and consonant sounds.
8. Similar grammatical categories (for example, noun, verb) are found in all languages.
9. There are universal semantic properties like entailment (one sentence inferring the truth of another) found in every language in the world.
10. Every language has a way of negating, forming questions, issuing commands, referring to past or future time, and so on.
11. All languages permit abstractions like goodness, spherical, and skillful.
12. All languages have slang, epithets, taboo words, and euphemisms for them, such as john for “toilet”.
13. All languages have hypothetical, counterfactual, counterfactual, conditional, unreal, and fictional utterances; e.g., “If I won the lottery, I would buy a Ferrari,” or “Harry battled Voldemort with his wand by Hogwarts castle.”
14. All languages exhibit freedom from stimulus; a person can choose to say anything at any time under any circumstances, or can choose to say nothing at all.
15. Speakers of all languages are capable of producing and comprehending an infinite set of sentences. Syntactic universals reveal that every language has a way of forming sentences such as:
Linguistics is an interesting subject.
I know that linguistics is an interesting subject.
Cecelia knows that you know that I know that linguistics is an interesting subject.
Is it a fact that Cecelia knows that you know that I know linguistics is an interesting subject?
16. The ability of human beings to acquire, know, and use language is a biologically based ability rooted in the structure of the human brain, and expressed in different modalities (spoken or signed).
17. Any normal child, born anywhere in the world, of any racial, geographical, social, or economic heritage, is capable of learning any language to which he or she is exposed. The differences among languages are not due to biological reasons.
2. There are no “primitive” languages-all languages are equally complex and equally capable of expressing any idea. The vocabulary of any language can be expanded to include new words for new concepts.
3. All languages change through time.
4. The relationships between the sounds and the meanings of spoken languages and between the gestures and meanings of sign languages are for the most part arbitrary.
5. All human languages use a finite set of discrete sounds or gestures that are combined to form meaningful elements or words, which themselves may be combined to form an infinite set of possible sentences.
6. All grammars contain rules of a similar kind for the formation of words and sentences.
7. Every spoken language includes discrete sound segments, like p, n, or a, that can all be defined by a finite set of sound properties or features. Every spoken language has both vowel sounds and consonant sounds.
8. Similar grammatical categories (for example, noun, verb) are found in all languages.
9. There are universal semantic properties like entailment (one sentence inferring the truth of another) found in every language in the world.
10. Every language has a way of negating, forming questions, issuing commands, referring to past or future time, and so on.
11. All languages permit abstractions like goodness, spherical, and skillful.
12. All languages have slang, epithets, taboo words, and euphemisms for them, such as john for “toilet”.
13. All languages have hypothetical, counterfactual, counterfactual, conditional, unreal, and fictional utterances; e.g., “If I won the lottery, I would buy a Ferrari,” or “Harry battled Voldemort with his wand by Hogwarts castle.”
14. All languages exhibit freedom from stimulus; a person can choose to say anything at any time under any circumstances, or can choose to say nothing at all.
15. Speakers of all languages are capable of producing and comprehending an infinite set of sentences. Syntactic universals reveal that every language has a way of forming sentences such as:
Linguistics is an interesting subject.
I know that linguistics is an interesting subject.
Cecelia knows that you know that I know that linguistics is an interesting subject.
Is it a fact that Cecelia knows that you know that I know linguistics is an interesting subject?
16. The ability of human beings to acquire, know, and use language is a biologically based ability rooted in the structure of the human brain, and expressed in different modalities (spoken or signed).
17. Any normal child, born anywhere in the world, of any racial, geographical, social, or economic heritage, is capable of learning any language to which he or she is exposed. The differences among languages are not due to biological reasons.