Testing Innate Abilities?

The complexity of understanding language is elucidated in the numerous fields that can be studied simply to understand isolated parts of language. Carnie describes the variety of studies in linguistics, from phonetics to phonology, to morphology, to syntax, and finally to the semantic level of language. Clearly, a complex and intricate organization process is happening without our awareness to understand language. In particular, Carnie focuses on understanding syntax - on how we convert sounds to meaning. He first frames syntax as a key subdiscipline for cognitive science, in which humans are able to think in abstract notions. He asserts that language is how we express cognitive science, express abstract notions (5). Thus, a huge part of humanity depends on our language being able to express abstractions.

Carnie continues on to describe the dominant syntactic theory from Chomsky, Generative Grammar. Generative Grammar holds that subconscious procedures within our mind generate sentences. Syntactic theory aims to determine these procedures to model language syntax. The current method of modeling these subconscious procedures is through formal grammatical rules to structure sentences. These rules are considered to be derived from a scientific perspective because the field of linguistics interprets language from a scientific perspective rather than humanistic. The scientific method is applied to observed sentences in a language to make and test hypotheses. Within syntax, hypotheses are rules and the ones that apply to language's syntax are its grammar. A key claim of Chomsky is that Language is innate, it's an ability hard-wired in our brains. If this is the case, then trusting our 'intuition' on sentences is reasonable, as we are all operating under similar possible functions to map Language abilities, named a Universal Grammar. Possible evidence of this is given in how children do not adapt to syntax being 'corrected' by elders and children's ability to determine rare sentences as grammatical. Furthermore, all world languages share certain properties, like subjects and predicates. These universal properties have easily understood if we assume we are born with a Universal Grammar. Lastly, Carnie explains that biologically all humans have Language as we know it, and there may be brain parts linked to specific linguistic functions.

Carnie explains the basics of grammar, and goes piece by piece through concepts that were taught to me throughout middle and high school - verb, noun, adverbs, etc. I think it's interesting that most linguists agree that there is a Universal Grammar with flexible mapping functions, yet these concepts are both tested and taught in school. It seems strange to me that the consensus in the field is that this is an innate ability, and yet it is taught structurally in school. I also wonder why some people are better at others then at underlining the nouns or the adjectives in a sentence. Is what's truly being tested then is your ability, your awareness, to access these subconscious rules and apply them? Are those that are considered more intelligent, or score better on "english" quizzes and tests, actually just more in tune with their universal functions?