Universal Grammar in Practice

 Universal Grammar in Practice


According to the UG theory, grammatical rules apply based on the structure of the language, not on the specific words. Sentences or phrases can be created using clauses or phrases, within clauses or phrases. 

For example,  “The dog, which was chased by the bull, hurriedly jumped over the fence.”

According to UG, sentences have a typical word order (SVO, subject, verb, object).

For example, “The dog ate the bone” and “The boy slept on the bed."

In UG theory, sentences are created using verb phrases, noun phrases, adjective phrases and prepositional phrases and this phrase structure is the same for all languages.

For example, “The happy boy jumped on the couch." Different phrase structures work together, such as a noun phrase “The happy boy” and prepositional phrase “on the couch."

In UG theory, in English, subjects and verbs are, either both plural or singular.

For example in the sentence, “The girls are eating lunch”…the ’girls’ and ‘are’ agree.

Questions, according to UG theory follow a sentence structure, such as, “Is the dog hungry?", changing word order and using auxiliary verbs.

 


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