Chomsky’s research work on the nature of Grammar
Grammar is almost always perceived as one of the most boring subjects that we learn at school. This is because it is regarded not as something interesting in its own right, but as a necessary function of language, and it is therefore taught by way of rules and structures. It is true that grammar is a necessary function of language, but thinking about why this is leads on to studying the story behind grammar, and this is one of the most interesting aspects of studying language. Language of course is interesting in itself, as it is man’s primary method of communication.
Extensive philosophical research has been conducted in the last century as to the role of grammar within language. The most influential character in this research has been Noam Chomsky, the American linguist based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One of his weightiest claims is as follows: he proposed for the first time that it is a ’formal grammar'system that enables humans to speak and to interpret an infinite number of sounds (’words’), with only a limited framework of rules and terms. By ’formal grammar’, Chomsky understands the set of rules by which a language is formed, using ’strings'put together from the alphabet of the given language. This is a theory that is (understandably) applied in many special needs teaching jobs.
The most interesting point about Chomsky’s work on grammar and language comes from the observation that the grammar itself contains no information - the content of the language is provided by the alphabet, but this would have no meaning without the structure of grammar. He argued through from this to the idea that grammatical structure is a priori, and that language itself is innate in humans. That is to say, humans have the ability to comprehend the structure of language (the grammar) once presented with the strings (the content, provided by the alphabet). This is still a matter of contention.
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