How can it be that all the human languages form logical grammar structures without anyone defining them from the first place?

Question

It seems like grammar rules just form up on their own and no language is a “mess”, how can it be?

In: Other

Answer 1

According to some linguists, such as Noam Chomsky, it’s because humans have innate structures in our brains which make us inclined toward forming grammatical structures. The specific inputs differ, which is why some languages have certain structures and others don’t, but you always get *some* structure even in spontaneous languages that arise without conditioning from a prior language. This is held to be demonstrated by Nicaraguan Sign Language, a new language developed by deaf children in the 1980s and 1990s. The technical term for this claimed innate characteristic of human brains is the “Language Acquisition Device” or LAD.

This theory is controversial and not all linguists agree about it. But it is one common explanation for the pattern that you ask about here.