How Languages are Built
Academic lead:
Ian Roberts, Professor of Linguistics, Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics
E
ven before children reach
three years old they have the
extraordinary ability to produce
and interpret sentences they
have never encountered before. How are
we able to construct sentences correctly
from such an early age? Although there
are underlying rules of grammar, most of
us are completely unable to explain them
for our own language. And when we come
to learn new languages as adults, learning
new grammatical rules can pose a significant
challenge.
The work of the research group led by
Professor Ian Roberts builds on American
linguist Noam Chomskys theory of Universal
Grammar, which suggests that we are all
born with the ability to acquire a complex
language in the most abstract structural
sense. For this to be correct, all the languages
of the world must share certain structural
properties, and Roberts and his team want
to work out what these are. Their aim is
to describe the basic building blocks of
grammar, in order to find underlying patterns
to the way all languages are structured.
Roberts group is particularly interested in the
ways in which the syntax of languages can
vary - that is, the way in which sentences are
constructed from words, and the constraints
on this. The work focuses on five basic
features of grammar believed to cover much
of the variation among languages: the order
of words in a sentence; the ability to omit
certain key words; the complexity of words
themselves; the flexibility of sentences in
expressing questions and emphasising or
de-emphasising content; and the nature of
In practice
The team will identify the rules for each of their five basic features of grammar
in a wide variety of languages. Information will be gathered from online
grammars, original historical documentation of language structures and, where
feasible, native speaker consultants.
case and concord relations. Although it is well
known that these features vary significantly
amongst languages, the variation seems to
be constrained, so defining them for each
language can produce its unique language
fingerprint.
The team has expertise in an impressive
range of the worlds languages. As well as
the Germanic (including English, German,
Dutch, Afrikaans and Scandinavian) and
Romance languages (including Spanish,
French, Portuguese and Italian), they have
expertise in Finnish, Hungarian, Basque,
Mandarin, Welsh, Swahili, Japanese, Greek,
Russian and British Sign Language. Even
lesser-known languages such as Makhuwa (a
Bantu language spoken in Mozambique) and
Xhosa (Nelson Mandelas native language) are In the process of working
represented, and the group is also working out exactly how languages
with native-speakers of Yoruba (a Niger-
Congo language spoken in Nigeria), Matengo
are built, we hope to find
(a Bantu language spoken in Tanzania) a new perspective on
and Luganda (a Bantu language spoken in comparative grammar for
Uganda).
the languages of the world.
Once the team has established a set of criteria While the innate universal
for determining the unique fingerprint of a grammar may determine
language, this will provide a clearer picture
of how languages are related and how certain general features of
they change over time. Another objective language, it is encountering
is to contribute to the understanding of
how the human brain works in acquiring
the languages unique
language. If grammatical systems differ fingerprint that fine-tunes
along relatively simple lines, then it is these language acquisition in
central distinguishing features that must be
accessible to children acquiring language on children.
the basis of what they hear.
Professor Ian Roberts
The ReCoS project is supported by a 2.5
million grant from the European Research
Council and runs from 2011 to 2016.
For more information, see:
www.mml.cam.ac.uk/dtal/research/
recos
Research theme:
language change and diversity