Written by the Fiveable Content Team โข Last updated September 2025
Verified for the 2026 exam
Verified for the 2026 examโขWritten by the Fiveable Content Team โข Last updated September 2025
Definition
Noam Chomsky is a renowned linguist and cognitive scientist who proposed the theory of language acquisition known as generative grammar. He argues that humans have an innate ability to acquire and generate language.
Related terms
Generative Grammar: This term refers to Chomsky's theory that suggests humans possess an inherent ability to generate infinite sentences using a finite set of grammatical rules.
Universal Grammar: Universal Grammar is another concept put forth by Chomsky, which proposes that there are underlying linguistic structures and principles shared by all languages.