On innate and specific aspects of human language

Abstract

[EN] The claim that human language is largely dependent on innate mechanisms made in the late fifties by Noam Chomsky, though extremely controversial at the time, has become common ground in current language research. Here, I briefly review the history and nature of the Universal Grammar hypothesis, and discuss the relevance of some fingings from artificial languge studies, which provide evidence that innate internal conditions play a crucial role in the representation and processing of human language by the brain.