If you ask linguists how kids do this, most of them will tell you about a language-learning

machine hidden within the brain of every child: The inventor of the language machine theory,
Noam Chomsky, calls it a “language acquisition device.” Chomsky’s device explains two
phenomena: why kids are so good at learning grammar and why the grammar of every language is
so weirdly similar. All seven thousand documented languages, for example, seem to possess
subjects, verbs, and objects. And if a language puts its objects after its verbs (He eats fish), then
that language will use prepositions (from the sea). If, on the other hand, verbs come after their
objects (He fish eats), then that language will use postpositions (the sea from). There are a few
languages that break these rules, but they’re rare—much too rare for mere chance. It’s as if every
language starts with the same overarching grammatical system and, with a few slight tweaks, turns
that system into French, English, or Chinese.
If Chomsky is right, then kids can talk about rat-eaters because they’re genetically
preprogrammed with every language’s grammar—they come into the world already knowing the
overarching grammatical system behind every language. Then they just listen to their parents, flick a
few switches on their language acquisition device (“Verb, then object?” “Object, then verb?”), and
poof, they know which grammar they’re supposed to use.
Other linguists will point out that Europeans have made most linguistic observations, and that
they’ve overlooked the tremendous diversity of non-European languages. If only they looked closer,
they’d find hundreds of languages that defy the standard grammatical patterns. To fit all of these
languages, we’d need language acquisition devices preprogrammed with an enormous amount of
information. Perhaps kids are just good at inferring patterns.
If you’d like to get a good feel for Chomsky’s side of the story, check out Steven Pinker’s
wonderful book, The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language. New York:
HarperPerennial, 2010. If you’d like to check out the other side of the debate, read Nicholas Evans
and Stephen C. Levinson, “The Myth of Language Universals: Language Diversity and Its
Importance for Cognitive Science,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32, no. 05 (2009): 429–448.
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