Here's a interesting article on the MIT web site which compares three different languages (English, Japanese and Kinande. The article talks about how these seemly different languages have lots in common and suggests this is because all people "have an innate faculty for language that shapes the form all languages take".
As I've said before, I think the theory of a universal grammar is wrong.
I think the commonality of constructs across languages stems from the basic needs of communication. Anyone or anything wishing to communicate is going to be saying stuff about things. We communicate about the many things, people and artefacts around us. We communicate about their properties and the wishes and desires of ourselves and others.
For any language to survive it needs to a useful medium for communication and so must satisfy some basic communicative needs.
As I've said before, I think the theory of a universal grammar is wrong.
I think the commonality of constructs across languages stems from the basic needs of communication. Anyone or anything wishing to communicate is going to be saying stuff about things. We communicate about the many things, people and artefacts around us. We communicate about their properties and the wishes and desires of ourselves and others.
For any language to survive it needs to a useful medium for communication and so must satisfy some basic communicative needs.
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