... universals', i.e. knowledge of properties of language that are common to all languages. He subsequently added to his linguistic theory the concepts of Universal Grammar (UG) (Chomsky, 1986) - which is a more structured version of 'language universals' - and Principles and Parameters Theory (Chomsky, 1981), which states that the properties (parameters) of language vary from language to language and therefore language acquisition is a process of setting the right parameters based on experience. For example, some languages (English and French) require a subject, whereas others (Spanish and Italian) do not. Therefore, the null subject parameter is set to 'off' in English and 'on ' in Spanish (Chomsky, 1981). In order to evaluate how well Chomsky's linguistic theory explains language acquisition, the essay will begin by examining some of the evidence that supports Chomsky's account of language acquisition. Specifically, it will examine evidence suggesting that children can extract rules about ...

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