I have always found the theory of Universal Grammar a little untrue. I just cannot believe that we are born with some linguistic skills. That would mean it is genetically coded, part of the DNA, which just sounds nonsense, and would also mean that our brain has a pre-formed content which sounds even more nonsense. I think I have found the mistake in their argument, quite a primitive mistake form a linguist, a scientist.
Let me quote part of the article Universal Grammar from wikipedia:
Another example of language pattern claimed to be unlearnable from positive evidence alone is subject-auxiliary inversion in questions, i.e.:
You are happy.
Are you happy?
There are two hypotheses the language learner might postulate about how to form questions: (1) The first auxiliary verb in the sentence (here 'are') moves to the beginning of the sentence, or (2) the 'main' auxiliary verb in the sentence moves to the front. In the sentence above, both rules yield the same result since there is only one auxiliary verb. But, you can see the difference in this case:
Anyone who is interested can see me later.
Is anyone who interested can see me later?
Can anyone who is interested see me later?
They make a really simple mistake: they cannot see the rule that the first auxiliary verb of the sentence moves to the beginning. "Is" does not belong to the sentence, since "Anyone who is interested" is a unit, a part of the sentence, the subject of the sentence. Even a child can realise that the subject cannot be taken apart. Rule (1) above should go: "The first auxiliary of the sentence..." and voila, the rule is working, and it can be learned from positive evidence alone. Universal Grammar uncreated.
