보편문법에 관한 소고

A Thought on the Notion of Universal Grammar

This article argues that the notion of universality in generative grammar can be extended to accommodate a variety of non-linguistic phenomena. Specifically, it is shown that an important principle regarding the word order of English, i.e., End-Focus Principle as suggested in Leech and Svartvik (2002), seems to apply when we try to organize diverse social events. Both in sentences and in social events, focused elements or moments, which are considered important, tend to occur at the end. This implies that there exists a certain universal rule or principle that provides an account of both linguistic and non-linguistic phenomena. In short, we find different levels of universality; among different categories, among different languages, and between linguistic and non-linguistic phenomena.