Noam Chomsky, described as "the father of modern linguistics", has maintained that syntactic knowledge is at least partially inborn, implying that children need only learn certain parochial features of their native languages. Chomsky based his argument on observations about human language acquisition, noting that there is an enormous gap between the linguistic stimuli to which children are exposed and the rich linguistic knowledge they attain.
Professor Michael Arbib represents a different point of view. His claim is that the brain is language-ready. In the brief lecture he clarifies the meaning of this idea.
Michael Arbib works at the University of California in San Diego. He is both a theoretical neuroscientist and a computer scientist.
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