INTRODUCTIONLanguage is a form of communication, whether spoken, written, or signed, that is based on a system of symbols. Language consists of the words used by a community and the rules for varying and combining them. Think how important language is in our everyday lives. Our language enables us to describe past events in detail and to plan for the future. Language lets us pass down information from one generation to the next and create a rich cultural heritage.All human languages have some common characteristics. These include infinite generativity and organizational rules. Infinite generativity is the ability to produce an endless number of meaningful sentences using a finite set of words and rules. This quality makes language a highly creative enterprise. Language is characterized by a number of organizational rules that include phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. The traditional learning view holds that language development depends upon the principle of reinforcement. From the point of view of other learning theorists however, language primarily is learned through imitation. While learning principles admit to the need of modifying language usage, there is no explanation as to the number of reinforcement linkages required to be able to communicate effectively. Not even the regular sequence of language development and childrens utterances are accounted for. Even the fact that children learn to speak using correct grammar in the absence of grammar reinforcement.Noam Chomsky espouses the nativist approach to language development which asserts that children have an innate Language Acquisition Device (LAD) that enables them to learn a language early and quickly. This is bolstered by the concept of universality of language that uses the same set of sounds and word combinations. Critics have opposed this idea pointing out the variations in grammatical and syntactic rules. They also claimed that the nativist ignores the social context in which language is acquired and developed.Modern theorists hold an interactionist view that recognizes children as biologically prepared for language but requires extensive experience with spoken language for adequate development. This view maintains the need for an active role in acquiring language through formulating, testing and evaluating languages rules.Jerome Bruner emphasizes the critical roles parents and other early caregivers play in language development. Bruner proposes the Language Acquisition Support System (LASS). Among middle class mothers support may come in the use of infant-directed or child-directed speech or simplified language. This can be done by playing nonverbal games with them, using the technique of expanding childrens statements and recasting childrens incomplete sentences in grammatical form.

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Syntax looks at the rules of a language, particularly how the various parts of sentences go together. While similar tomorphology, which looks at how the smallest meaningful linguistic units, called morphemes, are formed into complete words, syntax examines how fully formed words fit together to create complete and understandable sentences. Understanding a language's syntax is important for understanding what makes a sentence grammatically correct.The Purpose of SyntaxLinguists and grammarians who study syntax are not necessarily prescriptivist, which means they do not attempt to tell people how to "correctly" form a sentence. Rather, they are descriptivist, in that they look at how people actually speak and then create rules that describe what a language community considers grammatical or non-grammatical. Syntax deals with a number of elements, all of which help to facilitate being understood through language. Without rules, there would be no foundation from which to discern meaning from a bunch of words strung together; whereas these rules allow for a virtually infinite number of sentences.Word Order in Language ConstructionPerhaps the most important aspect of syntax is how the various parts of speech connect together. Every language has rules that dictate where certain types of words can be used in a sentence, and how to interpret the resulting sentence. A new language learner has to understand how thisword orderis structured, which can be difficult for someone used to a different language.

In English, the basic order is "Subject-Verb-Object;" this means that in a simple sentence, the firstnounphrase is the subject, and the subsequentpredicateincludes theverb phraseand may contain an object. This allows English speakers to understand that in the sentence "The boy kicked the ball," the "boy" is the subject, and therefore the one doing the kicking, whereas the "ball" is the object being kicked. If someone wrote the sentence, "The ball kicked the boy," the meaning would be reversed somewhat strangely, and "Kicked the ball the boy," would immediately be recognized as a violation of basic syntactical order and read as nonsense.Not all languages follow this same order, however. In Spanish, for example, the order of the words is more flexible in most cases, and serves to shift the emphasis of a sentence rather than its meaning. Similarly,adjectivesin English usually precede the word they describe, while they come after the described word in languages such as French.Parts of SpeechAnother aspect of syntax covers the various parts of speech that a language uses and separates the words of the language into these groups. Eachpart of speechin turn has various rules that may be applied to it, and other rules that dictate when it cannot be used. English, for example, makes use ofnouns, verbs, adjectives, and other word types, while different languages may not have a separate class for adjectives or make use of classes not found in English. Thai, for example, doesn't distinguish between adjectives andadverbs, while Japanese has several different types of words that act as adjectives.Run-Ons and Incomplete SentencesThrough an understanding of proper syntax, speakers and writers know how sentences should be broken up. When two or more sentences are improperly combined into a single sentence, it usually creates a "run-on." Similarly, a sentence that does not contain a full syntactic idea, such as "Swam quickly to the bank," is considered incomplete. Understanding linguistic rules allows speakers and writers to effectively communicate ideas to others