The Chomskyan hypothesis: Noam Chomsky at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has argued since the late 1950s that there is evidence that language is a genetic specification located in the human brain. Chomsky argues that humans are programmed very specifically for language, down to a level of detail that includes a distinction between parts of speech, the ways that parts of speech relate to one another, and even parts of grammar as specific as the reason we can say both “You did what?” and “What did you do?” In the last example, the what is placed at the front of the sentence, but note that while we can say, “Who do you think will say what?” we cannot then put the what at the front and say, “What who do you think will say?” The work of Chomsky and his many followers proposes that things like this are due to certain rules that we are born predisposed to learn.

You did what?

What did you do?

Who do you think will say what?

What who do you think will say? (this sentence is impossible)