
Whether or not that was his intention:
The behaviorist view was orthodoxy, until Chomsky exploded it. Writing as a graduate student in the mid-1950s, Chomsky observed that there are aspects of language acquisition that do not fit this paradigm. Language has semantics and syntax. While meanings of words (semantics) does seem to be acquired by a system of trial and reward, syntax (grammar and word order) does not arise this way.
Unlike the abundant evidence for trial and error acquisition of semantics in infancy (a baby in an English-speaking family learns to say “cat” when pointing at the house pet), there is not the slightest evidence for “trial and error” syntax acquisition in infancy. Very young children use correct grammar (syntax) from the very beginning of language development. This intrinsic knowledge of grammar happens for all languages, without exception. Babies are born knowing syntax and the syntax they know is common to all languages—what Chomsky called Universal Grammar. Chomsky pointed out that these structures cannot be learned by children by trial and error. Aside from the utter lack of evidence for a process of trial and error in studies of infant language, Chomsky observed that an infant could not really have the experience needed to explain syntax acquisition that way. Even young children inherently know and use grammar rules. They construct and understand sentences of such consistency, intricacy, and complexity that it is clear that they could not have acquired this knowledge merely through incidental daily experience with language.
Chomsky’s insight that language is an in-born “organ” unique to humans is of obvious relevance to our understanding of why humans are exceptional.
Michael Egnor, “Why linguist Noam Chomsky is a great scientist of our era” at Mind Matters News
Also by Michael Egnor on language:
The real reason why only human beings speak. Language is a tool for abstract thinking—a necessary tool for abstraction—and humans are the only animals who think abstractly.
and
How is human language different from animal signals? What do we need from language that we cannot get from signals alone?