Which language theorist would have been most likely to emphasize that children master the rule for forming the past tense of regular verbs like "push" before they learn common past tense constructions of irregular verbs like "go"?

Chomsky

Explanation:

Avram Noam Chomsky is one of the American social critic, linguistic, philosopher, cognitive scientist, philosopher, political activist, and historian. He is also referred to as "the father of modern linguistics".

He is best known for his contribution to linguistics, generally, the "transformational grammar" development. He tends to believe that "formal grammar" was entirely responsible for an individual's capability to interpret and understand 'mere utterance'.

On the other hand, he believed that 'language' is considered as innate i. e, human beings are born with the capacity or wisdom for language.