language acquisition

On Language: Chomsky's Classic Works Language and Responsibility and Reflections on Language in One Volume

by Noam Chomsky and Mitsou Ronat  · 26 Jul 2011

still under the influence of empiricist doctrines that are restricted in principle to quite elementary models of competence. These doctrines maintain that all learning, including language acquisition, proceeds by the accumulation of specific items, by the development of associations, by generalization along certain stimulus dimensions, by abstracting certain properties from a complex

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an organ that pumps blood, and about as well supported by the factual evidence. Or, they might say that questions touching on the basis of language acquisition do not concern them. The crucial point, however, seems to me to be that there is no real debate about the validity of functionalism at

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langue which is innate . . . N.C.: . . . Which would be absurd, of course; if French were innate, I would speak it . . . It is the mechanism of language acquisition that is innate. In a given linguistic community, children with very different experience arrive at comparable grammars, indeed almost identical ones, so far as we

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the acquisition of language. What I mean is that the development of “discovery procedures” could have been understood as an approach to a theory of language acquisition, and also as an explanatory theory, considered from the dual perspective of psychology and epistemology. It is interesting to see that that was not the

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it seems to me that this thesis is quite natural . . . I also know of no substantive argument that it is incorrect. In the context of language acquisition, the hypothesis implies that one learns the meaning of an expression with a form established on independent grounds. One cannot “pick up” a disembodied meaning

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immense descriptive potential. As I’ve said, to approach an “explanatory” linguistic theory, or—which is the same thing—to account for the possibility of language acquisition, it is necessary to reduce severely the class of accessible grammars. Postulating global rules has just the opposite effect, and therefore constitutes a highly undesirable

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principles of universal grammar that grammar which is compatible with the limited and imperfect data presented to him. That is to say, once again, that language acquisition is not a step-by-step process of generalization, association, and abstraction, going from linguistic data to the grammar, and that the subtlety of our

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man, 55; structuralist view, 76–77; structure of, 167; uses of, 87–88; word order, 193. See also grammar; language acquisition; language use; linguistic theory; linguistics; syntactic structure Language, 46, 113, 122, 133 language acquisition, 43, 44, 50, 113, 114, 117, 124, 180; and autonomy of syntax, 138–9; boundary conditions, 111–12, 116

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suppose that a human language has “primitive subsystems” in any interesting sense, and no convincing evidence for such a belief. Observation of early stages of language acquisition may be quite misleading in this regard. It is possible that at an early stage there is use of languagelike expressions, but outside the framework

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comparable to humans in these other domains (and thus, by assumption, use strategies similar to those employed by humans in these domains) to have comparable language-acquisition ability as well. (Cf. pp. 18, 19.) The properties of common sense that are involved in the special human ability (if such exists) to deal

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facts in other languages just as SSC serves to explain certain facts in English. On the empirical assumption of uniformity among humans with respect to language acquisition, this evidence would serve to counter S’s assumption that the English-speaking subjects. are, in fact, making use of a cognitive structure that involves

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reason to anticipate that further research will support the conclusion that principles of the sort discussed earlier do constitute part of the innate schematism for language acquisition. Thus it is surely implausible to suppose that in the cases in question (e.g., (14) and (15)), every child has had sufficient relevant experience

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obscures the central issues. Quine suggests (1969b) that by “rationalism” I mean simply the principle that innate structures must be rich enough to account for language acquisition while not so rich as to be incompatible with data, and he expresses his agreement with this “indisputable point about language.” He then adds that

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only not “extravagant” but, so far as I know, unavoidable. Cohen presents a number of arguments against assuming innate universals. He points out analogies between language acquisition and scientific discovery, concluding that by parity of reasoning, if the assumption of innate linguistic universals is required for the first, then some analogous assumption

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learning as well? But Cohen’s argument fails for reasons already discussed. The scientist S, casting a finer net than Cohen, notes the analogies between language acquisition and scientific discovery, and also notes fundamental qualitative differences, already discussed. These would lead him, I have argued, to postulate a system of innate linguistic

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at once if we ask the simplest question: How, in principle, could we program a computer to carry out “eliminative induction,” in the case of language acquisition or scientific discovery, in the absence of constraints on admissible hypotheses? Cohen’s discussion of “eliminative induction” tacitly concedes this point, by presupposing, as an

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fact that physics (or Martian) is learnable in itself proves nothing about the language capacity. Finally, Cohen argues that simpler approaches suffice to account for language acquisition, and he sketches a few possibilities. Unfortunately, the latter do not begin to deal with even the most elementary properties of language that have been

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formulated that have even a remote relation to the actual problems that arise when one attempts to account for human learning in such domains as language acquisition, though there are a few “specific ones” that have been proposed that appear to have some plausibility and empirical support. For reasons already discussed, it

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–22.Peters (1972a) discusses this idealization, arguing that it is not illegitimate. But his discussion fails to distinguish two notions of “input data” for a “language-acquisition device.” He takes these data to be structured and organized by earlier analysis—thus his “projection problem” is concerned with the moment of attainment of

Language and Mind

by Noam Chomsky  · 1 Jan 1968

development. Linguistics, so conceived, seeks to discover true theories of particular Ilanguages (grammars), and, at a deeper level, the theory of the genetic basis for language acquisition (universal grammar, UG, adapting a traditional term to a new usage). Other cognitive systems, it was assumed, should be conceived along similar lines, each with

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systems that is sufficiently restrictive so that candidate I-languages are “scattered,” and only a small number can even be considered in the course of language acquisition. In later work in the cognitive sciences, such approaches are often called “theory theory” conceptions.6 Like abduction, and for that matter every aspect

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of growth and development, language acquisition faces a problem of poverty of stimulus. The general observation is transparent, so much so that outside of the cognitive sciences the ubiquitous phenomenon is

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posing new theoretical questions that could scarcely have been formulated before, often providing at least partial answers as well, while also revitalizing related areas of language acquisition and processing. Another consequence is that it removed some basic conceptual barriers to the serious inquiry into the deeper “third factor” issues. These topics are

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first lecture, topics that I will take up again below in considering the question of how this restrictive, universal schematism comes to be used in language acquisition. Furthermore, these investigations of sound structure, insofar as they support the conclusion that abstract phonological structures are manipulated by tightly organized and intricate systems of

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on to argue that “acquisition of an initial language is acquisition of a secondary symbolic system” and is quite on a par with normal second-language acquisition. The primary symbolic systems to which he refers are “rudimentary prelinguistic symbolic systems in which gestures and sensory and perceptual occurrences of all sorts

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solve it.” Invoking an innate representation of universal grammar does solve the problem of learning, if it is true that this is the basis for language acquisition, as it well may be. If, on the other hand, there are general learning strategies that account for the acquisition of grammatical knowledge, then

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fragmentary, and deviant along many possible dimensions. I doubt that it has been fully appreciated to what extent this complicates the problem of accounting for language acquisition. Formally speaking, the learner must select a hypothesis regarding the language to which he is exposed that rejects a good part of the data on

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determine how later evidence is to be interpreted, leading to the postulation of richer grammars, and so on. I have so far been discussing language acquisition on the obviously false assumption that it is an instantaneous process. There are many interesting questions that arise when we consider how the process extends

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, I think it is not unlikely that the dogmatic character of the general empiricist framework and its inadequacy to 21 In contrast, the account of language acquisition presented by B. F. Skinner in his Verbal Behavior (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1957) seems to me either devoid of content or clearly

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thought about the matter shows that this is a very natural consequence. To see this, consider the problem of determining the mental capacities that make language acquisition possible. If the study of grammar – of linguistic competence – involves an abstraction from language use, then the study of the mental capacities that make

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this case, is the internally represented grammar, mastery of which constitutes knowledge of the language. If we undertake to study the intrinsic structure of a language-acquisition device without dogma or prejudice, we arrive at conclusions which, though of course only tentative, still seem to me both significant and reasonably well-founded

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acquired grammars and the limitations on the available data, we can formulate quite reasonable and fairly strong empirical hypotheses regarding the internal structure of the language-acquisition device that constructs the postulated grammars from the given data. When we study this question in detail, we are, I believe, led to attribute

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But if we assume, furthermore, that children are not genetically predisposed to learn one rather than another language, then the conclusions we reach regarding the language-acquisition device are conclusions regarding universal grammar. These conclusions can be falsified by showing that they fail to account for the construction of grammars of other

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We might describe both these attempts as concerned with the internal structure of the device AM, with the innate conception of “human language” that makes language acquisition possible.4 Universal grammar Let us now turn to the study of underlying competence, and consider the general problem of how a sound–meaning pairing

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principle is not learned at all, but rather that it is simply part of the conceptual equipment that the learner brings to the task of language acquisition. A rather similar argument can be given with respect to other principles of universal grammar. Notice again that there should be nothing surprising in

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human languages to a very special subset of the set of imaginable “languages.” The evidence available to us suggests that these assumptions pertain to the language acquisition device AM of 3, p. 106, that is that they form one part of the schematism that the child brings to the problem of

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language learning. That this schematism must be quite elaborate and highly restrictive seems fairly obvious. If it were not, language acquisition, within the empirically known limits of time, access, and variability, would be an impenetrable mystery. Considerations of the sort mentioned in the foregoing discussion

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this – that a single language can provide strong evidence for conclusions regarding universal grammar. This becomes quite apparent when we consider again the problem of language acquisition (see p. 106). The child must acquire a generative grammar of his language on the basis of a fairly restricted amount of evidence.40

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To account for this achievement, we must postulate a sufficiently rich internal structure – a sufficiently restricted theory of universal grammar that constitutes his contribution to language acquisition. For example, it was suggested earlier that in order to account for the perception of stress contours in English, we must suppose that the user

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to assume that these properties of English are, in reality, facts of universal grammar. If such properties are available to the child, the task of language acquisition becomes feasible. The problem for the child is not the apparently insuperable inductive feat of arriving at a transformational generative grammar from restricted data, but

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a grammar that characterizes much of the evidence on which it was based as deviant and anomalous. We are presenting an “instantaneous model” of language acquisition which is surely false in detail, but can very well be accepted as a reasonable first approximation. This is not to deny that the fine

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restrictive initial assumptions about the form of generative grammar must be imposed if explanations are to be forthcoming for the facts of language use and language acquisition. Furthermore, there is, so far, no evidence to suggest that the variety of generative grammars for human languages is very great. The theory of

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. Let me turn, however, to the substantive problem of acquisition of knowledge, as Goodman formulates it in the specific case of language acquisition. Quite properly, he distinguishes two cases: initial language, and second-language acquisition. But his analysis of the two cases leaves much to be desired. Consider first the problem of second

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-language acquisition. In what I understand to be Goodman’s view,5 second-language acquisition poses no problem, since “once one language is available and can be used for giving explanation and instruction, the limitations [determined

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acquires is presented to him by direct instruction. Even the most cursory attention to the facts of second-language acquisition is sufficient to establish this. Hence, although second-language acquisition is, indeed, to be distinguished from first-language acquisition, the distinction is not of the sort that Goodman suggests. While it may be true that “once

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relatively easy,” it nevertheless remains a very serious problem – not significantly different from the problem of explaining first-language acquisition – to account for this fact. Consider now the more important matter of first-language acquisition, the problem to which the empirical hypotheses regarding innate schematism have 6 For some discussion, see my paper

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grips with the actual facts. There is, furthermore, a non sequitur in Goodman’s discussion of first- and second-language acquisition. Recall that he explains the presumed ease of second-language acquisition on the grounds that it is possible to use the first language for explanation and instruction. He then goes on to

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argue that “acquisition of an initial language is acquisition of a secondary symbolic system,” and is hence quite on a par with second-language acquisition. The primary symbolic systems he has in mind are “rudimentary prelinguistic symbolic systems in which gestures and sensory and perceptual occurrences of all sorts

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whatever they may be, cannot “be used for giving explanation and instruction” in the way in which a first language can be used in second-language acquisition. Consequently, even on his own grounds, Goodman’s argument is incoherent. Goodman maintains that “the claim we are discussing cannot be experimentally tested even

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therefore makes an empirical claim that can be falsified by finding counterinstances in some human language, or by showing that under the actual conditions of language acquisition, the properties in question do not appear in the system that is developed by the language learner. In linguistics, as in any other field,

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and in part misdescribes, the richness of structure, the particular and detailed properties of grammatical form and organization that must be accounted for by a “language acquisition model,” that 160 Language and Mind are acquired by the normal speaker–hearer and that appear to be uniform among speakers and also across languages

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of structures of which the data presented to him constitute a minute sample. Finally, consider the alternative approach that Putnam suggests to the problem of language acquisition. He argues that instead of postulating an innate schematism one should attempt to account for this achievement in terms of “general multipurpose learning strategies.” It

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of learning (at least partially), in this case, if in fact it is true that this is the basis (or part of the basis) for language acquisition, as it well may be. If, on the other hand, there exist general learning strategies that account for the acquisition of grammatical knowledge, then

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if it selects particular grammars correctly. He then attributes to me, incorrectly, the view that universal grammar is to be identified with “a theory of language acquisition.” My view, rather, is that universal grammar is one element of such a theory, much as competence is one element of a theory of

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performance. There are surely many other factors involved in language acquisition beyond the schematism and weighting function that – if my suggestion is correct – play a part in determining the nature of the acquired competence. This

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misinterpretation of my proposal regarding the relation of universal grammar to language acquisition parallels the misinterpretation of my proposal regarding the relation of competence to performance; in both cases, what is omitted is the reference to other factors

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that must be involved. In the case of language acquisition, furthermore, it must be emphasized that the model I am suggesting can at best only be regarded as a first approximation to a theory of

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entirely irrelevant to the issue of determining, on empirical grounds, the properties of grammars that lead to the selection of one rather than another in language acquisition. This aspect has been emphasized repeatedly. See, for example, Aspects, Chapter 1, Section 7. One final comment. Hiż suggests that “it should be easier

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Of course, this new doctrine of “resourceful empiricism” would now incorporate “principles of induction” that are, so it seems, quite specific to the task of language acquisition and of no general validity. The concept “resourceful empiricism” so defined seems to me of little interest. The issue that concerns me is whether there

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of language as a “habit system,” and so on).14 Needless to say, there is no necessity to view the various attempts to study language acquisition within this framework; I can only say that I think it is both useful and accurate. These alternatives can be made fairly precise and investigated

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nominalization) might be reached “by induction” from the data available. But it is such questions as these that must be faced in the study of language acquisition. Two minor points in this connection. Harman sees only a “tenuous historical connection” between procedures of segmentation and classification and phrase-structure grammar. The connection

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data of experience. Specific proposals were made then and in the years that followed. In principle, they provided a possible solution to the problem of language acquisition, but involved astronomical calculation, and therefore did not seriously address the issues. The main concerns in those years were quite different, as they still

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179 generative grammar x, 62, 77, 78, 82, 91, 112, 113 acquisition of 151 construction of 150 elements of 97–98 form of 142 and language acquisition 165 and linguistic competence 64, 68, 86, 165, 166 principles 175 semantic component 123 theory of 63, 91, 140, 145 transformational 86, 93 Ginsburg,

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approaches to the study of 22 study of 1, 19, 22, 58, 98, 100 theory of 182 unboundedness of 105, 108 written system for 138 language acquisition xi, 58, 141, 151–52, 154, 163, 181 explanations for 78, 79, 99–100, 142 factors involved 180, 183 first language 71, 154, 155

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for 99, 167 evolution of 182 and experience 182 hypotheses of 140 and innate ideas 74, 77, 141, 170 innate representation of 76, 164 and language acquisition 100, 182, 184 and learning 77 and particular grammar 24, 38, 42, 56 principles of 55, 62, 120, 140, 168 problems of 28 properties

The Science of Language

by Noam Chomsky  · 24 Feb 2012

issues that go beyond those of explanatory adequacy [that is, with dealing with Plato's Problem, or explaining the poverty of the stimulus facts for language acquisition]. So if you could achieve explanatory adequacy – if you could say, “Here's Universal Grammar [UG], feed experience into it, and you get an I

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aren't any [computation-]internal parameters; it's just one fixed system. JM: What happens then to parameter setting? NC: That's the problem of language acquisition, and a lot of it happens extremely early . . . JM: As Jacques Mehler's work indicated . . . NC: All the phonetic stuff, a lot is going on

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're not going to work, for fundamental reasons. You can see it at the most elementary level. Let's rethink these issues in terms of language acquisition [for that leads to parameters]. Harris wouldn't have, but it's a parallel question. Reducing a corpus, or organized materials, to a specific form

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was in the forties; and it's inconceivable – it can't be done. It's computationally intractable. So it can't be the method of language acquisition; it can't be the truth about language. Well, this framework – format, instantiation, simplicity measure, evaluation – that framework lasted pretty much through the seventies, and

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to an extent, but not too much. That's where the principles and parameters approach was important; it separated the question of language acquisition from the question of the format. Language acquisition under this point of view was a matter of setting the values of parameters, and the format for Universal Grammar no longer

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really ought to be obvious – for example, the idea [see Chomsky 1986 and the introduction to Chomsky 1980/2005] that you should try to study language acquisition in a pure case, uncontaminated by the innumerable factors that actually enter – your parents speak one language, and the kids on the street speak another

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. That's obviously going to have all kinds of complicated effects on language acquisition. But if you really want to find the principles of language, you have to abstract away from that. That's why scientists do experiments. Galileo

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want to change it, but you're working within it – and you want to find the optimal manifestation of it, given particular evidence. That's language acquisition. JM: That appears clearly in Aspects; does it appear in Logical Structure . . . NC: It appears in Logical Structure of Syntactic Theory; there's a section

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's wrong. It's just impassible. Language just has a highly specific, highly articulated format, and that's the only way you can account for language acquisition. That looked to me, and to everybody, like a convincing argument. Well, when the principles and parameters framework came along, it undercut that argument. It

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and focus on fundamental claims. Sellars was introduced to the discussion earlier in a different but related connection, his adoption of a behaviorist view of language acquisition and the picture of language that goes along with it. What is said there is relevant to the current issue because Sellars, like many others

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system that can derive any of the infinite number of expressions that their I-languages make possible. They seem to think that the facts of language acquisition and creative language use must be wrong, and while they do take Chomskyan rules/principles into account in the superficial way indicated, their concern is

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that also appear in the third (2009) edition of Cartesian Linguistics): “No matter how much computer power and statistics . . . [connectionists] throw at the task [of language acquisition], it always comes out . . . wrong. Take [Jeff] Elman's . . . paper[s]6 . . . on learning nested dependencies. Two problems: (1) the method works just as well

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–55), however – among other things, the possibility that there are infinitely many parameters. Parameters continue as before to have a central role in discussions of language acquisition or growth. Imagine a child growing up in an English-speaking environment, and take the headedness macroparameter as an example. He or she – or rather

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understand how language came to be introduced into the species at a single stroke. It would also make it easy to understand how and why language acquisition is as quick and automatic as it appears, while allowing for different courses of development. And it would allow linguists such as Chomsky to begin

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efforts. If the child's mind knows what the switches or options are, relative optimization of simplicity plays no role. You can think of the language acquisition matter as solved (at least for narrow syntax) and turn to other explanatory matters. That is no doubt part of the reason why in a

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. Principles not specific to the faculty of language. The third factor falls into several subtypes: (a) principles of data analysis that might be used in language acquisition and other domains; (b) principles of structural architecture and developmental constraints that enter into canalization, organic form, and action over a wide range, including principles

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and Semantic Architecture. Oxford University Press. Pietroski, Paul (2008) “Minimalist Meaning, Internalist Interpretation.” Biolinguistics 2 (4): 317–341. Pietroski, P. and Crain, S. (2002) “Why Language Acquisition Is a Snap.” Linguistic Review 19: 63–83. Pietroski, P. and Crain, S. (2005) “Innate Ideas.” In McGilvray (2005b), pp. 164–180. Pinker, Steven and

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, Mark 39, 55, 83, 241 bees 20, 106 behavior, study of 138–151, 286 behaviorism 66, 89, 186, 285criticism of 285 and evolution 173 and language acquisition 222, 225, 282, 284 and learning 180 belief 138, 140I-beliefs 153–156 irrational 140 religious 141 study of 139 Berkeley 127 Bilgrami, Akeel 113

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study of 269 Tarski, Alfred 215 teaching 115 theory of mind 14, 31 third factor 45, 46, 80, 82, 132, 167, 245, 277, 278, 283and language acquisition 59, 96 study of 147, 149, 236 Thompson, D'Arcy 21, 137, 171, 266 Thompson, Judith 100 thought 15, 44See also cognitive faculties, mind Tinbergen

The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language

by Steven Pinker  · 1 Jan 1994  · 661pp  · 187,613 words

are virtually the only neurologically normal people who make it to adulthood without having acquired a language, their difficulties offer particularly good evidence that successful language acquisition must take place during a critical window of opportunity in childhood. The psycholinguists Jenny Singleton and Elissa Newport have studied a nine-year-old profoundly

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(if children are general imitators, why don’t they imitate their parents’ habit of sitting quietly in airplanes?), but sentences like these show clearly that language acquisition cannot be explained as a kind of imitation. One step remains to complete the argument that language is a specific instinct, not just the clever

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this would allow: Jane might slowly. Jane likes slowly. Jane might chicken. Bad start. The same ambiguity that bedevils language parsing in the adult bedevils language acquisition in the child. The moral is that the child must couch rules in grammatical categories like noun, verb, and auxiliary, not in actual words. That

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set in their ways, and have no first language to interfere. But some of these accounts are unlikely, based on what we know about how language acquisition works. For example, children can learn a language without standard Motherese, they make few errors, and they get no feedback for the errors they do

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could barely understand him. Even the adults who succeed at grammar often depend on the conscious exercise of their considerable intellects, unlike children, to whom language acquisition just happens. Vladimir Nabokov, another brilliant writer in English, refused to lecture or be interviewed extemporaneously, insisting on writing out every word beforehand with the

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the sensory deprivation and emotional scars sustained during the horrific confinement somehow interfered with their ability to learn. But recently a striking case of first language acquisition in a normal adult has surfaced. “Chelsea” was born deaf in a remote town in northern California. A series of inept doctors and clinicians diagnosed

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need, or borrowing a turntable to copy your old collection of LP’s onto tape; once you are done, the machines can be returned. So language-acquisition circuitry is not needed once it has been used; it should be dismantled if keeping it around incurs any costs. And it probably does incur

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’s only computational evolutionary linguist, has put these kinds of assumptions into a computer simulation of evolving humans, and finds that a critical period for language acquisition centered in early childhood is the inevitable outcome. Even if there is some utility to our learning a second language as adults, the critical period

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for language acquisition may have evolved as part of a larger fact of life: the increasing feebleness and vulnerability with advancing age that biologists call “senescence.” Common sense

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have the odds in their favor and will tend to accumulate over evolutionary timespans, whatever the bodily system, and the result is overall senescence. Thus language acquisition might be like other biological functions. The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed

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neck” in innate similarity-determining mechanisms, as the logician W. V. O. Quine pointed out (and his colleague B. F. Skinner did not demur). For language acquisition, what is the innate similarity space that allows children to generalize from sentences in their parents’ speech to the “similar” sentences that define the rest

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word strings. This is why it is no paradox to say that flexibility in learned behavior require innate constraints on the mind. The chapter on language acquisition (“ Chapter 9”) offers a good example: the ability of children to generalize to an infinite number of potential sentences depends on their analyzing parental speech

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: Ingram, 1989, p. 235; Brown, 1973; Limber, 1973; Pinker, 1984; Bickerton, 1992. Adam and Eve: Brown, 1973; MacWhinney, 1991. Children avoid tempting errors: Stromswold, 1990. Language acquisition across the globe: Slobin, 1985, 1992. Alligator goed kerplunk: Marcus, Pinker, Ullman, Hollander, Rosen, & Xu, 1992. Don’t giggle me: Bowerman, 1982; Pinker, 1989. Wild

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& Travis, 1989; Marcus, 1993. Learning language without feedback: Pinker, 1979, 1984, 1989; Wexler & Culicover, 1980; Osherson, Stob, & Weinstein, 1985; Berwick, 1985; Marcus et al., 1992. Language acquisition close up: Pinker, 1979, 1984; Wexler & Culicover, 1980. Human versus other primate gestation periods: Corballis, 1991. Brain growth & language development: Bates, Thal, & Janowsky, 1992; Locke

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development: Lenneberg, 1967. Foreign language learning: Hakuta, 1986; Grosjean, 1982; Bley-Vroman, 1990; Birdsong, 1989. Critical ages for second language acquisition: Lieberman, 1984; Bley-Vroman, 1990; Newport, 1990; Long, 1990. Critical periods for first language acquisition: Deaf: Newport, 1990. Genie: Curtiss, 1989; Rymer, 1992. Isabelle: Tartter, 1986. Chelsea: Curtiss, 1989. Recovery from brain injury

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. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Pinker, S. (Ed.) 1985. Visual cognition. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Pinker, S. 1987. The bootstrapping problem in language acquisition. In B. MacWhinney (Ed.), Mechanisms of language acquisition. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum. Pinker, S. 1989. Learnability and cognition: The acquisition of argument structure. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Pinker, S. 1990

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. Connections and symbols. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Pinker, S., and Prince, A. 1988. On language and connectionism: Analysis of a Parallel-Distributed Processing model of language acquisition. Cognition, 28, 73–193. Pinker, S., and Prince, A. 1992. Regular and irregular morphology and the psychological status of rules of grammar. In L. A

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.), Language learning and thought. New York: Academic Press. Slobin, D. I. (Ed.) 1985. The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, Vols. 1 & 2. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum. Slobin, D. I. (Ed.) 1992. The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, Vol. 3. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum. Smith, G. W. 1991. Computers and human language. New York: Oxford

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. 1994. Language comprehension without language production. Presented at the Boston University Conference on Language Development. Stromswold, K. J. 1994. The cognitive and neural bases of language acquisition. In M. S. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The cognitive neurosciences. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Stromswold, K. J., Caplan, D., & Alpert, N. 1993. Functional imaging of sentence comprehension

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. San Francisco: Freeman. Werker, J. 1991. The ontogeny of speech perception. In Mattingly & Studdert-Kennedy, 1991. Wexler, K., and Culicover, P. 1980. Formal principles of language acquisition. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Wilbur, R. 1979. American Sign Language and sign systems. Baltimore: University Park Press. Williams, E. 1981. On the notions “lexically related

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, 452, 462, PS4 Krauss, N., 262–264 Kuhl, P., 460 Kutas, M., 458, 462 Labov, W., 16–19 Ladegoged, P., 459 Lakoff, G., 458, 468 Language acquisition. See Children Language death. See Extinction of Languages Language delay, PS9, PS23 Language impairment, PS9, PS12. See also Specific Language Impairment Larson, G., 270, 343

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., 350, PS20 Savants, linguistic, 34, 39–43, 365 Scandinavian languages, 253 Schaller, S., 58–59 Schank, R., 457 Scholz, B., PS11 Schwartz, M., 462 Second language acquisition, PS9, PS16–17 Seidenberg, M, 210, 246 Selkirk, E., 454 Semantics, 93–95, 97–101, 105–107, 108, 110–111, 127–129, 130, 147–152

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, and my main nonacademic obsession, photography. Language was originally a side pursuit, which I explored in a theoretical paper on mathematical and computer models of language acquisition. My interest in language also allowed me to study with Roger Brown, the urbane social psychologist who founded the modern study of

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studied with Chomsky before devising her own rival theory. After graduating, I did a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT with Bresnan and developed a theory of language acquisition based on her theory, which I later expanded into a technical book, Language Learnability and Language Development. My first job, back at Harvard, required me

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to teach three courses in language acquisition, and that initiated a drift in my research away from vision and toward language. I pursued two lines of research in language. One was on

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. Children acquire their culture, and develop their personalities, in their interactions with their peer groups and society. Many features of language acquisition bear this out: the dispensability of parental speech in language acquisition, the phenomenon of creolization, the emergence of Nicaraguan Sign Language, and the fact that children of immigrants always grow up with

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latter, they stake out distinct adjacent regions. At the same time it’s been hard to prove that there is a discrete “critical period” for language acquisition. The linguist David Birdsong has suggested that people simply get worse as they get older: children are better than adolescents, who are better than twenty

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language, but that the difference is masked by the fact that most adults are learning a second language, not a first one. Age effects in language acquisition have figured in a controversy in American educational policy that might be even more contentious than the reading wars. Until recently, many American states had

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303 (5662): 1323. Barsky, R. F. 1997. Noam Chomsky: A life of dissent. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Birdsong, D. 2005. Understanding age effects in second language acquisition. In Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic perspectives, ed. by J. Kroll and A. de Groot. New York: Oxford University Press. Birdsong, D., ed. 1999. Second

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language acquisition and the critical period hypothesis. Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum. Bishop, D. V. M. 2002. Putting language genes in perspective. Trends in Genetics 18 (2): 57–

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of the language faculty: Clarifications and implications. Cognition 97 (2): 179–210. Flege, J. E. 1999. Age of learning and second-language speech. In Second language acquisition and the Critical Period Hypothesis, ed. by D. Birdsong. Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum. Garvin, G. 1998. Loco, completamente loco: The many failures of “bilingual education

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focus: What can genes tell us about speech and language? Trends in Cognitive Science 7 (6): 257–262. Mayberry, R. 1993. First-language acquisition after childhood differs from second-language acquisition: The case of American Sign Language. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 36:1258–70. McGilvray, J. A. 2005. The Cambridge companion to

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: A review and meta-analysis of twin and adoption studies. Language 77:647–723. Tomasello, M. 2003. Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. van der Lely, H. K. J. 2005. Domain-specific cognitive systems: Insight from Grammatical Specific Language Impairment. Trends in Cognitive

New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind

by Noam Chomsky  · 4 Dec 2003

process the sentences they hear. All of the following have provided some understanding: experimental and theoretical studies of language perception and language production; insights from language acquisition and language change; and the analysis of brain function in normal and pathological subjects. There are even preliminary insights into how we interpret particular utterances

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resultant complexity made it look as if languages were unlearnable: how could a child master this dramatic complexity in the few years during which first language acquisition takes place? Chomsky’s response was that much more of our knowledge of language is innate than had been previously suspected. Specific languages like English

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or Japanese could obviously not be innate – as witness the environmentally triggered differences between them – but the course of normal language acquisition makes it equally clear that a huge amount must be innate. It is not just that there are constraints on the kind of Foreword xi

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antigens, even artificially produced ones, called up antibodies which were already present in the organism before it was exposed to external influence. The parallel with language acquisition is striking. The theory of Principles and Parameters which has been developed over the last two decades is probably the first really novel approach to

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the result of the interplay of two factors: the initial state and the course of experience. We can think of the initial state as a “language acquisition device” that takes experience as “input” and gives the language as an “output” – an “output” that is internally represented in the mind/brain. The input

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and the states it can assume, we cannot tacitly presuppose “the intelligence of the reader.” Rather, this is the object of inquiry. The study of language acquisition leads to the same conclusion. A careful look at the interpretation of expressions reveals very quickly that from the earliest stages, the child knows vastly

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only beginning to be investigated. When we move beyond single words, the conclusion New horizons in the study of language 7 becomes even more dramatic. Language acquisition seems much like the growth of organs generally; it is something that happens to a child, not that the child does. And while the environment

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to deduce Swahili from one choice of settings, Japanese from another, and so on through the languages that humans can acquire. The empirical conditions of language acquisition require that the switches can be set on the basis of the very limited information that is available to the child. Notice that small changes

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some distinctions but ignore others, in ways that vary for different types of words in curious ways. Such properties can be investigated in many ways: language acquisition, generality among languages, invented forms, etc. What we discover is surprisingly intricate; and, not surprisingly, known in advance of any evidence, hence shared among languages

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far beyond any useful inquiry into the nature of language or the psychology of users of language. To take one example, consider the study of language acquisition. In ordinary usage, we say that a child of five and a foreign adult are on their way towards acquiring English, but we have no

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involve the most remarkable assumptions, even in the case of very simple concepts, such as what counts as a nameable thing. At peak periods of language acquisition, children are acquiring (“learning”) many words a day, perhaps a dozen or more, meaning that they are acquiring words on very few exposures, even just

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meaning or of empirical fact can only be established by empirical inquiry, and considerations of many sorts may well be relevant; for example, inquiry into language acquisition and variation among languages. The question of the existence of analytic truths and semantic connections more generally is an 64 New horizons in the study

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, even absurd; the idea that there is something like an array of innate concepts and that these are to a large degree merely “labeled” in language acquisition – as the empirical evidence suggests – certainly departs radically from many common assumptions. Some, for example Hilary Putnam, have argued that it is entirely implausible to

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immune system, and the task of the scientist is to find out what these resources are. Exactly the same is true of concept formation and language acquisition. For this reason, people who are supposed to be defenders of “the innateness hypothesis” do not defend the hypothesis or even use the phrase, because

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interactions with other systems of the mind (articulatory, perceptual, conceptual, intentional, etc.). Resulting theories of the growth of language are sometimes called theories of a “Language Acquisition Device” (LAD), which effects a transition from the initial state of the language faculty to later states, mapping experience to state attained; the theory of

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of language and mind Problems mount when we look at how specific empirical questions are addressed. Nagel considers one: the proposal that there is a “Language Acquisition Device [LAD], which allows a child to learn the grammar of a language on the basis of the samples of speech it encounters” (1993: 109

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to our neural input by neural mechanisms of association or conditioning.” The empirical evidence is overwhelming that association and conditioning have little to do with language acquisition or use, but that seems not to matter; one wonders why. Whatever the answer, we find examples of what Quine favors (quarks, neural inputs, conditioning

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of dualism that would never be taken seriously beyond the domain of the mental. Another form of dualism that has arisen in the discussion of language acquisition is illustrated by a curious debate on “innatism” or “the innateness hypothesis.” The debate is one-sided: no one defends the hypothesis, including those to

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rationally, on the well-supported empirical assumption that the languages are modifications of the same initial state. Similarly, evidence can be found from studies of language acquisition and perception, aphasia, sign language, electrical activity of the brain, and who knows what else. Furthermore, it adds a great deal to postulate mechanisms in

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deaf is structurally much like spoken language, and the course of acquisition is very similar. Large-scale sensory deficit seems to have limited effect on language acquisition. Blind children acquire language as the sighted do, even color terms and words for visual experience like “see” and “look.” There are people who have

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and seem to be localized in the same brain areas, somewhat surprisingly. These examples of impoverished input indicate the richness of innate endowment – though normal language acquisition is remarkable enough, as even lexical access shows, not only because of its rapidity and the intricacy of result. Thus, very young children can determine

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languages: complex rules for relative clauses in English, for example. It was, however, obvious that nothing of the sort could be true. The conditions of language acquisition make it plain that the process must be largely inner-directed, as in other aspects of growth, which means that all languages must be close

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across these perspectives. (On some traditional problems, often obscure and complex, see Lyons 1977: Section 13.4.) Such properties can be investigated in many ways: language acquisition, generality among languages, similar items within the language, invented forms, zeugma, and so on. If systematic similarities and differences persist, conclusions about lexical structure are

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simply strengthen the conclusions. 8 The example is, in fact, a real one. See Chomsky 1986: 61. 9 He suggests also studies of uniformities in language acquisition; the same considerations apply in this case. 10 We might note, incidentally, that the latter phrase is appropriate only insofar as one might refuse to

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1987. 4           1 For discussion of the matter, see Bilgrami 1993. On the (often tacit) presupposition of an internalist-individualist approach in broader inquiries (sociolinguistics, language acquisition, Hilary Putnam’s “social division of labor,” etc.), see Chomsky (1980: 25f.). 2 The concepts of the “special sciences” (geology, biology, etc.) also do not

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reasonable to suspect that early exposure 202 Notes to pages 129–62 may be crucial, particularly in the light of recent discoveries about very early language acquisition. See C. Chomsky 1986; Mehler and Dupoux 1994. 5 I put aside, here and below, the further assumption that these relations hold of objects in

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.A. Schilpp, eds., The Philosophy of W.V. Quine. La Salle, Open Court, pp. 139–54. Gleitman, Lila (1990) “The structural sources of verb meanings.” Language Acquisition 1: 3–55. Goodman, Nelson (1978) Ways of Worldmaking. Hassocks, Harvester Press. Gould, Stephen J. (1982) The Panda’s Thumb. New York, Norton. Griffin, Donald

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selectivity x–xi, 121–2; labelling of innate concepts 61–2, 65; and lexical access 121–2; and sensory deficit 121–2; see also child language acquisition; Language Acquisition Device (LAD) adjacency 11, 121 agency, and objects 21–2 agreement 14 algorithms 113, 147, 159 Almog, Joseph 42 analytic–synthetic distinction xiv, 46–7

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Case theory 10 categories 138–9 causality viii, 47, 72, 95, 137 “causative” properties 179 cellular theories 116 chain condition 10 Chastain, Charles 115 child language acquisition x–xi, 6–7, 101, 186; assigning labels to concepts 61–2, 65; compared with foreign adult’s 49; and the computational system 120; early

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120, 185; rate of 120; of a specific language 53, 54 216 Index children: attribute beliefs to others before development of language 119; blind and language acquisition 121–2; innateness of the property of discrete infinity 3–4; intuitive understanding of concepts 62; phonetic data available to 185; usage differs from adult

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, 123, 145 computational–representational systems see C–R theories concepts: construction of artificial 51–2; as determining reference of a word 187; innate labelled in language acquisition 61–6; link with sound 120; locational 62; Putnam on short theories and formation of 66; use in understanding ordinary life 90 conceptual–intentional systems

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3–18; terms for something like 119; use of term 106, 130–1 – in different speech communities 157–8 – views on the concept of 73 Language Acquisition Device (LAD) 81, 86, 92–3; as a physical not psychological mechanism 93–4 language change, the study of 6 language faculty see faculty of

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Move operation 13 movement xii, 13, 14–15 multilinguality 169 mutations 96–7 mysteries ix, 83, 107, 133 Nagel, Thomas 86–8, 90, 95–6; Language Acquisition Device (LAD) 92–4;on mind–body problem 86–8, 109, 115; on naturalistic theory of language 143 names: have no meaning 24, 42, 173

Cartesian Linguistics

by Noam Chomsky  · 1 Jan 1966

intricate knowledge that having a language involves. The linguist’s task is much more complicated and difficult than Plato’s. Solving Plato’s problem for language acquisition involves saying both what is known when one knows a language and how one comes to know it, and doing this with a science of

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of education as a matter of ‘remembering’ (reminiscence). The scientist of language, in contrast, must construct a naturalistic theory of a biological system that makes language acquisition virtually automatic. In Chomsky’s terminology, one must provide an adequate scientific theory of all possible natural languages – that is, a theory of UG (Universal

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for natural languages, at the same time defaulting to the relevant combinatorial principles. They must offer a theory of the biological ‘mechanisms’ of language and language acquisition that describe these mechanisms’ built-in principles (“linguistic universals”), any options that the mechanism’s principles allow (now called “parameters”), and the conditions that the

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the brain. Chomsky assumes that Universal Grammar is available to the child at birth, somehow embodied in the biological mechanisms of the mind as a “language acquisition device.” If it were not innate in this way, it could not explain how the poverty of the stimulus facts could arise – how children can

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so that they become properly mindful of ‘social values’. If Humboldt and Chomsky are right, this empiricist version of romanticism not only distorts language and language acquisition, but makes no sense of creativity. Postscript Writing almost forty years after CL’s publication, it is clear that it has had little impact of

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and concepts that appear in specific words or lexical items are – as Chomsky says – arbitrary, there is no reason to expect a naturalistic theory of language acquisition to deal with them. Someone could associate the sound “arthritis” with the concept disease of the limb or the concept underneath. I, wanting others to

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for the quite obvious fact that the speaker of a language knows a great deal that he has not learned. In approaching the question of language acquisition and linguistic universals in this way, Cartesian linguistics reflects the concern of seventeenth-century rationalistic psychology with the contribution of the mind to human knowledge

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, throughout his Nouveaux Essais. That the principles of language and natural logic are known unconsciously112 and that they are in large measure a precondition for language acquisition rather than a matter of “institution” or “training” is the general presupposition of Cartesian linguistics.113 When Cordemoy, for example, considers

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language acquisition (op. cit., pp. 40ff.), he discusses the role of instruction and conditioning of a sort, but he also notices that much of what children know

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his own activity” (ibid., p. 235). While Schlegel’s precise intentions, with many such remarks, might be debated, in Humboldt the Platonism with respect to language acquisition is quite clear. For Humboldt, “to learn is …always merely to regenerate” (op. cit., p. 126). Despite superficial appearances, a language “cannot properly be taught

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most diverse conditions, speak and understand at about the same age, varying only within a brief time-span (p. 72; Humboldt 1999, 58). In short, language acquisition is a matter of growth and maturation of relatively fixed capacities, under appropriate external conditions. The form of the language that is acquired is largely

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sense of these much abused terms. As a result, a fresh look has been taken, not only at language structure, but at the preconditions for language acquisition and at the perceptual function of abstract systems of internalized rules. I have tried to indicate, in this summary of Cartesian linguistics and the theory

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is indisputable, if one investigates their inner workings profoundly, rather than superficially.” Furthermore, this is clearly the only view compatible with his Platonistic theory of language acquisition (cf. p. 98 below). See Chomsky, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, for some further discussion of the historical importance of Whitney’s influential but (in

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inadequately discussed. He mentions Immanuel Kant in particular. It is perhaps significant that the Cambridge Platonists had more to say about the scientific issues of language acquisition that Chomsky discusses than Kant, who was primarily interested in epistemological issues and had little to say that could be seen as anticipating Chomsky’s

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’ of language.] See also Chomsky, Explanatory Models in Linguistics, and Katz, Philosophy of Language, for discussion of an essentially rationalist approach to the problem of language acquisition and of the inadequacy of empiricist alternatives. In the same connection, see Lenneberg, op. cit. and Biological Foundations of Language (New York: John Wiley, 1967

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, but it must be emphasized that there is no known process of this sort that will begin to overcome the inadequacy of empiricist accounts of language acquisition. For discussion, see the references of note 110. In considering this problem, one must, in particular, bear in mind the criticism advanced by Cudworth (op

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a precise account of the basis on which acquisition of beliefs and knowledge proceeds. We may, if we like, refer to the processes involved in language acquisition as processes of generalization or abstraction. But 138 Notes we will then apparently be forced to conclude that “generalization” or “abstraction,” in this new sense

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.115) creativity artistic, 12, 61, 65, 114 (n.34) ordinary, see creative aspect of language use scientific, 11, 44 (n.18) critical period hypothesis for language acquisition, 98 diversity of human language, 25–29, 119 (n.48), 125 (n.63) education, 9, 11, 18, 27, 39–40, 67, 139 (n.115) empiricism

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, 134 (n.100); see also grammar and linguistics of mind, 11, 16–17, 21, 24, 25–26, 42 (n.11) scientific creativity, see creativity second language acquisition, 124 (n.63), 138 (n.114) semantics intension, 127 (n.70) meaning, 20, 43 (n.15), 75, 77, 79, 84, 86, 90, 91, 127 (n

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), 125 (n.67), 133 (n.100); see also grammar, linguistics, science of language theory of mind, 50, 94, 104; see also science of mind training, language acquisition as, see conditioning, standard social science model, general learning procedures transformational rules, see rules transformational generative grammar, see grammar translation, 125 (n.63) trigger/triggering

Immigration worldwide: policies, practices, and trends

by Uma Anand Segal, Doreen Elliott and Nazneen S. Mayadas  · 19 Jan 2010  · 492pp  · 70,082 words

integral part of U.S. society. Several decades ago, Congress recommended that elementary and secondary school education be strengthened with bilingual education, language-enhancement, and language-acquisition programs, however, recent immigrant backlash has resulted in ‘‘English only’’ resolutions in a number of states. Congress also proposed an emergency immigrant education policy to

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support the integration process by language and integration courses and by counseling structures for newly immigrated persons. Based on past experiences, the failures regarding German language acquisition and education both for preschool- and schoolaged members of the younger generation should be avoided. Pillar 3: ‘‘Revisited Integration Policy’’: This is the most important

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students and further training for teachers. supports, along with 10 states, the development of a master plan for language education through the program ‘‘FörMig’’ (Language Acquisition Promotion for Children and Youth with migrant background). through its model program ‘‘Truancy—The Second Chance,’’ pursues the goal to reintegrate truants in schools and

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were gathered on the reception platform. They showed that 66% of all the legal newcomers arriving in France in 2005 were francophone.7 Related to language acquisition and use, Michèle Tribalat and her colleagues also found out that the transmission of the parents’ mother tongue to their children is usually restricted

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reunification; economic migrant; or asylum seeker). Some groups of recent arrivals, particularly asylum seekers, often face significant challenges with settlement, particularly in terms of English-language acquisition and overseas qualification recognition. Indians and Chinese often outperform whites in schools and in the labor market, while other groups, such as Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and

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, 57, 58, 59, 60, 66, 67, 127, 129, 145, 210, 219, 221, 227, 230, 231, 235–237, 288, 304, 324, 325, 378, 379, 439, 452 language acquisition, 41, 70, 86, 127 Law of Return, 227, 230–233, 241 Law of Nationality, 280, 284, 337, 346 Lesotho, 364 level of integration, 95, 394

Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking

by Cecilia Heyes  · 15 Apr 2018

not easy, but Chomsky (1965) provided an important clue when he argued that language learning must be guided by genetically inherited knowledge of grammar, a “language acquisition device,” because there is “poverty of the stimulus.” In other words, children could not learn grammar exclusively from their environments because those environments do not

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, or “poor,” to explain how children master the grammar of their native languages. The merits of this particular argument, with respect to a genetically inherited language acquisition device, will be discussed in Chapter 8. Of interest here is the fact that Chomsky’s argument can be generalized in two ways: from language

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perceptual and motor skills, and dedicated vocal apparatus. What is distinctive about genetic accounts is their commitment to the idea that the genetic resources supporting language acquisition include information about the abstract structure of language; about features of grammar that, they claim, all languages have in common. Views about the content of

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to find out about grammar via domain-general inferential processes (Cowie, 2016). In contrast, Chomsky’s later “principles and parameters” approach (Chomsky, 1981; 1988) cast language acquisition as a passive process of maturation or unfolding, like a chicken growing a wing, and suggested that our inborn linguistic knowledge is much more extensive

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of language is the unfolding of a genetic blueprint, or that it is guided by psychological processes dedicated to language learning—a “language acquisition device.” In contrast, functionalism assumes that language acquisition depends on domain-general cognitive processes guided by linguistic and nonlinguistic input from other agents. At least two cultural evolutionary accounts of

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lines between Ps). This knowledge is encoded by domain-general memory and sequence learning processes, which predate the emergence of language; the cognitive processes of language acquisition evolved genetically to fulfil nonlinguistic functions. Indeed, in Christiansen and Chater’s account, the constraints imposed by domain-general mechanisms are the selective environment for

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for a limited period in development. The window opens shortly after birth and shuts around puberty. Therefore, children and adults depend on different mechanisms for language acquisition, and, when a language is learned in adulthood, it is rarely mastered to the same extent as when it is learned in childhood. There are

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. Viewed historically, this debate may look like a defeat for the genetic account. It tried to solve a problem by postulating a critical period for language acquisition, but, for the reasons outlined above, the solution did not work out. This is a reasonable historical interpretation, but it does not tell us now

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organizes the brain, is consistent with both the cultural and the genetic accounts of the evolution of language. Sequence Learning The cultural account suggests that language acquisition is powered not by Universal Grammar, but by domain-general processes of sequence learning; in other words, processes that use “statistical” or “associative” principles to

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, Tomblin, and Christiansen, 2014; Tomblin, Mainela-Arnold, and Zhang, 2007). What about nonhuman animals? According to the cultural account, the sequence learning processes that support language acquisition are qualitatively similar to those found in other animals. However, in the hominin line, these processes were enhanced by genetic evolution before the emergence of

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competence-performance distinction, it threatens to insulate hypotheses about Universal Grammar from evaluation by cognitive science. Anything the cognitive scientist can find out about natural language acquisition and processing—in studies of infants, adults, and nonhuman animals; through naturalistic studies, experiments, and computer simulations—is liable to be regarded as a discovery

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against the genetic theory. The first raises what Christiansen and Chater (2016) call “the logical problem of language evolution,” referencing Chomsky’s “logical problem of language acquisition.” For example, they argue, informally and via computer simulations (Chater, Reali, and Christiansen, 2009), that Universal Grammar could not have evolved genetically because linguistic conventions

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linguistic universals, a critical period for language development, the neural localization of language, and the roles of domain-general sequence learning and social shaping in language acquisition. The discussion of linguistic universals indicated that there are few, if any, non-definitional features that all languages have in common. However, this can be

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National Academy of Sciences, 110(22), 9001–9006. Bates, E., and MacWhinney, B. (1982). Functionalist approaches to grammar. In L. Gleitman and E. Wanner (eds.), Language Acquisition: The State of the Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bates, E., and MacWhinney, B. (1989). Functionalism and the competition model. In B. MacWhinney and E

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of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 31(2), 262–275. Birdsong, D., and Molis, M. (2001). On the evidence for maturational constraints in second-language acquisition. Journal of Memory and Language, 44(2), 235–249. Blackmore, S. (2000). The Meme Machine. Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks. Blakemore, S. J. (2008). The social brain

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are selected to match those found in objects in natural scenes. The American Naturalist, 167(5), E117–E139. Chater, N., and Christiansen, M. H. (2010). Language acquisition meets language evolution. Cognitive Science, 34(7), 1131–1157. Chater, N. and Heyes, C. (1994). Animal concepts: Content and discontent. Mind and Language, 9(3

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. N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/innateness-language. Crain, S., Goro, T., and Thornton, R. (2006). Language acquisition is language change. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 35(1), 31–49. Cronk, L. (1991). Human behavioral ecology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 20(1), 25–53

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and Cognitive Development (Vol. 21, Attention and Performance). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 249–274. Culicover, P. W. (1999). Syntactic Nuts: Hard Cases, Syntactic Theory, and Language Acquisition (Vol. 1). Oxford University Press on Demand. Culicover, P. W., and Jackendoff, R. (2005). Simpler Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dąbrowska, E. (2012). Different speakers

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the language faculty: Clarifications and implications. Cognition, 97, 179–210. Flege, J. E., Yeni-Komshian, G. H., and Liu, S. (1999). Age constraints on second-language acquisition. Journal of Memory and Language, 41(1), 78–104. Fleming, S. M., Dolan, R. J., and Frith, C. D. (2012). Metacognition: Computation, biology and function

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. Acta Psychologica, 134(3), 353–362. Hakuta, K., Bialystok, E., and Wiley, E. (2003). Critical evidence: A test of the critical-period hypothesis for second-language acquisition. Psychological Science, 14(1), 31–38. Harris, W. V. (ed.) (2013). Mental Disorders in the Classical World. Leiden: Brill. Harshaw, C., and Lickliter, R. (2007

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” genetic theories of language, 174–175, 174f Grammar: artificial learning, 185–187, 195–196; education and knowledge levels, 189; human language diversity, 178–180; as language acquisition device, 45–46, 65, 164–165, 170, 171–175, 176, 179–180, 181; Universal, 170, 171–175, 174f, 188, 190–191, 196 Grapheme-phoneme reading

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inheritance and learning, 3, 5, 45–46, 78, 86f, 89, 169–196; genetic vs. cultural evolution debate, 5, 169–178, 176f, 179–196; grammar and language acquisition, 45–46, 65, 164–165, 170–175, 185–186; language learning, 181–183, 186, 195; mental state vocabulary, 152–153, 154, 164–165; native languages

The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World

by Iain McGilchrist  · 8 Oct 2012

al., ‘Infant recognition of mother’s voice’, Perception, 1978, 7(5), pp. 491–7 Mehler, J., Jusczyk, P., Lambertz, G. et al., ‘A precursor of language acquisition in young infants’, Cognition, 1988, 29(2), pp. 143–78 Meister Eckhart, Meister Eckhart: A Modern Translation, ed. R. B. Blakney, Harper Torchbooks, New York

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. et al., ‘Interhemispheric switching mediates perceptual rivalry’, Current Biology, 2000, 10(7), pp. 383–92 Mills, D. L., Coffey-Corina, S. A. & Neville, H. J., ‘Language acquisition and cerebral specialization in 20-month-old infants’, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 1993, 5(3), pp. 317–34 Mills, L. & Rollman, G. B., ‘Hemispheric asymmetry

On Nature and Language

by Noam Chomsky  · 16 Apr 2007

postulate a structural principle rather than a simpler linear principle, or even no principle at all? This is one illustration of a pervasive situation in language acquisition. As the experience is too impoverished to motivate the grammatical knowledge that adult speakers invariably possess, we are led to assume that particular pieces of

…

of the inner background of every speaker. We can now phrase the problem in the terminology used by the modern study of language and mind. Language acquisition can be seen as the transition from the state of the mind at birth, the initial cognitive state, to the stable state that corresponds to

…

(Lasnik (1989), Rizzi (1997a) and references quoted there). So, in-depth research on individual languages immediately leads to comparative research, through the logical problem of language acquisition and the notion of Universal Grammar. This approach assumes that the biological endowment for language is constant across the species: we are not specifically predisposed

…

empirical hypothesis, one which is confirmed by the explanatory success of modern comparative linguistics. 3 Descriptive adequacy and explanatory adequacy It has been said that language acquisition constitutes “the fundamental empirical problem” of modern linguistic research. In order to underscore the importance of the problem, Chomsky introduced, 9 On nature and language

…

to different constructions under language-specific parametric values. A crucial contribution of parametric models is that they provided an entirely new way of looking at language acquisition. Acquiring a 15 On nature and language language amounts, in terms of such models, to fixing the parameters of UG on the basis of experience

…

be appropriate for the acquisition of syntactic knowledge as well. The Principles and Parameters approach offered a new way of addressing the logical problem of language acquisition, in terms which abstract away from the actual time course of the acquisition process (see Lightfoot (1989) and references discussed there). But it also generated

…

, among many other references, the discussion in Friedemann and Rizzi (2000), Rizzi (2000), Wexler (1994, 1998) and the references quoted there; on the connections between language acquisition, language change and creolization in terms of the parametric approach, see Degraff (1999)). 5 Parametric models and linguistic uniformity The development of parametric models was

…

the last twenty years. 6 The Minimalist Program 6.1 Background The Principles and Parameters approach provides a potential solution to the logical problem of language acquisition, resolving at the same time the tension between descriptive and explanatory adequacy: the acquisition of very complex grammatical patterns can be traced back to innate

…

the states it attains (the various languages), 83 On nature and language and we can investigate the process by which the state changes take place (language acquisition). We can try to discover the psychological and physiological mechanisms and principles, and to unify them, standard problems of science. These inquiries constitute the first

…

circuits whose structure enables them to perform one particular kind of computation,” as they do more or less reflexively apart from “extremely hostile environments.” Human language acquisition is instinctive in this sense, based on a specialized “language organ.” This “modular view of learning” Gallistel takes to be “the norm these days in

…

stages, finally at about puberty. We can think of the initial state of FL as a device that maps experience into state L attained: a “language acquisition device” (LAD). The existence of such a LAD is sometimes regarded as controversial, but it is no more so than the (equivalent) assumption that there

…

can somehow distinguish linguistic materials from the rest of the confusion around it, hence postulating the existence of FL (= LAD);19 and as discussion of language acquisition becomes more substantive, it moves to assumptions about the language organ that are more rich and domain specific, without exception to my knowledge. That includes

…

language and the restricted options that yield the rich typological variety that we know must be rather superficial, despite appearances, given the empirical conditions on language acquisition. Though naturally partial and tentative, such understanding has increased markedly in the past twenty years. Now it seems that questions of optimal design can be

…

same time, for the first time really, an effort was made to deal with what has later come to be called the logical problem of language acquisition. Plainly, children acquiring this knowledge do not have that much data. In fact you can estimate the amount of data they have quite closely, and

…

designed” means internal to a theory. That’s true whether the experiment is about the relation between movement and manifestation of inflectional features, or about language acquisition, or anything else. Take a concrete example from linguistics and cognitive psychology, one that has been badly misunderstood, the experiment that Bever, Fodor, and Garrett

…

, but every state it can attain yields an infinite number of interpretable expressions. That essentially amounts to saying that there are no dead ends in language acquisition. You can’t set parameters in such a way that you get a system that will fail to have an infinite satisfaction of the interface

…

us that partly analogous tensions could arise between the demands of explanatory adequacy (in the classical sense of adequacy in addressing the logical problem of language acquisition) and minimalist explanation. It is conceivable that a less structured, hence more minimal, system would allow for more alternative analyses of the primary data, thus

…

the wrong theory. The same conclusion holds if the proposal does not yield a solution for the logical 132 An interview on minimalism problem of language acquisition. So, the first condition that has to be met is truth for every state of the language faculty. At the initial state it has been

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) Logic as Grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Huang, J. (1982) “Logical Relations in Chinese and the Theory of Grammar.” PhD dissertation, MIT. Hyams, N. (1986) Language Acquisition and the Theory of Parameters. Dordrecht: Reidel. Jackendoff, R. (1977) X’ Syntax: A Study of Phrase Structure. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Jacob, F. (1981) Le

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Inquiry 23: 381–405. Lasnik, H. and M. Saito (1992) Move Alpha: Conditions on its Application and Output. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lebeaux, D. (1988) “Language Acquisition and the Form of Grammar.” PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Lees, R. B (1960) The Grammar of English Nominalization. The Hague: Mouton. Lewontin

…

. 268–285. (1997b) “The fine structure of the left periphery.” In L. Haegeman, ed., Elements of Grammar. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 281–337. (2000) Comparative Syntax and Language Acquisition. London: Routledge. (2001a) “Relativized minimality effects.” In M. Baltin and C. Collins, eds., Handbook of Syntactic Theory. Oxford: Blackwell. 89–110. (2001b) “Extraction from Weak

…

) 86–7 perfection of 58, 90, 96–8, 105–9 VSO languages 24–5 see also faculty of language language acquisition 5–9, 15–17, 30, 80–2, 84–6, 93, 134–6 language acquisition device (LAD) 85–6 language organ see faculty of language langue 1, 3, 31 Lasnik, H. 7, 9, 38

…

–13, 39, 129–30, 152 passive construction 14–15 principles and parameters 11–17, 29–30, 95–6, 131, 151 subjacency 13–14 see also language acquisition; linguistic uniformity Vata 25 verb movement 21–3, 33 Verb–Subject–Object (VSO) languages 24–5 206 visual perception 58–9, 103–4 Voltaire 59

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