Principles and Parameters of Universal Grammar

MacWhinney (2004) has provided a clear and welcome synthesis of many strands of the recent research addressing the logical problem of first language acquisition from a non-nativist or non-generative grammar framework. The strand that I will comment on is the one MacWhinney calls the ‘pivot’ of his proposal, namely, that acquiring a grammar is primarily a function of learning ITEM-BASEDPATTERNS (e.g. pp. 23–29, 41, passim). These item-based patterns serve a number of dominant roles within MacWhinney's proposal, including enforcing children's conservatism (thereby reducing greatly their overgeneralizations and need to recover from the same), supporting the probabilistic nature of grammar, and enabling the competition that promotes recovery from the overgeneralizations that do occur. My concern here is primarily with the first role, that of enforcing children's conservatism, and especially with the exclusive use of language PRODUCTION as the demonstrated support of this conservatism.

MacWhinney's stimulating discussion suggests that there are many lines of argument that may address concerns raised by theorists who are concerned that there is a logical problem of language acquisition. This commentary argues: (1) that if the ‘logical problem’ applied to language, it would apply, with curious consequences to any learning by experience; (2) that the logical problem does not apply – given sufficient positive data from any reasonable language, language can be learned, in a probabilistic sense, by an ‘ideal learner’ using a simplicity principle; and (3) that a simplicity, or minimum description length, principle may provide a useful methodology for assessing claims concerning learnability of particular linguistic structures.

MacWhinney's paper focuses on the role of input and learning strategies in explaining how language is acquired, essentially denying the poverty of stimulus assumption on which the so-called ‘logical problem of language acquisition’ is based.

Without other mechanisms such as induction and parsers, UG-based approaches to linguistic cognition seem to fail to explain the logical problem of language acquisition. Hence, a property theory has to be adopted to combine UG views with other cognitive mechanisms like information processing and restructuring (Ellis, 2008). Pienemann (1998, 2003)'s Processibility Theory, and Levelt’s (1989) psycholinguistic theory of speech production, Jackendof's (1987, 1997, 2002) MOGUL, and Carroll’s (2001, 2002) Autonomous Induction Theory (AIT) are among the models which try to add new views to the UG-based approaches. Although suffering from a number of criticisms and having a high degree of abstractness, AIT with its major premises and conceptions related to the role of induction, attention, input, input processing, feedback, learning, and UG seems to be able to explain some of the UG enigma in second language acquisition.

Logical development: The Logical Problem of Language Acquisition C. L. Baker and John J. McCarthy. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981. Pp. xii + 358. $30.00

While previous machine learning protocols have failed to achieve even observational adequacy in acquiring natural language, generative large language models (LLMs) now produce large amounts of free text with few grammatical errors. This is surprising in view of what is known as “the logical problem of language acquisition”. Given the likely absence of negative evidence in the training process, how would the LLM acquire the information that certain strings are to be avoided as ill-formed? We attempt to employ Dutch-speaking ChatGPT as a linguistic informant by capitalizing on the documented “few shot learning” ability of LLMs. We then investigate whether ChatGPT has acquired familiar island constraints, in particular the CNPC, and compare its performance to that of native speakers. Although descriptive and explanatory adequacy may remain out of reach, initial results indicate that ChatGPT performs well over chance in detecting island violations.

The enduring disconnect between linguistic theory and classroom pedagogy remains a critical concern in modern language education. While linguistic theory provides comprehensive insights into the structural, cognitive, and functional dimensions of language, pedagogical frameworks frequently neglect these foundations in favor of performance-focused, communicative strategies. This paper explores the systematic integration of linguistic theory—particularly syntax, semantics, phonology, pragmatics, and discourse analysis—into contemporary teaching methodologies. Adopting a qualitative analytical approach, the study examines existing pedagogical paradigms, evaluates their theoretical limitations, and proposes a synergy-based instructional model grounded in linguistic principles. The findings highlight that pedagogical frameworks enriched by linguistic theory cultivate deeper linguistic awareness, analytical competence, communicative precision, and sustainable learning outcomes. The paper concludes by emphasizing the need for institutional reforms, teacher professionalization, and curriculum restructuring to facilitate meaningful theory-driven pedagogy. The study emphasizes teacher training, curriculum restructuring, and contextualized instruction as key measures for effective integration. Findings suggest that aligning linguistic theory with pedagogy fosters deeper comprehension, improves learner performance, and supports meaningful language acquisition.

Perhaps the best introduction to the topic of language acquisition and linguistic theory is a look at some of the facts that linguistic theory must account for. The complexity, orderliness and limited variety in human languages convinces linguists that language must be learned through a biological program that puts bounds on the possible grammatical system a child can postulate. The type of system that falls within the bounds of this innate learning ability is the matter of linguistic theory. Some properties of human languages Order and dominance Sentences are strings of words. One of the ways in which languages differ is in the ordering relations and type of hierarchical structure that is imposed on words in sentences. Languages divide into so-called free word order languages and those that impose relatively rigid word orders on sentences, selecting one of the three basic word orders characteristically found in human languages. English has a basic Subject–Verb–Object (hereafter SVO) order ( Ants eat ants etc.). The other two primary orders selected by languages are Subject–Object–Verb (SOV) and Verb–Subject–Object (VSO). The choice of a system with relatively free versus fixed word order determines many important properties of a language's design. In free word order languages the words are concatenated with little superstructure; languages with more or less fixed word order in general permit the embedding of sentences and phrases one within the other, resulting in hierarchical structures of potentially infinite depth.

On Perceived Conceptual and Methodological Divergences in Linguistic Theory and Cognitive Science: Distributional Analyses, Universal Grammar, and Language Acquisition Authors Garrett Neske New York University PDF Article info Impact Citations Published at 24. March 2010 https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.8761 Issue: Vol. 4 No. 1 (2010) Section: Briefs Keywords: language acquisition learning computational linguistics universal grammar development Share: Z PlumX Dimensions Views: Total Abstract PDF 10 7 3

Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and epilepsy

Language acquisition is a human endeavor par excellence. As children, all human beings learn to understand and speak at least one language: their mother tongue. It is a process that seems to take place without any obvious effort. Second language learning, particularly among adults, causes more difficulty. The purpose of this series is to compile a collection of high-quality monographs on language acquisition. The series serves the needs of everyone who wants to know more about the problem of language acquisition in general and/or about language acquisition in specific contexts.

Speech and other central auditory processes: insights from cognitive neuroscience

Reviewed by: Perspectives on Arabic linguistics: Papers from the annual symposia on Arabic linguistics, vol. XXII–XXIII: College Park, Maryland, 2008 and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2009 Janet C. E. Watson Perspectives on Arabic linguistics: Papers from the annual symposia on Arabic linguistics, vol. XXII–XXIII: College Park, Maryland, 2008 and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2009. Ed. by Ellen Broselow and Hamid Ouali. (Current issues in linguistic theory 317.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2011. Pp. xxviii, 295. $165 (Hb). Within the series of peer-reviewed proceedings resulting from the Arabic Linguistics Society meetings, this volume brings together papers on Arabic phonetics and phonology, morphology and syntax, and language acquisition, learning, and contact. Part of its aim is also to showcase the contribution of Arabic linguistics to research on linguistics in general. Facts from Arabic and traditional approaches to Arabic linguistics have played an increasingly significant role in the testing and development of linguistic theory: the index of the Handbook of phonological theory (Goldsmith et al. 2011), for example, lists forty-two references to Arabic as opposed to twenty-nine for French, twenty-two for German, and twenty-eight for American English. Arabic data have contributed significantly to theoretical work in all major areas of linguistics: within phonology and phonetics, the rich set of postvelar consonants raised issues of local and long-distance harmony domains, and the articulatory, acoustic, and auditory correlates of what has traditionally been known as ‘emphasis’; Arabic nonconcatenative word formation has been crucial in the development of templatic morphology, and in recent years raised the question of whether the apparent root-and-pattern morphology of Arabic (and other Semitic languages) is really so different from (more standard) linear morphology; verbless nominal clauses, word order, and the sensitivity of agreement in Standard Arabic to the relative position of the subject and verb have prompted many solutions within generative and functionalist syntax; the interplay within the Arab world of different language registers has stimulated research on the effects of diglossia, language contact, and language change; and the degree of variation exhibited particularly within phonological systems across the Arab world has led to considerable research on the patterns and typology of word stress and syllabification within various phonological paradigms. The volume begins with a state-of-the-art introduction to the compilation, the role of Arabic within linguistic theory, and current trends in Arabic linguistics. The papers on phonetics and phonology in Part 1 deal with word stress and language processing (Rajaa Aquil), voicing assimilation (Rawiah S. Kabrah), the phonology-syntax interface and phrasal syncope (Mahasen Hasan Abu-Mansour), and intonation (Dina El Zarka). The papers on morphology and syntax in Part 2 examine mood (Tommi Leung), agreement, ‘Pro drop’ and reciprocal expressions (Abdelkader [End Page 896] Fassi Fehri), Palestinian comparatives (Yaron McNabb and Christopher Kennedy), the analysis of kan in Moroccan Arabic (Nizha Chater-Moumni), and the split-CP hypothesis (Murtadha J. Bakir). The papers on language acquisition, learning, and contact in Part 3 focus on aspects of language contact (Mary Ann Walter), voice onset time (VOT) production in Arabic-English bilingual children (Eman Saadah), phonological processing in a diglossic environment (Elinor Saiegh-Haddad), and the acquisition of SVO and VSO word order (Reem Khamis-Dakwar). I consider a selection of these papers here. In Part 1, Rajaa Aquil’s paper describes an empirical ‘word spotting’ study used to test the claim that Cairene Arabic (CA) is a stress-timed language. This paper examines the extent to which native speakers of CA are able to spot attested CA words within nonsense words. In the experiment, CA words of the structure CVCC were embedded in nonsense words followed by weak syllable (SW), followed by stressed syllable (SS), and followed by epenthetic vowel then stressed syllable (SwS). The CA word occupies the stressed syllable of the nonsense word only in the case of SW. The results show processing is significantly quicker when a CA word is followed by a weak syllable than when followed by a stressed syllable...

No nouns, no verbs: psycholinguistic arguments in favor of lexical underspecification

Historical syntax occupies a pivotal position within the larger field of research into the nature, use, and acquisition of language. It is responsive to theoretical advances in linguistic theory, language acquisition, and theories of language use, as well as to less adjacent fields such as statistical techniques and evolutionary biology. Linguistic theory has undergone deep changes since the early 1990s, given the widespread impact of Chomsky's Minimalist Programme, Kayne's Antisymmetry Theory, and Kayne's Theory of Overt Movement. This work has brought into sharper focus questions concerning the architecture of linguistic theory that have a direct impact on our understanding of the process of change. At the same time, the recently developed framework of Optimality Theory, which has had a major influence in phonology, is beginning to provide new insights and raise new questions as it is applied to syntax and historical change. This collection of new writing by largely generative-based syntacticians advances this work. This book contains selected material from the Fifth Diachronic Generative Syntax Conference (DIGS 5) held in 1998. The chapters have been chosen to reflect developments in the study of language change and variation, and to exemplify work in a wide range of languages, including Germanic, Romance, Celtic, Slavic, and Sinitic. The book is divided into parts dealing with theoretical frameworks, comparative change, features and categories, and movement. A substantial opening chapter by the editors provides a critical overview of the subject and introduces the following chapters.