Theories of L1 Acq.
Li2: Language Variation
Theories of First Language Acquisition
Dr. Deborah Anderson
Michaelmas Term 2007
http://www.ling.cam.ac.uk/Li2
Philosophical tradition
Generative vs. non-generative theories
The above terms are preferred to nativist
vs. non-nativist theories, which are also
used in the literature.
One reason is that it is perfectly possible for
a researcher to reject the claim that children
have innate linguistic ability, but
nevertheless maintain that children have
some innate non-linguistic ability (or
abilities) that facilitate language acquisition.
Corresponding theoretical divide in
developmental psychology:
Empiricism (Locke & Hume)
All knowledge is the product of
experience.
Behaviourism (e.g. Skinner) – All
behaviour, including linguistic, can be
explained in terms of stimulus and
response.
Rationalism (Plato & Descartes)
Some knowledge is innate.
Nativism (e.g. Chomsky)
Experience as well as innate knowledge
play a role in language acquisition.
It is generally accepted that pure
empiricism, as espoused by Skinner,
was effectively debunked as a credible
theory of language acquisition by
Chomsky in an influential paper
published in 1959 (see references at
end of handout).
Dr. D. Anderson, U. of Camb.
A more contemporary divide is that
which holds between:
generative theories
most notably, principles and
parameters theory
non-generative theories
including distributive, constructivist,
functionalist, or usage-based
theories
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Theories of L1 Acq.
One reasonably reliable means of
distinguishing the two theoretical camps
is according to whether language
acquisition is viewed as involving the use
of language-specific and innately-given
knowledge, which is standardly termed
universal grammar (UG).
As a rule, generative theories
acknowledge the role of UG, while nongenerative theories do not.
The generative approach
Two core tenets of generative (or
nativist) theory:
No negative evidence
Poverty of the stimulus
Theoretical preliminaries
Two defining characteristics of L1
acquisition, which any theory of language
acquisition must take into account
(Crain & Lillo-Martin 1999)
Universality: Every normal child acquires
a natural language.
Uniformity: Every language is learned
with equal ease.
The poverty of the stimulus (P.O.S.)
“These, then, are the salient facts about language
acquisition or, more properly, language growth.
The child masters a rich system of knowledge
without significant instruction and despite a …
deficiency of experiential data. The process
involves only a narrow range of “errors” or false
hypotheses and takes place rapidly, even
explosively, between two and three years of age.
The main question is how children acquire so
much more than they experience.” (italics mine)
Lightfoot (1999:64)
The P.O.S. incorporates two separate
contentions:
1) Language acquisition is achieved despite
a deficiency of data/limited evidence.
The input to the child is not uniformly
grammatical, but contains speech errors,
incomplete sentences, and other
examples of ill-formed expressions.
2) Certain linguistic knowledge is acquired
despite a lack of instruction or explicit
evidence for the same.
Dr. D. Anderson, U. of Camb.
Example of grammatical knowledge the
child acquires which is not taught and
which requires an understanding of nonobvious phrase structure relations:
(1) a. Who do you wanna invite?
b. Who do you want to invite?
(2) a. When do you wanna go out?
b. When do you want to go out?
(3) a. *Who do you wanna come?
b. Who do you want to come?
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Theories of L1 Acq.
Why is (3a) is grammatically illformed as compared to the rest of
the sentences? (See Guasti 2002:9)
In generative theory, the focus is thus not
only on the data that can be observed (e.g.
the child’s production of well-formed
sentences), but also on aspects of the child’s
knowledge that are not directly observable
(e.g. the child’s failure to produce
grammatically ill-formed questions, which
suggests conformance to certain syntactic
rules of English).
(See Pinker 1994:271-3 or Anderson & Lightfoot
2002, Chapter 2, for further examples.)
No negative evidence
Negative evidence is neither reliably nor
systematically supplied in the speech to
which the child is exposed (i.e. the PLD
or primary linguistic data)
Furthermore, even when children are
provided with negative evidence, they
often disregard it.
(Fromkin et al. 2003)
Child: Want other one spoon, Daddy.
Father: You mean you want THE OTHER SPOON?
Child: Yes, I want other one spoon, please,
Father:
Child:
Father:
Child:
Father:
Child:
Father:
Child:
Daddy.
Can you say ‘the other spoon’?
Other… one … spoon
Say ‘other.’
Other
Spoon
Spoon
Other… spoon
Other… spoon. Now give me the other one
spoon.
(Braine 1971)
Dr. D. Anderson, U. of Camb.
Examples from Pinker (1995:119)
Parent:
Child:
Parent:
Child:
Where’s Mommy?
Mommy goed to the store.
Mommy goed to the store?
No! (annoyed) Daddy, I say
it that way, not you.
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Theories of L1 Acq.
Child:
Parent:
Child:
Parent:
Child:
Parent:
Child:
(a different one): You readed some
of it too … she readed all the rest.
She read the whole thing to you,
huh?
Nu-uh, you read some.
No, that’s right. I readed the
beginning of it.
Readed? (annoyed surprise) Read!
(pronounced ‘red’)
Oh, yeah. Read.
Will you stop that, Papa?
For the aforementioned reasons,
then, it is claimed in the generative
literature that provision of negative
evidence is neither required nor
sufficient for the successful
acquisition of a first language.
Principle and parameters (P&P) theory
(Chomsky 1981;1986)
In the P&P model of language acquisition,
universal principles constrain the basic
form of any grammar, while parameters
specify limited and pre-determined ways in
which the grammars of individual
languages may vary.
Examples of UG principles
According to the theory, both types of
information are specified as part of
universal grammar (UG), an innate,
biologically-specified mental faculty that
strongly directs the course of language
acquisition.
(Pinker 1994;1995)
Children are born with innate knowledge of
the existence of:
(1) syntactic categories (e.g. noun, sentence)
(2) grammatical functions (e.g. subject,
object)
(3) grammatical features (e.g.tense, number)
(4) case features (e.g. nominative, absolutive)
(5) phrase structure configurations (i.e. X-bar
The child’s task therefore is simply to
identify how these grammatical
elements are expressed in the
particular language he/she is learning,
(e.g. English, Turkish, Chinese, etc.)
theory or phrase tree structures)
Dr. D. Anderson, U. of Camb.
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Theories of L1 Acq.
Example of a UG parameter
Head/directionality parameter, which
specifies that languages may vary in
terms of whether the heads of phrases
(e.g. verbs) take their complements to
the left or to the right (cf. John hit the
girl vs. John the girl hit).
Children acquiring English must adopt
the [+ initial] value of this parameter,
while children acquiring Japanese, in
which heads take their complements to
the left, must adopt the negative value,
(see Goodluck 1991)
[- initial].
Supportive evidence for P&P Theory
A. Children’s early sensitivity
to the syntactic properties
of speech
Preferential Looking Paradigm (Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff 1996)
Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff (1996)
14-month-old infants hear the sentence
Hey! She’s kissing the keys! Subjects
looked longer at the screen depicting a
woman kissing some keys while holding
a ball, than at the screen depicting a
woman kissing a ball while holding
some keys.
Dr. D. Anderson, U. of Camb.
This would seem to demonstrate, at
the very least, that infants are
sensitive to the grouping of basic
sentential constituents.
(But see Tomasello 2003:127-32 for
an dissenting view).
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Theories of L1 Acq.
More supportive evidence
B. Creoles
Kegl et al. (1999) – Creolization of a
sign-language pidgin by deaf
Nicaraguan children, who were raised
by non-signing parents.
Cases of dissociation between
general cognitive ability and linguistic
performance
C.
• Laura (Yamada 1990)
• Christopher (Smith and Tsimpli 1995)
• William’s syndrome
• SLI (Specific Language Impairment)
All such researchers, however, reject
the generative notion of an innately
specified, language-specific
module/faculty that guides language
acquisition.
Bickerton (1988) – The Bioprogram
Hypothesis. Advanced to explain striking
similarities in the grammatical properties
of creoles throughout the world.
See also Newport’s (1999) discussion of
children acquiring sign languages (e.g.
Simon).
The non-generative approach
As earlier noted, non-generative
theories are inaccurately described as
purely empiricist since even nongenerative researchers accept that
certain biological factors influence
cognitive – and, therefore, linguistic –
development.
“In usage-based approaches,
contentless rules, principles,
parameters, constraints, features, and
so forth are the formal devices of
professional linguists; they simply do
not exist in the minds of speakers of a
natural language.”
Tomasello (2003:100)
Dr. D. Anderson, U. of Camb.
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Theories of L1 Acq.
Core tenets of non-generative theory
Language is acquired through the
application of general learning
strategies and not language-specific
ones.
The communicative function of
language is central, as it is language
use that dictates the form of the
knowledge that the learner acquires.
The developmental course of
language acquisition is subject to
variation according to differences
in individual ability/individual
experience/grammatical
properties of various languages.
Cognitive Functional Approach
(Tomasello 2000, 2001, 2003)
Two fundamental abilities underlie acquisition
of a first language:
1. intention-reading (i.e. theory of mind)
incorporates shared attention, direction of
attention and imitation
2. pattern-finding
incorporates categorisation, distributional
analysis, and making analogies
At the same stage of development, his
daughter used semantically similar verbs
in very distinct ways:
cut (X) – Sole usage of this verb
vs.
wider use of the verb draw:
draw (W) ; draw (W) on (X); draw (W)
for (Y); draw on (Z)
Dr. D. Anderson, U. of Camb.
Central claim: Children’s early linguistic
competence is item-based: abstract
syntactic categories and ‘schemas’ emerge
gradually and in piecemeal fashion.
Tomasello’s (1992) diary study of his own
daughter’s linguistic development during
her second year revealed that her use of
verbs was considerably restricted compared
to adult-like use of the same items.
For draw:
“draw-er” (vs. subject)
“thing drawn” (vs. object)
“thing drawn with” (vs. instrument)
For cut:
“thing cut” (vs. object)
No evidence that argument structure of
cut includes a subject or an instrument,
so no evidence yet for generalization of
these notions.
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Theories of L1 Acq.
Additionally:
•
Morphological marking (e.g. past
tense) was uneven across individual
verbs.
•
The best predictor of her verb usage
the next day was not her use of
other verbs but rather her use of
the same verb. Changes were
conservative, typically involving only
a small addition or modification.
Other item-based patterns in linguistic
development:
Rubino & Pine (1998) – Studied 3yr-old child learning Brazilian
Portuguese. Child produced adultlike subject-verb agreement only for
those verbs that occurred with high
frequency in the adult language
(e.g. 1st person singular).
Some item-based schemas of a 24-month-old child
(Tomasello 2003:120)
Berman & Armon-Lotem (1995) –
Studied children acquiring Hebrew.
First 20 verb forms were nearly all
morphologically unanalyzed,
suggesting rote-learning alone.
Reading Recommendations
Notably, the cognitive-functional
account strongly predicts individual
variation in language development, in
contrast to generative theories which
typically emphasize developmental
uniformity across individuals.
Generative (or nativist) theories of first language
acquisition
Crain, S. and D. Lillo Martin. 1999. An Introduction
to Linguistic Theory and Language Acquisition.
Blackwell. (Part I, pp. 1-70, is highly recommended.)
Anderson, S. and D. Lightfoot. 2002. The Language
Organ: Linguistics as Cognitive Physiology. CUP.
(Chapter 2 offers examples of potential violations of UG
constraints that are not attested in child language.)
Dr. D. Anderson, U. of Camb.
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Theories of L1 Acq.
Pinker, S. 1995. ‘Language acquisition’ in L.
Gleitman, L. & M. Liberman (eds.) Language: An
Invitation to Cognitive Science. 2nd ed. Vol. 1: 135182.
Gleitman, L. & E. Newport, 1995. ‘The invention of
language by children’ in L. Gleitman & M. Liberman
(eds.) Language: An Invitation to Cognitive Science.
2nd ed. Vol. 1: 1-24. MIT Press. (Contains a
discussion of blind children’s acquisition of language.)
Guasti, M.T. 2002. Language Acquisition: The
Growth of Grammar. MIT Press. (An advanced
source)
Non-generative (or non-nativist) theories of
language acquisition
Tomasello, M. 2003. Constructing a Language: A
Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition.
Harvard University Press. (Chapter 4, ‘Early syntactic
constructions’, is highly recommended.)
Clark, E. 2002. First Language Acquisition. CUP.
(Chapter 7, ‘First combinations, first constructions’)
Tomasello, M. 2001. ‘The item-based nature of
children’s early syntactic development.’ In M.
Tomasello and E. Bates (eds.) Language
Development: Essential Readings. Blackwell.
Elman, J. 1999. ‘The emergence of language: A
consipiracy theory’ in B. MacWhinney (ed.) The
Emergence of Language. Lawrence Erlbaum.
(Examines the issue of innateness from a
neurophysiological perspective.)
Tomasello, M. 2000. ‘Do young children have adult
syntactic competence?’ Cognition 74: 209-53.
Other sources
Bickerton, D. 1988. ‘Creole languages and the
bioprogram.’ In Newmeyer, F.J. (ed.) Linguistics: the
Cambridge Survey. Vol. 2: Linguistic Theory,
Extensions and Implications. CUP.
Dr. D. Anderson, U. of Camb.
Jackendoff, R. 2002. Foundations of Language:
Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution. OUP. (See
especially Chapter 4, Universal Grammar, where
standard arguments against generative theory are
reviewed and refuted.)
Lust, B. and C. Foley. 2004. First Language
Acquisition: The Essential Readings. Blackwell.
(Contains reprints of important papers, including Chomsky
1959, Lenneberg 1967 and Brown 1973.)
Russell, J. 2004. What is Language Development?:
Rationalist, Empiricist and Pragmatist Approaches to
the Acquisition of Syntax. OUP.
Slobin, D. 2001. ‘Form/function relations: How
do children find out what they are?’ In M.
Tomasello and E. Bates (eds.) Language
Development: Essential Readings. Blackwell.
Snow, C.E. 1999. ‘Social perspectives on the
emergence of language’ in MacWhinney, B (ed.)
The Emergence of Language. Lawrence Erlbaum.
Elman, J. 2001. ‘Connectionism and language
acquisition.’ In M. Tomasello and E. Bates (eds.)
Language Development: Essential Readings.
Blackwell. (A short introductory level paper.)
Kegl, J., A. Senghas, and M. Coppola. 1999. ‘Creation
through contact’ in M. DeGraff (ed.) Language Creation and
Language Change: Creolization, Diachrony and
Development. MIT Press.
Yamada, J. 1990. Laura: A Case Study for the Modularity of
Language. MIT Press.
Smith, N. & I. Tsimpli. 1995. The Mind of a Savant:
Language Learning and Modularity. Blackwell. (Discussion
of the linguistic savant Christopher.)
Newport, E. 1999. ‘Reduced input in the acquisition of
signed languages’ in M. DeGraff (ed.) Language Creation
and Language Change: Creolization, Diachrony and
Development. MIT Press. (Discussion of Simon.)
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