THEORIES ABOUT THE HUMAN CAPACITY FOR NATURAL LANGUAGE

1.0 Introduction. It is generally accepted that words are the basic building blocks of language, and fall on a continuum with open-class words on one end and closed-class words on the other. Openclass words bear content and can be subdivided into a limited set of grammatical categories such as noun, adjective, verb, adverb. Open classes are great in number and new elements can always be added without any problems. (see Haegeman 1994: 115) Children acquire them first because they represent objects, events and actions present in their immediate environment. (see Brown 1973, referred to in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 14) Closedclass words, also known as function words, are used to surface meaning relations and expose grammatical units. Closed classes are few in number and new elements cannot be added at all. (see Haegeman 1994: 115) Children acquire them later on because they contain more abstract meanings. (see Brown 1973, referred to in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 14) It is important for them to become aware of the grammatical devices their language uses to put together and distinguish between the different syntactic units. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 15)

2.0 Theories. Current theories of first language acquisition can be said to belong to one of two families which differ in regard their opinions about the following. First of all, what children are equipped with at the start of the process of acquisition Secondly, what mechanisms are at work during the process. Lastly, what types of input are mainly responsible for triggering or facilitating the process.

2.1 The language in the environment type. Theories that belong to this group make the following assumptions about first language acquisition. Children begin their journey with next to no linguistic knowledge. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 17) What they bring to the task of acquiring a language and
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make most use of is either their cognitive processing capability that is part of their inherent cognitive system or their rich social knowledge that stems from their inherent social structure. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 17) Children recognize, observe and analyze objects, events and actions present in their environments to derive linguistic data relevant to the construction of a language. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 17) Children start by mapping what they are able to perceive onto linguistic form. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 17) Furthermore, the acquisition of a language is a domain-general learning procedure and an entirely bottom-up process. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 17) The mechanisms that drive the process of language learning forward are the same as those that are involved in learning that occurs in other domains. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 17) These theories reject there being any boundaries between syntax, semantics and pragmatics. (see Nichols 1984: 97, quoted in Newmeyer 1998: 10) Going one step further, they assume that linguistic meaning is a component of our conceptual system. (see Goldberg 1996: 3-4, referred to in Newmeyer 1998: 15) Moreover, the whole of semantic meaning is present in the surface structure which denies the existence of transformational devices in grammar. (see Goldberg 1996: 3-4, referred to in Newmeyer 1998: 15) It is also important to note that the input children receive from the world around them is constrained either by their cognitive skills or various social environments. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 17)

2.1.0 Subtypes. Theories of the language in the environment type can be further divided into the social-interactional type and the cognitive type. The difference main between the two lies in their opinion as to the importance of each type of input for the acquisition of a language.

2.1.1 The social-interactional type. Theories of the social-interactional type emphasize that children depend on their social encounters to provide them with data necessary for the construction of linguistic forms. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 17-18) Moreover, children are believed to make extensive use of their abilities to understand social interactions that they are taking part in and to interpret those that are taking place around them. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 20) They analyze communicative situations paying special attention to the purpose and the

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context of particular speech events. (see Nichols 1984: 97, quoted in Newmeyer 1998: 10) Furthermore, the various types of social and cultural environments children are surrounded by greatly influence their development of a language system. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 18-19) The different environments children are exposed to determine the content and function of the language they are attempting to learn. (see Nelson 1985, quoted in HirshPasek and Golinkoff 1996: 19) Also, the orders in which linguistic units and grammatical rules are learned reflect childrens experience. (see Nelson 1985, quoted in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 19) Children memorize items of speech to form a corpus they can work on to derive grammatical rules. (see Nelson 1985, referred to in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 20) The material they gather allows them to produce their own utterances. They receive help from their social environments in the form of corrections and facilitation which allows them to continuously revise the rules. (see Hirsh-Pasek, Treiman and Schneiderman 1984, HirshPasek 1986, Nelson 1977, Sokolov and Snow 1994, Moerk 1983, Bohannon and Stanowitz 1988, Furrow, Nelson and Benedict 1979, referred to in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 20) The next important point to make is that childrens main motivation for acquiring a language is them feeling the need to become a social partner who is capable of fulfilling different social functions. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 21) What lies underneath that is their desire to fully participate in social interactions. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 21)

2.1.2 The cognitive type. Theories of the cognitive type underline that children begin the process of acquiring a language equipped with a cognitive system that allows them to analyze actions, events and relations in the world around them in terms of cognitive categories such as agent, experiencer, patient, recipient, action, location (see Schlesinger 1988: 122, quoted in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 22) in order to form the foundation of a grammar. (see Schlesinger 1971, 1988 and Braine 1976, referred to in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 22) Furthermore, in order to construct an organized language system children find appropriate labels for the different cognitive categories and classify them as linguistic categories. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 18) It is important to note that according to these theories properties of meaning and those of use influence linguistic meaning and so are partly responsible for the shape of a grammar. On the same note, phrasal grammatical constructions are considered to be pairings of form and meaning before anything else. (see Goldberg 1996: 3-4, referred to in

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Newmeyer 1998: 15) These theories also underline that the main communicative purpose of using language is to convey meaning. (see Goldberg 1996: 3-4, referred to in Newmeyer 1998: 15) The message hidden in this statement is that the study of linguistic structure is in fact an attempt at describing the connection between formal distinctions and semantic or pragmatic ones. (see Goldberg 1996: 3-4, referred to in Newmeyer 1998: 15) What children do to achieve their goals as far as language learning is concerned is

2.2 Critique. Over the years theories of the language in the environment type have received some criticism. Firstly, they are accused of presupposing a lot of non-linguistic and linguistic knowledge children will start acquiring a language with. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 24) More to the point, they not only fail to treat that knowledge as childrens natural predisposition for acquiring a language but also give no other explanation as to the source of that knowledge or how it might have been gained. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 24) What these theories assume children have before they begin acquiring a language are the ability to use cognitive or social categories to grasp what goes on in their environment, the ability to recognize linguistic units in a speech stream, analyze the order they come in, note the frequency with which they appear and memorize them so that they can be worked on, the ability to conceive some more complex linguistic categories. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 25) Secondly, these theories make the mistake of reducing language to a clear case of mapping from cognitive or social categories to linguistic form. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 25) Natural languages are too complex to be treated like that. Linguistic knowledge is simply not the same as cognitive or social knowledge, linguistic categories are not the same as cognitive categories. (see Roeper 1987, referred to in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 25) Moreover, even if we were to assume that they can be seen in this way why then so many languages have so different word orders and not some that is the most natural one despite the fact that it is a universal cognitive process that is responsible for the emergence of cognitive categories. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 25) Another crucial point to make is that these theories do not state explicitly how it is that a linguistic system based on cognitive or social categories develops into one based on abstract syntactic

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categories. (see Bloom, Miller and Hood 1975: 33, quoted in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 26) Finally, it is impossible for children to construct a language relying solely on linguistic knowledge they can derive from their environments. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 27) Impoverished linguistic stimulus does not contain data children can work on to become aware of the existence of so called empty categories which are present in the abstract deep structure but are absent from the level of the surface structure of sentences. (see Chomsky 1981, referred to in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 27) Furthermore, children cannot hope to learn about the connection between the grammatical role a unit has in a given sentence and where it may move within it by means of distributional analysis alone. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 28) Taking what has been said into consideration, because of the fact that ... More to the point, languages with very little inflection should prove extremely problematic for children because for the most part those languages lack a morphologically realized case system, yet, children do not find those languages to be any more difficult to acquire than those with rich inflection.

2.3 The language in the mind type. Theories of this type explain first language acquisition in the following way. which includes, among other things, the ability to segment the linguistic stream, the ability to recognize both word classes and grammatical categories, the ability to perform phrase structure analysis. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 33) However, it is important to note that a severely linguistically impoverished environment may result in children ending up with a somewhat underdeveloped language system. (see Chomsky 1988, referred to in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 34)

2.3.0 Subtypes. There are two subtypes of theories of the language in the mind type. They are the structure-oriented type and the process-oriented type. For the most part, they differ in what is the central topic of their research.

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2.3.1 The process-oriented type. Theories of the process-oriented type are dedicated to learning how it came to be that human beings were equipped by nature with all that is needed to acquire a natural language. In other words, these theories try to find reasons for the existence of principles and parameters in the human genome. (see Newmeyer 1998: 104) More to the point, they do not concern themselves with what those principles and parameters they attribute so much to really are. (see Newmeyer 1998: 105) Their chief concern are also the mechanisms children use to acquire a language (see Landau and Gleitman 1985, Gleitman 1990, Pinker 1984 and 1989, referred to in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 18) and to establish the mappings between form and function during the process. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 34) One of the necessary conditions for being successful in that endeavor is children being absolutely ready to classify lexical items they encounter as belonging to particular word classes. Furthermore, these theories focus primarily on the early stages of the process, to be more precise, on childrens first attempts at discovering the specifics of how their native language looks like and the directions they move in from that initial point in their development. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 35) These theories propose that children make use of the parts of grammar they have already acquired when they need some help with some other aspects of a language. (see Pinker 1984, referred to in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 37) It is worth mentioning that these theories consider the environment to be a bit more than merely a trigger for the process of language acquisition. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 37)

2.3.2 The structure-oriented type. Theories of the structure-oriented type are mainly interested in the content of the grammatical system that children have to acquire (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 18) and the choices they make to arrive at the grammar of their native language. (see Hyams 1986, Lightfoot 1989, referred to in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 18) Many of these theories simply assume that biological maturation is the main mechanism responsible for first language acquisition. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 34) These theories analyze the structural relationships between grammatical units without devoting too much attention to the units semantic and pragmatic properties. (see Newmeyer 1998: 7) They also focus on the study of facts about the process of language acquisition and the languages themselves which are proof to the existence of a finite set of universal linguistic statements about languages,
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principles (see Chomsky 1981, referred to in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 31), and ways to account for different phenomena, parameters (see Chomsky 1981, referred to in HirshPasek and Golinkoff 1996: 31), that are the foundation of a universal grammar we are all born with, the language faculty. (see Chomsky 1988: 61, quoted in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 32) An acquired language will have the parameters of its principles fixed. (see Chomsky 1986: 150-151) The syntactic properties of a language are a consequence of calibrating a model grammar in the process of language acquisition. (see Newmeyer 1998: 101) The parameterized principles are believed to be enough to characterize, that is to account for, the different structures of sentences. These theories describe sentences that cannot be generated by the principles as ungrammatical and sentences that the principles allow to be hierarchically organized in more than one way as having multiple structural descriptions. (see Newmeyer 1998: 97) According to these theories the language performance of native speakers and their judgments as to the acceptability or the ambiguity of sentences can all be traced back to their grammars. (see Newmeyer 1998: 97-98) What these theories propose can be described as a very modular approach to syntax. (see Newmeyer 1998: 11) What is the amount and the type of linguistic data children need to be able to correctly set the parameters for the language they are acquiring is of great interest to these theories as well. (see HirshPasek and Golinkoff 1996: 33) The next important point to make is that according to these theories children start acquiring a language equipped with a rich linguistic structure. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 33) In the process of acquisition they discover the specifics about different construction types in their native language which will become the basis for an open-ended recursive system. (see Anderson and Lightfoot 2002: 42)

2.4 Critique. Criticism of theories of the language in the mind type goes back a long time. First and foremost, it is often argued that granting children so much innate linguistic knowledge makes these theories for the most part unfalsifiable because whenever new light is shed on some facts about languages as a result of some current research these theories can just state that it has all been there, in childrens minds, all along but it was not until recently that it was considered to be. (see Fodor and Crain 1987: 46, quoted in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 38) These theories will very often argue that new findings are a consequence of a yet unformulated principle. (see Newmeyer 1998: 99) At the same time any new data that needs

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to be explained because it has not been accounted for will lead to nothing more than a reinterpretation, an elaboration or an extension of the initial conditions. (see Newmeyer 1998: 98) Also, if questions arise as to the operation of some principle these theories can simply postulate that even though it may seem that they do not work correctly at some level of grammar they still do at a different one. (see Newmeyer 1998: 98) Furthermore, it is often pointed out that the principles these theories propose have almost no connection to how language is actually used which makes it hard to make them accountable. (see Newmeyer 1998: 101) Secondly, these theories are accused of standing on the false assumption that in the process of acquiring a language once children discover how some structure looks like in their native language they immediately stop making mistakes when they use it. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 39) In fact, children produce utterances with both correct and incorrect structures before they finally decide on one. (see Kuczaj 1977, referred to in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 39) More to the point, the progress children make over time in acquiring a language is not actually an ascending line but rather a gradually ascending learning curve which posits a new problem for these theories because they are not able to pinpoint the moment in the process of language acquisition that a structure is triggered by the linguistic environment and instantly acquired. (see Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 39) It is important to note at this point that these theories minimize too much the role the environment plays in the process of language acquisition. Furthermore, these theories state that the reason why some children do not acquire a language as fast as they should or why some children acquire some grammatical structures when they should others first is nothing more than biological maturation. (see Borer and Wexler 1987, referred to in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 40) By doing so these theories fail to consider why the order in which different principles start influencing the emergence of a language looks like as it does and, moreover, whether there are any possible variations of that order. (see Weinberg 1987: 25, quoted in Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff 1996: 40)

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