Knowledge and Learning in Natural Language

Oxford University Press UK (2002)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This book presents a new theory of how children acquire language and discusses its implications for a wide range of topics. It explores the roles of innateness and experience in language acquisition, provides further evidence for the theory of Universal Grammar, and shows how linguistic development in children is a driving force behind language shifts and changes.Charles Yang surveys a wide range of errors in children's language and identifies overlooked patterns. He combines these with work in biological evolution in order to develop a model of language acquisition by which to understand the interaction between children's internal linguistic knowledge and their external linguistic experience. He then presents evidence from his own and others' research in the acquisition of syntax and morphology and data from historical language change to test its validity. The model is the first to make quantitative and cross-linguistic predictions about child language. It may also be deployed as a predictive model of language change which, when the evidence is available, could explain why grammars change in a particular direction at a particular time.Knowledge and Learning in Natural Language is a pioneering work at the centre of current concerns in linguistics and cognitive science. It will interest all those concerned to understand and explain language acquisition, Universal Grammar, and language change.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,401

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Language acquisition in the absence of experience.Stephen Crain - 1991 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 14 (4):597-612.
Universal Grammar and Language Acquisition.Stephen Crain & Rosalind Thornton - 2021 - In Nicholas Allott, Terje Lohndal & Georges Rey, A Companion to Chomsky. Wiley. pp. 348–363.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-10-14

Downloads
15 (#1,278,503)

6 months
2 (#1,294,541)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references