Arguments for Nativism

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Arguments for Nativism

• Various other facts about child language add
  support to the Nativist argument
• Accuracy (few errors)
• Efficiency (quick, easy)
• Uniformity (within and across languages)
• Constrained (POS)

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Poverty of the Stimulus

• If
• (i) children know X, and
• (ii) evidence for X is not sufficiently present
  in the input to children,
• then X must be innate.
• ? Children come to know things that they should
  not know, given what they hear.

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Example of the POS auxiliary inversion
(Chomsky, 1971)

• (1)

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Example of the POS auxiliary inversion
(Chomsky, 1971)

• (1)

the
girl
is
the
in
market
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Example of the POS auxiliary inversion
(Chomsky, 1971)

• (1)

the
girl
t
the
in
market
Is
?
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Principle of Y/N Question Formation

• ? Move the auxiliary to the front of the sentence.

This works for 99 of the sentences in English.
But not all
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Sentences with Multiple Auxiliaries

• John is in the house now that it is raining.

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Sentences with Multiple Auxiliaries

• John is in the house now that it is raining.

Is John t in the house now that it is raining?
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Sentences with Multiple Auxiliaries

• John is in the house now that it is raining.

Is John t in the house now that it is raining?
Is John is in the house now that it t raining?
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Revised Principle of Y/N Question Formation

• ? Move the first auxiliary to the front of the
  sentence.

The girls is in the market John is in the house
now that it is raining.
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But

• a. The child that is sitting on the floor is
  hungry.

b. Is the child that t sitting on the floor is
hungry?
c. Is the child that is sitting on the floor t
hungry?
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So whats the principle?
The child that is sitting on the floor is
hungry.
The child that is sitting on the floor
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So whats the principle?
Is the child that is sitting on the floor t
hungry?
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So whats the principle?

• Linear Order Hypothesis (Incorrect)
• To make a yes-no question, front the first
  auxiliary.

• Structural Dependency Hypothesis (Correct) In
  order to make a yes-no question, front the main
  auxiliary.

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How does a child learn this?

• The child must hear sentences of the following
  kind
• Is the child that is sitting on the floor hungry?
• Nativists argue such evidence is stunningly rare
  in CDS.
• Crain Nakayama (1987) show children aged 32
  have knowledge of this principle.

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Poverty of the Stimulus

• At its heart, the POS argument is a problem of
  INDUCTION.
• Induction how do you go from individual
  examples to a generalized rule?

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Induction

• A simple example
• 1
• 2
• Whats the next number in this progression?
• 3?
• 4?
• 7?

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The Induction Problem

• Youre about to see 5 slides of 3 colored bars in
  frames.
• The first 4 slides exhibit a property that you
  need to learn.
• Decide whether or not the 5th slide exhibits the
  property in question.

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1
21
2
22
3
23
4
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?
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Answer

• NO
• The property in question in whether the area
  covered by the bars is greater than 50 of the
  area of the rectangle.
• This generalization is more natural for pigeons
  to learn than for humans.

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Try it again
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1
28
2
29
3
30
4
31
?
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Answer

• YES
• Property in question in whether the 3 bars are
  unequal in height.
• This generalization is more natural for humans
  than for pigeons.

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Try it again
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1
35
2
36
3
37
4
38
?
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Answer

• YES
• You only saw examples decreasing in height from
  left to right. But the generalization was still
  that the bars only had to be different heights.

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Try it again
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1
42
2
43
3
44
4
45
?
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Answer

• YES
• Property in question is whether the 3 bars are
  unequal in height.
• But what about the 4th example?
• Oh, that? It was a mistake.

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The Induction Problem

• You have to be able to discern the relevant
  dimension(s)
• Any set of input data potentially allows an
  infinite number of generalizations.
• How does an unbiased learner select the one
  correct hypothesis from amongst these infinite
  hypotheses?

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Returning to Yes-No Question Formation

• Linear Order Hypothesis (Incorrect)
• To make a yes-no question, front the first
  auxiliary.

• Structural Dependency Hypothesis (Correct)
• In order to make a yes-no question, front the
  main auxiliary.

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So how do kids learn the correct principle?
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• Children are born with the knowledge that
  language is dependent on structure, not linear
  order.

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Lawn Bowling
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This is the current state of the field
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A ball is about to be bowled
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This is the final state of the field
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• How did you get from the initial state to the
  final state?

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• Lots of possibilities

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Which is the correct way to get from initial
state to final state?
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So how do kids learn the correct principle?
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• Children are born with the knowledge that
  language is dependent on structure, not linear
  order.

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The End