Editing Language acquisition (section)

===Empiricism===

Although Chomsky's theory of a [[generative grammar]] has been enormously influential in the field of linguistics since the 1950s, many criticisms of the basic assumptions of generative theory have been put forth by cognitive-functional linguists, who argue that language structure is created through language use.<ref>{{cite book|title=Constructing a language: a usage-based theory of language acquisition|author=Tomasello, Michael|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2003|isbn=978-0-674-01030-7|location=Cambridge|oclc=62782600}}</ref> These linguists argue that the concept of a [[language acquisition device]] (LAD) is unsupported by evolutionary anthropology, which tends to show a gradual adaptation of the human brain and vocal cords to the use of language, rather than a sudden appearance of a complete set of binary parameters delineating the whole spectrum of possible grammars ever to have existed and ever to exist.<ref name="Mameli 2011">{{Cite journal|last1=Mameli|first1=M.|last2=Bateson|first2=P.|date=Feb 2011|title=An evaluation of the concept of innateness.|journal=Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci|volume=366|issue=1563|pages=436–43|doi=10.1098/rstb.2010.0174|pmc=3013469|pmid=21199847}}</ref> On the other hand, cognitive-functional theorists use this anthropological data to show how human beings have evolved the capacity for grammar and syntax to meet our demand for linguistic symbols. (Binary parameters are common to digital computers, but may not be applicable to neurological systems such as the human brain.){{citation needed|date=July 2012}}

Further, the generative theory has several constructs (such as movement, empty categories, complex underlying structures, and strict binary branching) that cannot possibly be acquired from any amount of linguistic input. It is unclear that human language is actually ''anything like'' the generative conception of it. Since language, as imagined by nativists, is unlearnably complex,{{citation needed|date=July 2012}} subscribers to this theory argue that it must, therefore, be innate.<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199573776.013.10 |chapter=The Argument from the Poverty of the Stimulus |title=The Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar |date=2016 |editor-last1=Roberts |editor-first1=Ian |last1=Lasnik |first1=Howard |last2=Lidz |first2=Jeffrey L. |pages=220–248 |isbn=978-0-19-957377-6 }}</ref> Nativists hypothesize that some features of syntactic categories exist even before a child is exposed to any experience—categories on which children map words of their language as they learn their native language.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Cambridge Handbook of Child Language|last=Bavin |first= Edith L.|date=2009|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780511576164|location=Cambridge|pages=15–34|oclc=798060196}}</ref> A different [[theory of language]], however, may yield different conclusions. While all theories of language acquisition posit some degree of innateness, they vary in how much value they place on this innate capacity to acquire language. Empiricism places less value on the innate knowledge, arguing instead that the input, combined with both general and language-specific learning capacities, is sufficient for acquisition.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Tomasello|first1=Michael|date=2000|title=First Steps Toward a usage-based theory of language acquisition|journal=Cognitive Linguistics|volume=11|issue=1–2|pages=61–82|doi=10.1515/cogl.2001.012}}</ref>

Since 1980, linguists studying children, such as [[Melissa Bowerman]] and [[Asifa Majid]],<ref name="Majid Bowerman 2007">{{cite journal |last1=Majid |first1=Asifa |last2=Bowerman |first2=Melissa |last3=Staden |first3=Miriam van |last4=Boster |first4=James S |title=The semantic categories of cutting and breaking events: A crosslinguistic perspective |journal=Cognitive Linguistics |date=19 January 2007 |volume=18 |issue=2 |doi=10.1515/COG.2007.005 |hdl=2066/104711 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> and psychologists following [[Jean Piaget]], like Elizabeth Bates<ref name="Bates 2003">{{cite journal |last1=Bates |first1=Elizabeth |last2=D’Amico |first2=Simona |last3=Jacobsen |first3=Thomas |last4=Székely |first4=Anna |last5=Andonova |first5=Elena |last6=Devescovi |first6=Antonella |last7=Herron |first7=Dan |last8=Ching Lu |first8=Ching |last9=Pechmann |first9=Thomas |last10=Pléh |first10=Csaba |last11=Wicha |first11=Nicole |last12=Federmeier |first12=Kara |last13=Gerdjikova |first13=Irini |last14=Gutierrez |first14=Gabriel |last15=Hung |first15=Daisy |last16=Hsu |first16=Jeanne |last17=Iyer |first17=Gowri |last18=Kohnert |first18=Katherine |last19=Mehotcheva |first19=Teodora |last20=Orozco-Figueroa |first20=Araceli |last21=Tzeng |first21=Angela |last22=Tzeng |first22=Ovid |title=Timed picture naming in seven languages |journal=Psychonomic Bulletin & Review |date=June 2003 |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=344–380 |doi=10.3758/BF03196494 |pmc=3392189 |pmid=12921412 }}</ref> and Jean Mandler, came to suspect that there may indeed be many learning processes involved in the acquisition process, and that ignoring the role of learning may have been a mistake.{{citation needed|date=February 2011}}

In recent years, the debate surrounding the nativist position has centered on whether the inborn capabilities are language-specific or domain-general, such as those that enable the infant to visually make sense of the world in terms of objects and actions. The anti-nativist view has many strands, but a frequent theme is that language emerges from usage in social contexts, using learning mechanisms that are a part of an innate general cognitive learning apparatus. This position has been championed by [[David M. W. Powers]],<ref>{{Cite book|title=Machine learning of natural language|last1=Powers|first1=David M. W.|last2=Turk|first2=Christopher.|publisher=Springer-Verlag|year=1989|isbn=978-0-387-19557-5|location=London; New York|oclc=20263032}}</ref> [[Elizabeth Bates]],<ref>{{cite book|title=A companion to cognitive science|author1=Bates, E|author2=Elman, J|author3=Johnson, M|author4=Karmiloff-Smith, A|author5=Parisi, D|author6=Plunkett, K|publisher=Blackwell|year=1999|isbn=978-0-631-21851-7|editor1=Graham, George|location=Oxford|pages=590–601|chapter=Innateness and emergentism|oclc=47008353|editor2=Bechtel, William}}</ref> [[Catherine E. Snow|Catherine Snow]], [[Anat Ninio]], [[Brian MacWhinney]], [[Michael Tomasello]],<ref name="=Tomasello, 2008" /> Michael Ramscar,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ramscar |first1=Michael |last2=Gitcho |first2=Nicole |title=Developmental change and the nature of learning in childhood |journal=Trends in Cognitive Sciences |date=July 2007 |volume=11 |issue=7 |pages=274–279 |doi=10.1016/j.tics.2007.05.007 |pmid=17560161 }}</ref> William O'Grady,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=O'Grady |first1=William |date=2008 |title=Innateness, universal grammar, and emergentism |url=http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/faculty/ogrady/Innateness,_UG,_Emergentism.pdf |journal=Lingua |volume=118 |issue=4 |pages=620–631 |doi=10.1016/j.lingua.2007.03.005 }}</ref> and others. Philosophers, such as Fiona Cowie<ref name="Cowie">{{cite book |last1=Cowie |first1=Fiona |title=What's Within?: Nativism Reconsidered |date=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-984952-9 }}{{page needed|date=December 2024}}</ref> and [[Barbara Scholz]] with [[Geoffrey Pullum]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Scholz |first1=Barbara C |last2=Pullum |first2=Geoffrey K |chapter=Irrational nativist exuberance |pages=59–80 |editor1-last=Stainton |editor1-first=Robert J. |title=Contemporary Debates in Cognitive Science |date=2006 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-4051-1305-2 |author1-link=Barbara Scholz |author2-link=Geoffrey Pullum }}</ref> have also argued against certain nativist claims in support of empiricism.

The new field of [[cognitive linguistics]] has emerged as a specific counter to Chomsky's Generative Grammar and to Nativism.

====Statistical learning====
{{Main|Statistical learning in language acquisition}}
Some language acquisition researchers, such as [[Elissa L. Newport|Elissa Newport]], Richard Aslin, and [[Jenny Saffran]], emphasize the possible roles of general [[learning]] mechanisms, especially statistical learning, in language acquisition. The development of [[connectionist]] models that when implemented are able to successfully learn words and syntactical conventions<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Seidenberg |first1=Mark S. |last2=McClelland |first2=James L. |title=A distributed, developmental model of word recognition and naming. |journal=Psychological Review |date=1989 |volume=96 |issue=4 |pages=523–568 |doi=10.1037/0033-295X.96.4.523 |pmid=2798649 }}</ref> supports the predictions of statistical learning theories of language acquisition, as do empirical studies of children's detection of word boundaries.<ref name="Saffran 1996 1926–1928"/> In a series of connectionist model simulations, Franklin Chang has demonstrated that such a domain general statistical learning mechanism could explain a wide range of language structure acquisition phenomena.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Chang |first1=Franklin |last2=Dell |first2=Gary S. |last3=Bock |first3=Kathryn |title=Becoming syntactic |journal=Psychological Review |date=2006 |volume=113 |issue=2 |pages=234–272 |doi=10.1037/0033-295x.113.2.234 |pmid=16637761 }}</ref>

[[Statistical learning theory]] suggests that, when learning language, a learner would use the natural statistical properties of language to deduce its structure, including sound patterns, words, and the beginnings of grammar.<ref name="Saffran, 2003">{{cite journal |last1=Saffran |first1=Jenny R. |title=Statistical Language Learning: Mechanisms and Constraints |journal=Current Directions in Psychological Science |date=August 2003 |volume=12 |issue=4 |pages=110–114 |doi=10.1111/1467-8721.01243 }}</ref> That is, language learners are sensitive to how often [[syllable]] combinations or words occur in relation to other syllables.<ref name="Saffran 1996 1926–1928">{{cite journal |last1=Saffran |first1=Jenny R. |last2=Aslin |first2=Richard N. |last3=Newport |first3=Elissa L. |title=Statistical Learning by 8-Month-Old Infants |journal=Science |date=13 December 1996 |volume=274 |issue=5294 |pages=1926–1928 |doi=10.1126/science.274.5294.1926 |bibcode=1996Sci...274.1926S |pmid=8943209 }}</ref><ref name="Graf Estes 2007 254–260">{{cite journal |last1=Estes |first1=Katharine Graf |last2=Evans |first2=Julia L. |last3=Alibali |first3=Martha W. |last4=Saffran |first4=Jenny R. |title=Can Infants Map Meaning to Newly Segmented Words?: Statistical Segmentation and Word Learning |journal=Psychological Science |date=March 2007 |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=254–260 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01885.x |pmc=3864753 |pmid=17444923 }}</ref><ref name="Lany 284–91">{{cite journal|last=Lany|first=Jill|author2=Saffran|date=January 2010|title=From Statistics to Meaning: Infants' Acquisition of Lexical Categories|journal=Psychological Science|volume=21|issue=2|pages=284–91|doi=10.1177/0956797609358570|pmc=3865606|pmid=20424058}}</ref> Infants between 21 and 23 months old are also able to use statistical learning to develop "lexical categories", such as an animal category, which infants might later map to newly learned words in the same category.  These findings suggest that early experience listening to language is critical to vocabulary acquisition.<ref name="Lany 284–91"/>

The statistical abilities are effective, but also limited by what qualifies as input, what is done with that input, and by the structure of the resulting output.<ref name="Saffran, 2003" /> Statistical learning (and more broadly, distributional learning) can be accepted as a component of language acquisition by researchers on either side of the "nature and nurture" debate. From the perspective of that debate, an important question is whether statistical learning can, by itself, serve as an alternative to nativist explanations for the grammatical constraints of human language.

==== Chunking ====

The central idea of these theories is that language development occurs through the incremental acquisition of meaningful [[chunking (psychology)#Chunking as the learning of long-term memory structures|chunks]] of elementary [[constituent (linguistics)|constituents]], which can be words, phonemes, or syllables. Recently, this approach has been highly successful in simulating several phenomena in the acquisition of [[syntactic category|syntactic categories]]<ref>{{cite journal|last=Freudenthal|first=Daniel|author2=J.M. Pine|author3=F. Gobet|year=2005|title=Modelling the development of children's use of optional infinitives in English and Dutch using MOSAIC|url=http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/731/1/oi-paper-all.pdf|journal=Cognitive Science|volume=30|issue=2|pages=277–310|doi=10.1207/s15516709cog0000_47|pmid=21702816|access-date=2 April 2009|author3-link=Fernand Gobet|doi-access=free}}</ref> and the acquisition of phonological knowledge.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Jones|first=Gary|author2=F. Gobet|author3=J.M. Pine|year=2007|title=Linking working memory and long-term memory: A computational model of the learning of new words|url=http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/618/1/DevSci_revised-final.pdf|journal=Developmental Science|volume=10|issue=6|pages=853–873|doi=10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00638.x|pmid=17973801|access-date=2 April 2009|author2-link=Fernand Gobet}}</ref>

Chunking theories of language acquisition constitute a group of theories related to statistical learning theories, in that they assume that the input from the environment plays an essential role; however, they postulate different learning mechanisms.{{clarify|reason=Different than what?|date=January 2020}}

Researchers at the [[Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology]] have developed a computer model analyzing early toddler conversations to predict the structure of later conversations. They showed that toddlers develop their own individual rules for speaking, with 'slots' into which they put certain kinds of words. A significant outcome of this research is that rules inferred from toddler speech were better predictors of subsequent speech than traditional grammars.<ref>{{cite journal|vauthors=Bannard C, Lieven E, Tomasello M|date=October 2009|title=Modeling children's early grammatical knowledge|journal=Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.|volume=106|issue=41|pages=17284–9|bibcode=2009PNAS..10617284B|doi=10.1073/pnas.0905638106|pmc=2765208|pmid=19805057|doi-access=free}}</ref>

This approach has several features that make it unique: the models are implemented as computer programs, which enables clear-cut and quantitative predictions to be made; they learn from naturalistic input—actual child-directed utterances; and attempt to create their own utterances, the model was tested in languages including English, Spanish, and German. Chunking for this model was shown to be most effective in learning a first language but was able to create utterances learning a second language.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=McCauley |first1=Stewart M. |last2=Christiansen |first2=Morten H. |title=Computational Investigations of Multiword Chunks in Language Learning |journal=Topics in Cognitive Science |date=July 2017 |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=637–652 |doi=10.1111/tops.12258 |pmid=28481476 |doi-access=free }}</ref>