Universidad Nacional de La Matanza- Escuela de Formacin Continua

Licenciatura en Lengua Inglesa EDELL (Morena, I. Davis, E.)

Assignment 6.3
Chomsky posited the "poverty-of-the-stimulus" argument which contends
that children cannot acquire language only on the basis of the stimulus they
receive due to the fact that it is limited, incomplete and innadecuate, in some
respects. Therefore, Chomksy explains, there must be an innate Universal
Grammar that allows children to acquire language, in spite of of the meager
evidence available to them.
In order to support the "poverty-of-the-stimulus" argument it is pertinent to
explain some research cases. In this test, native speakers were asked to judge the
grammaticality of different sentences. Native speakers rejeceted sentences
involving rules that violated the structure-dependency in questions, such as *Is
Sam the cat that brown? (Cook and Mewson, 82). It is possible that the child has
never been provided with an explanation that structure-dependency exists in
English. However, they have learned it. Another example in favour of this claim is
described by Pinker (1995). Children around four were presented with a monster
called mud-eater. Later, they were introduced to a monster who eats mice, and
the children produced the name mice-eater. Children never produced names
such as rats-eater. This suggests that children respect the rules on combining
plurals and compounds, even in words they have never heard before. Further
evidence to support to the "poverty-of-the-stimulus" argument is the fact that
children acquire languages from pidgins, which are grammatically incomplete
languages.
To conclude, it may be said that children acquire language in spite of of the
poor evidence available to them because they are equipped with innate Universal
Grammar that permits them to aquire the language of their environment during a
critical period of their development (Lightbrown & Spada, 35)
References

Universidad Nacional de La Matanza- Escuela de Formacin Continua

Licenciatura en Lengua Inglesa EDELL (Morena, I. Davis, E.)

Pinker, S. (1995). The Language Instinct. New York: Harper-Collins

Publishers.
Cook, V, & Newson, M. (1996) Chomksy's Universal Grammar. An
Introduction. Massachussets: Blackwell Publishers
Lightbrown, P. & Spada, N. (2000) How Languages are Learned. Oxford,
University Press.