title: The growth of language: Universal Grammar, experience, and principles of computation.
abstract: Human infants develop language remarkably rapidly and without overt instruction. We argue that the distinctive ontogenesis of child language arises from the interplay of three factors: domain-specific principles of language (Universal Grammar), external experience, and properties of non-linguistic domains of cognition including general learning mechanisms and principles of efficient computation. We review developmental evidence that children make use of hierarchically composed structures ('Merge') from the earliest stages and at all levels of linguistic organization. At the same time, longitudinal trajectories of development show sensitivity to the quantity of specific patterns in the input, which suggests the use of probabilistic processes as well as inductive learning mechanisms that are suitable for the psychological constraints on language acquisition. By considering the place of language in human biology and evolution, we propose an approach that integrates principles from Universal Grammar and constraints from other domains of cognition. We outline some initial results of this approach as well as challenges for future research.
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics and Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, 619 Williams Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19081, USA. Electronic address: charles.yang@ling.upenn.edu.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, and ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Crain
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Robert C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Berwick
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT, Cambridge MA, USA.
authors.forename: Noam
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Chomsky
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Neurobiology and Helmholtz Institute, Departments of Psychology and Biology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Department of Zoology and St. Catharine's College, University of Cambridge, UK.
authors.forename: Johan J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Bolhuis
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D008037:Linguistics; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012660:Semantics
keywords: Computational linguistics; Evolution of language; Generative grammar; Inductive inference; Language acquisition; Speech perception