Review article

Arguments Against Language Innateness Thesis

Dunja Jutronić

Abstract

In the book "Rethinking Innateness, a connectionist perspective on development" (MIT Press, 1997) Jeffrey L. Elman et al. present new approaches and methods in the learning process in general, with special stress on the acquisition of language or mother tongue. Here are the most recent arguments against Chomskyan thesis about the innateness of language which questions, among other things, the following presuppositions: 1. language modularity; 2. critical period for the acquisition of language; 3. poverty of the stimulus; 4. genetical basis of grammar; 5. language localization. The conclusion is that the arguments are convincing and that there is a new way of
looking at the innateness of language.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

6126

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/6126

Publication date:

15.7.2003.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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