poverty of the stimulus argument

E87785

argument for linguistic nativism linguistic argument philosophical argument

The poverty of the stimulus argument is a key claim in linguistics that children’s limited and imperfect exposure to language cannot fully explain their rich grammatical knowledge, implying an innate component to language acquisition.

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All labels observed (1)

Label	Occurrences
poverty of the stimulus argument canonical	1

Statements (50)

Predicate	Object
instanceOf	argument for linguistic nativism ⓘ linguistic argument ⓘ philosophical argument ⓘ
aimsToExplain	how children acquire complex grammar quickly and uniformly ⓘ
associatedWith	Noam Chomsky ⓘ generative grammar ⓘ innateness hypothesis ⓘ language acquisition ⓘ linguistic nativism ⓘ universal grammar ⓘ
challenge	to data-driven accounts of grammar learning ⓘ
concerns	discrepancy between input data and acquired grammatical competence ⓘ
coreClaim	children acquire knowledge of grammatical rules that are underdetermined by the data they hear ⓘ children converge on similar grammars despite variation in input ⓘ children’s linguistic input is too limited to account for their eventual grammatical knowledge ⓘ language input is noisy, imperfect, and contains errors ⓘ some aspects of grammar must be innate ⓘ
criticizedBy	connectionist models of language learning ⓘ constructivist approaches to language development ⓘ empiricist philosophers of language ⓘ usage-based theories of language acquisition ⓘ
field	cognitive science ⓘ linguistics ⓘ philosophy of language ⓘ psycholinguistics ⓘ
hasComponent	inference to innate constraints on possible grammars ⓘ premise that children’s grammatical competence is rich and systematic ⓘ premise that input is degenerate and incomplete ⓘ
notableCritic	Barbara Scholz ⓘ Geoffrey Pullum ⓘ Michael Tomasello ⓘ
notableProponent	Jerry Fodor ⓘ Noam Chomsky ⓘ Steven Pinker ⓘ
opposes	purely empiricist accounts of language learning ⓘ strong behaviorist theories of language acquisition ⓘ
relatesTo	Probably Approximately Correct learning (PAC learning) ⓘ surface form: Gold’s theorem in language learnability learnability theory ⓘ rationalist traditions in epistemology ⓘ underdetermination of theory by data ⓘ
status	controversial in contemporary linguistics and cognitive science ⓘ
supports	existence of an innate language faculty ⓘ existence of universal grammar ⓘ nativist theories of language acquisition ⓘ
timePeriod	second half of the 20th century ⓘ
typicalExample	children’s avoidance of logically possible but unattested grammars ⓘ children’s knowledge of structure dependence in forming questions ⓘ children’s rapid acquisition of complex syntactic constraints ⓘ
usedIn	arguments against induction-only models of language learning ⓘ arguments against simple associationist learning theories ⓘ

Referenced by (1)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Chomskyan linguistics → associatedWith → poverty of the stimulus argument ⓘ