[For Proceedings of Conference on Frequency in Wuppertal, 2008]
Interfaces, Frequency, and the Primary Linguistic Data Problem
Abstract:
Interfaces are definted biological relatioins, like the link between
heart and lung, while interactions describe non-designed but inevitable
biological consequences of being a mechanism with a single source of
energy. A careful look at the representations needed show that each
mental module has a separate form of representation. And therefore
interfaces require careful matching. Merge and labeling describes
a hierarchy in language but perhaps not other mental hierarchies. It is distinct from
Concatenation, which may be a broader mental capacity; Language calls for recursive
Merge and Label hierarchies.
We argue that “frequency” is not a meaningful concept in psychology
without a representation whose frequency is being tabulated. Therefore every model of
change must work with representations. However it is possible for representations that
are not perfectly captured by grammar to be identified. For instance, the notion of
leftward focal stress can apply at the word, phrase, or morphological level at first before
being liniked to sepate modules in the mature grammar. Lebeaux’s notion of AdjoinAlpha as an acquisition primitive is thereby supported. In sum, it is possible that
frequency-linked representations, still connected to an innate UG, play a role in
acquisition. We conclude with an analysis of gradual –ed acquisition that re-introduces a
role for LAD.
1.0 Introducton
The classic contrast between Empiricism and Rationalism falls under a new light
when we try to build realistic, mechanical interfaces that will assist in language
acquisition. The notion of an interface automatically entails the assumption that other
mental modules---with other mental purposes---are systematically engaged not only in
our model of adult grammar, but possibly with a special role in the acquisition process.
Does grammar interact or interface with a General Learning Capacity, familiar
from behaviorist and connectionist approaches in the empiricist tradition?
A prior question is whether there are any General Learning Capacities? Daily life
gives us the impression that we can develop knowledge schemes whose heterogeneity
would suggest that such General Abilities exist. Nonetheless one of the lessons of using
modes of formal representation for grammatical theory is that abstractions have strong
biases that are visible only when abstractly formulated. A second possibility is that the
identical ability is independently represented in the brain. We illustrate each of them.
1.1 Interfaces and Interactions
First we need to articulate an elementary contrast. The suggestion (Chomsky
(2005), (2008)) of an interface with a “conceptual-intentional system”, for instance,
means that our methods for representing actions of all kinds are linked--- in highly
particular ways----to our linguistic system. For instance, whatever notion of Agency
exists in planning action gets linked to the affix –er in language in a sentence like John is
the organizer.
By contrast, the notion of interface (see Roeper 2009) must be kept distinct from
the broader notion of an interaction. All bodily activities interact----solemn verbal news
might cause a heartattack, but that does not mean that there is specific architecture
linking the heartpump and the representation of a recent Past Event in language.
The distinction can be captured with an image: the sharpest example of an
interface is like a key and a keyhole. One is designed to fit the other. The empty space
has the “concept” of a key in it, but it is made of air.
An interaction, however, occurs when any two objects share an energy source, say
if a runner slows down if he wants to converse. Each activity (run, talk) must draw from
a common source of energy but they are not architecturally linked in an interface.
1.2 A Formal Approach: Concatenation versus Merge
Hornstein (2009) argues that Concatenation---the capacity to combine indefinite
numbers of obects: A, B => {AB} which then can be combined with C => {ABC} is a
kind of pre-linguistic capacity, but UG uniquely defines Assymmetric Merge.
We take Concatenation to guarantee association but not ordering, therefore it is a
form of Set Formation.
Computer scientists often include ordering, but there is logical possibility of
association without ordering. Therefore: AB = BA. Thus the linguistic module
interfaces with a Concatenation capacity which might be used to divide chairs in a room
as well as organize words in grammar. Concatenation, in this sense, captures a kind of
iterative recursion which which is reflected in an instance of conjunction, applicable to
any linguistic category:
(1)
Noun: John, Bill, and Peter left
Preposition: Bill jumped over, under, around, and through a hedge.
Notably the interpretation does not change if the order of elements changes (Bill,
Peter, John left). Recursively embedded possessives involve order effects (my father’s
friend’s car =/= my friend’s father’s car), which characterizes the central grammatical
notions of recursion.
Grammatical hierarchies are a particular choice from numerous possible
hierarchy types because they involve Labels, Assymmetric Merge, and binary structures
which allows the Label to express a directional bias:
(2)
A
/ \
B A
B
=/= / \
B A
N
/ \
Adj Noun
|
|
blue ocean
A
/
\
N
Adj
|
|
ocean blue
Thus the labels allow us to say that blue ocean is a kind of Noun and ocean blue is
a kind of Adjective.
The notion of Assymmetric Merge here has a plausible claim to the idea that it
reflects a UG specified instance of innate predisposition. In the grammar it is the
interface with Labelling which makes it particular to grammar, and which by hypothesis
invokes the innate dimensions of Universal Grammar.
If it operates immediately as a mechanism, then it provides further support to the
notion that it is innately specified. Roeper (1981) argued that all mental operations might
be decomposeable into units found elsewhere in the mind. If so, it is the claim that they
are mechanically connected which is the locus of innate structure.
It is possible that the artist who uses a form of Concatenation to group objects or
colors is allowing an interface between a Concatenation ability and a 3-dimensional
model that imposes constraints other than labeling (or in addition to Labeling).
It is also possible, in fact likely, that the Concatenation capacities linked to 3dimensional abilities are biologically independent even though conceptually identical.
It would be hard to imagine (though not impossible) that an injury to the
Concatenation Module which would suddenly affect both language and visual
organization in the same way.
1.2.1 Multi-dominance
There are other possibilities that show a more complex hypothesis space, for
instance, Multi-dominance models, which are gaining a footing in linguistics and which
may be pertinent to visual planning as well. These are trees of the following form
which, again, might be useful visuallly:
(3)
A
B
/ \
/ \
F
C
G
/
\
D
E
Here one node (C ) has two higher nodes. Multi-dominance seem intuitively
appealing for structures like: John saw Bill swim where Bill is the object of see and the
subject of swim (S. Cable pc).
It is an empirical question, with acquisition consequences, whether such
representations that increase the power of grammars, are necessary.
It is an interesting fact that among children’s first 3-word sentences we find:
(4) “help me dress”
which suggests that if this is the correct analysis of the adult grammar, then it is
immediately available to the child because me is both object of help and subject of dress.
Even if there are common connections between the formal structures behind
vision and language there is, by hypothesis, a specific genetic bundling that allows these
interfaces to be built so that they can participate in very rapid mechanisms.
Thus although we are capable of making a generalization over the abstract notion
Concatenation, it is not clear that it refers to any particular, independent biological entity,
which the brain draws upon. Another example may help. Both eyes and ears utilize
stereoscopy to develop a single representation from two sources. Yet we all suppose that
the property of stereoscopy is separately represented—and innate-- in these domiains (we
don’t lose out auditory ability if we are blind or vice versa--see Roeper (2007) for more
discussion). Concatenation like stereoscopy may not describe an ability that is separately
represented in the biology of the mind for modules like language and vision.
2.0 Frequency
Now let us introduce a topic that seems to have perennial interest: frequency. It is
evident in everyday life and in many psycholinguistic experiments that, at some level,
frequency seems to dictate acquisition order and processing preferences. These are broad
generalizations which need to be articulated in the kind of abstract terms we have
introduced.
First there is a fundamental logical observation that seems to go often
unrecognized. There is no possible mental ability that can capture frequency without a
form of representation for the object counted (Roeper 2008).
If I hear X six times, it is impossible for me to know that unless I can represent X
in some non-auditory mental form such that I knew that I heard it before when I hear it
again. If it disappeared entirely, I could not know I heard it. If I know I heard it, then I
must have some mental representation that allows me to assert that it is identical to that
representation. The sound representation, of course, is a very complex object never
perfectly reproduced and therefore the form must be abstracted.
What is the abstraction? Would it be the same as a cat’s, dog’s, or monkey’s? To
take another example, if I show you red, green, and yellow apples, and ask how many
apples you see, you must be able to have an apple representation which is not
automatically red, green, or yellow but essentially abstract and without a fixed color in
order to count them. The same holds for sounds: they vary in form depending upon
volume, duration and much phonotactic variability which must be abstracted away from
in order to create a representation to compare to incoming sounds.
While sensitivity to frequency and statistical generalization might seem to be a
good candidate for an independent mental module, it might also be built into various
mental abilities in very precise ways. If so, then we have re-established the need for
claims about prior linguistic assumptions. Are we tabulating frequency in all directions
at once? If an interface between two systems is fixed, then it can participate in a
frequency representation. If the interface is arbitrary, then it is obviously beyond
computation, as an example will readily reveal.
Suppose the notion of agency involved cross-modular representations, jointly
computed. Then we might expect that the mind has an implicit number representing the
frequency of agency that is the combination of how often you see someone act
deliberately (eat a banana) and how often you hear the –er on words like winner and
singer. So we might, though it is doubtful, have a representation of Agent every time
someone does something manifestly deliberate. While each form of agency might be
tabulated for frequency, it is implausible that we compute the combination.
However if Agency-frequency were specifically tabulated with rerefence to
morphology, we might know how often –er is linked to AGENT, how often to
INSTRUMENT, and how often to THEME. This tabulation could, and perhaps does,
dictate the fact that Agency –er is productive, and the other two are rather exceptional,
particularly the THEME case. While a broiler may be a chicken, a cooker is not the
object cooked, both forms allow an Agent reading (even if we have heard cooker only as
an instrument.) Thus one formal/meaning interface –er/AGENT is being counted. If
frequency is measured, it seems very likely that it will follow fixed interfaces, which
means in effect that it is defined already within the system it is tabulating. Therefore the
liklihood that there is a truly independent statistics-analyzer seems very small.
3.0 Acquisition and the Initial State
Now let us turn to the acquisition question. What generalizations define the
“initial state” of our language acquisition capacity? One assumption is that it is a Default
Grammar which undergoes modification upon the presentation of new input data.
However there are other possibilities which deserve attention. In the Aspects (1965)
model Chomsky discusses the question of how we represent the Primary Linguistic Data
(PLD). He suggests that some forms of distributional analysis modeled on structural
grammars could be present at the outset which, moreover, are contained in a Language
Acquisition Device (LAD) that is present at birth but declines with age. It is certainly
notable that children learn words at an astonishing rate: 14.000 by the age of 6yrs which
is roughly one an hour. As adults we are often called upon to learn words with a single
exposure---as when one tries to retain the name of someone just introduced---but we do
not seem to learn words quite as fast as children.
One reason that Chomsky introduced the possibility of LAD is that he assumed
the presence of Phrase-structure Rules of the form:
(5) Sentence => NP VP
This representation is, obviously, far from the child’s initial experience of streams
of sounds. Therefore the child must have segmentation and data-sorting capacities for
hierarchical abstraction and specific nodes in order to get the representation to the point
where it could submit to any analysis at this level. Under Minimalism, however, notions
like Merge and Label appear to be much closer to the primary data. This is an important
and under-appreciated point. The idea that greater abstraction could be closer to
experience seems counter-intuitive. Why could it be true? Because abstract Merge
allows analysis of very early structures in asymmetric terms before higher phrasal
categories (like NP and VP) can be formed and recognized. In fact, Chomsky has argued
that initial Merge may be lexically based, but still asymmetric, if the word itself is
projected:
(6)
the
/
\
the book
In fact this notion generates an hypothesis about early stages which is subject to
proof.
(7)
Hypothesis 1: children begin with Concatenation
Hypothesis 2: children begin with Asymmetric Merge
If Concatenation were true, then we would expect children to reliably associate two
words, but be indifferent as to their order. In fact, however, it has been argued since the
first work on two-word utterances that children impose word-order from the outset, even
with expressive terms that have no grammatical category:
(8)
hi Mom/*Mom hi
well, yes/*yes well
it big/*big it
In fact every grammar of the two-word stage has imposed order, although if
concatenation were an independent ability, and if it were independently open to a
frequency calculation, then it would certainly be true that children should have a stage
where they accepted unordered representations and used them.
Therefore it appears, from the outset, that the innate system finds an inherently
more complex structure, Merge and Label assymmetrically, in fact easier, just as we find
it easier to see in 3 dimensions than in 2 dimensions although one could argue that a 2dimensional structure is a logical subset of 3-dimensions and “simpler”.
3.1 Transition Probabilities
The logic of order sensitivity is captured in non-grammatical terms via the notion
of Transition Probability. That is, a child is sensitive to what typically follows a sound or
a word. However one could easily build a machine that was sensitive only to
Concatenation or Set-formation with unordered sets. Thus the machine would note:
(9)
cats
cast
and see that both words contained {s,t} and therefore indicate a frequency sensitivity to
the combination without respect to order. Thus even those models which claim that they
have a bias that is not “linguistic” in character implicitly have a very suitable bias in the
notion of “transition probability” which from a mathematical point of view appears to be
more complex than an unordered set.
Of course, this is really an empirical question: do children recognize unordered sets
as easily or more easily than sequences with a transition probability? The experiment
would be: is there any environment, for instance vision, where an unordered array is more
easily learned than an ordered one (where the whole array is guaranteed not to be seen as
a unit)? This is an empirical question for which there may already be evidence in the
psychological literature.
4.0 Pre-linguistic Representations
Where might we look for representations that do not fall within those directly projected
by Minimalism. We might expect words to be simply represented phonologically on a
frequency basis and learned in that order. However, we need to carry out the
segmentation that identifies words and distinguishes them from bound morphemes.
Without such an assumption one would assume that an extremely frequent word
like the would be among the first a child uses, since they are very frequent, but they are
late acquisitions for English-speaking children. On the other hand, in languages like
German den (the) arises much earlier. Why? In fact, the article functions as a pronoun
and can appear independently, and we know that in English, demonstrative pronouns like
that arise very early. By independently we mean that a discourse might allow them to
appear alone:
10)
Speaker 1: which do you want? [welchen möchtest Du]
Speaker 2: den! (*the)
Now we have actually imposed an important criterion: independent appearance. If the
system were not built to recognize the distinction between bound and unbound we might
expect a child to acquire a morpheme like ing with the meaning of activity. How could
that work?
We know that children hear ing often—and in diverse contexts. But one
contextually salient domain is ongoing activity which the child might recognize as such
and link the verb to activity. It is likely that other uses linked to intention ( “going to”) or
nominalization (the reading) will be acquired in a different sequence. Suppose a child
walked into a room buzzing with other children playing and yelled “–ing”. This would
be very plausible given the pragmatic salience of human bustle and phonological clarity.
And yet no one reports such a result and it seems intuitively alien. It is intuitively alien
because our intuition of what a natural child utterance is, itself, dependent upon innate
structural features, such as the principle independent appearance as a criterion for words.
The topic is one of interest. Children do allow backformations which infer words,
such as the child who said “I have a hammer because I like to ham”. The prediction is
then that purely morphological elements, unlike stems, are not mis-identified as words.
Could there be, or should there be, representations which fail to be possible UG
representations that are nevertheless useful to children? Our image of acquisition is much
like a quadratic equation where several modules posit structures which serve as sources
of confirmation for each other. Inversion, question intonation, and situations where a
question is natural can all coincide to tell us that these ingredients of question-formation
are correctly analyzed. Therefore the correct grammatical alignment may involve a shift
in representation at multiple levels. While it is attractive and perhaps probable that all
representational powers are derived from principles of UG, they might look a bit
different, or tolerate unusual variants in the acquisition process. It is precisely here that
aspects of frequency might play a role.
4.1 Focus
Intonation and focus intonation in particular fail to have a perspicuous mapping
onto individual words or morphemes in many instances---it seems to hover over larger
units. In addition it is interpretively relevant for units as large as sentences and as small
as morphemes. That is, exclamatory stress emphasizes an entire sentence while Focus
can fix on just a morpheme:
(11) a)You played baseball today!
You RE-read the book, good for you!
How would the child, the acquisition mechanism, attack the Focus intonation system?
Will it begin with the right phrasal divisions?
The challenge for many acquisition problems is to envision plausible logical
stages. Suppose children seek broader representations first. They could generate a
representation that allowed this common perception: Focus occurs leftmost for the
sentences in (11b):
(11) b) WHAT do you want
EGGS I like
MEAT-eating is good
NO run/*run NO (except if there is a pause)
Notice that leftmost like the linear notion of V2, does not fall out of most theories,
although it seems akin to principles of linearization. What is leftmost operating upon
exactly? It seems here that one might invoke the notion of utterance as an independent
intonational object, but this could cut out a lot of available information such as:
(12)
Aha, MEAT-eating is bad
John thinks MEAT-eating is bad
Bill thought that MY HOUSE he might be willing to buy.
This is plausibly a good first move if one needs to grasp an intricate concept in smaller
steps. This is now an empirical question: would a child be able to identify leftmost stress
in an utterance, and therefore be unable to identify the stresses in (12), but see those
in (11b) as a first generalization? The naturalness of such a proposal increases when we
consider the notion of leftmost to be the prototype for the concept of EDGE in current
minimalism.
One reason that it is perfectly possible that an odd, and hard to notice,
step occurs in the acquisition path of every child is that it might also be quite short-lived.
Just like half a dozen crucial adjustments occur in a half hour span when a child learns to
walk or balance on a bike, a microscopic, but very significant series of steps could be the
substructure of many acquisition stages which our current data-gathering practices do not
identify.
In (12) the notions of leftmost could be extended to capture the facts, but it requires
recognition of other phrases, like Nounphrase and Clause, whereupon one might use
another linguistic notion PHASE EDGE to capture the concept. It would have to be
extended to include complex words as PHASES to capture focal stress inside compounds.
But now such steps would presuppose that one already identified a host of languagespecific properties, like a left-peripheral TOPIC position in an embedded clause that
qualifies to be a PHASE.
Now we will encounter classic learnability problems where each decision depends
upon the other. It is here that the order of decisions and a representational basis for
acquisition must be articulated. Nevertheless one could imagine frequency definitions
that would be connected to grammar-independent notions that defined first steps. This
would be the kind of analysis of Primary Linguistic Data that could be accomplished
through a language-specific acquisition device, or could depend upon capacities defined
over domains much broader than language.
4.2 Focus and Contrast
What epistemological sequence can be imposed on a learning sequence that is defineable
immediately in terms of properties of Primary Linguistic Data. We were trying to find
pre-existing diagnostics that did not depend upon prior language-specific decisions. We
chose leftmost as a possible concept, but then had to ask what structure could a child
presume on which to define leftmost.
This is a hard problem to which we do not have the answer. Therefore let us make
an assumption that seems intuitively plausible. The child has a broad-based linear notion
of leftmost: Focus seems to be at the beginning or toward the left in a sentence for a
sufficiently high proportion of sentences for a system to “take notice”. They must then
have an under-defined notion of utterance with enough internal structure to locate a
Focus element.
In addition, the child would want to hear a fairly frequent input sample to arrive at
this conclusion, including examples like those above. Thus the child might have a rule:
(13)
Assign Focus intonation to the left
when some notion of Contrast is intended.
In other words, frequency requires a minimal representation of some kind--perhaps partially non- or pre-grammatical—which is then subject to grammatical
analysis. This representation, we argue, is then abandoned step-by-step as the
particularities of each structure are learned. This differentiates comprehension from
production. Focus will only appear in production, unlike comprehension, when a
specific and acceptable grammatical form can be generated by the speaker.
Comprehension can allow a combination of a vague representation and essentially a
contextual guess.
A child might be able to guess, with half a grammatical analysis, that a passive is
meant by:
(14)
the HAMBURGERS were cooked by Dad
if they could recognize a focal element initially, hamburgers, and a connection to the
thematic structure of the verb cooked without yet being able to insert was, by, or
participle –ed.
Now let us illustrate the claim with a more precise example. Suppose a child hears
either of the phrases:
(15)
Johnny has a big DOGhouse ( = not cat house)
Johnny has a BIG doghouse ( = not small doghouse)
However let us assume, plausibly, that the child has not yet fixed where adjective phrases
occur (to the left or right), nor their recursive character (big, strange house), nor exactly
how compound words are built (BLACKboard). The child could implicitly think:
16) There is leftward contrast in this phrase, but I am not sure where.
Then the child might look and see if the context allows a contrast between big and small
doghouses or between doghouses and cathouses. At this point, the child could probably
make a good guess about what is being contrasted, without actually having an adult
representation of what is involved. The prediction would be that the child would not yet
produce contrastive stress on either the adjective or part of the compound noun, but could
often seem to understand it.
4.3 PLD and Adjunction
Can we say more about such a represenation? Suppose the child, unsure of what the
possible structures are, essentially adjoins the phrase. but then cannot locate Focus which,
in the grammar seeks a recognizeable node label, which can be obscure even for lexical
categories.
(17)
Focus => find recognizeable Node
Word+Noun = ambiguity
Pre-grammatical Adjunction representation = without node label:
(18)
=>
Focus /
\ =/=>
N
/
?
|
big
\
house [+N]
Here we argue that the child will shift the focus to the higher node, NP, which has a label
because they are unsure of the lower one and seek a contrast element anywhere below the
higher NP. There is evidence that children can recognize contrastive Focus without being
able to localize it on lower nodes (see Hubert (2009).
Thus children will answer a question like:
(19)
John has a BIG house and not……a car
while adults will say: ….a small one.
The child has allowed the actual focus on big to migrate upward to the node
Noun. The topic certainly deserves careful study (See Hubert (2009) for very pertinent
evidence on children’s understanding of recursive adjectives).
Lebeaux (2000) has argued that children begin with a rough notion of Adjoinalpha, which is obviously a linguistic operation. However, if the adjunction operates with
a mystery Node label, then it is “pre-grammatical” in the sense that it does not meet the
requirement that all Nodes have identifiable labels.1 We can argue for Pre-linguistic
representations for all of these structures which involve Adjunction with Labels that are
not yet grammatically fixed:
(20) intonation = (Left Focus +X)
affixation = (X + af)
complementation = [verb + X]
adjuncts = (by X)
([Adjoin-alpha] Lebeaux (2000)
These domains may be where small amounts of partially pre-grammatical structures are
possible. The prediction is precisely that it will affect comprehension and production
differently because adjoin-alpha is essentially a default parsing bias that even for the
child fails to be an acceptable grammatical representation although it is sufficient to make
semantic inferences upon.
Our broad hypothesis is:
(21) Frequency-based representations are dropped with full grammatical analysis.
This is a strong hypothesis that is not in keeping with those who attempt to utilize
frequency models as a substitute for grammatical ones. Let us now construct a more
precise scenario. It is actually an odd thing that production is used in arguments about the
role of frequency. It is certainly the frequency of input which makes a difference (see
Yang (2002)) for demonstrations of its relevance) in parametric choices. At the point of
production, there will be evident variation in the use of various constructions. It does not
follow that increases in frequency of usage are a result of a kind of habit-formation. It is
a less complex system, without a frequency counter, to argue that discrete changes in the
grammar, usually meaning related, will cause additions to the frequency of, for instance,
a morphological form. Thus if we add to the meaning observable ongoing action (they are
dancing) for –ing another meaning: intended action (I am going to the movies
tomorrow), then the frequency would naturally increase. Each form then may appear to
vary by frequency but small grammatical changes linked to meaning are at the root of the
shift.
1
In Roeper (2006) I argued that Compositionality was systematically a second order phenomenon.
That is, children adjoin at first without a label, but when adjunction becomes recursive, then it must have a
label.
4.4 the Past Tense Controversy
Let us provide another example of how stepwise enrichment interacts with
frequency. The most famous claim about the role of frequency lies in the apparent
gradual appearance of Past Tense –ed (Rumelhart and McClellan (1986)):
(22) X + ed => tabulate frequency
(23) Stepwise differentiation:
past tense [John walked]
transitive/intransitive
actional/non-actional [John was admired]
passive [the house was being painted]
implicit argument present
participle [the house was painted]
result reading
pronominal adjective [the painted house]
non-verbal adjective [three-cornered]
Suppose the child begins with the observation that –ed occurs at the end of some words:
Word+ed. We would predict no usage at this point. Suppose he then advances to: V +
ed.
From this point onward, it is unlikely that the –ed will be used without some
semantic features [past tense, perfectivity, result]. In addition, the label V may represent
only part of a Feature Bundle that UG says is necessary: designation of transitive,
intransitive, actional, and perhaps others. If the child requires several of these features to
be present, then –ed will emerge in a dozen steps in production as each domain reaches
an adequate level of Feature representation. This will produce, without a refined
analysis, the impression of gradual acquisition when in fact a subtle stepwise acquisition
is present where, once acquired, frequency is relevant and contextual necessity is the only
criterion.
5.0 Conclusions
We have sought to explore how the PLD can be realistically represented in light of the
abstractions offered by Minimalism. We pointed out that these abstract notions of
hierarchy involving Merge and Label, may in fact offer simple modes of representation
over which pre-grammatical generalizations, minorly sensitive to frequency, could be
computed. We argued that when full grammatical representations appear, pregrammatical representations are simply abandoned. In this respect, our perspective
resurrects the notion of a Language Acquisition Device that is tightly connected to UG
but not identical to it.
We used Contrastive Focus as an exmple of an interface phenomenon whose
acquisition might involve a number of steps that a changing representation would
accommodate.
We reviewed a number of core concepts in linguistic theory in light of modern
evidence: the initial state, primary linguistic data, interfaces, and learnability arguments.
All of these arguments served, in our view, to etch in the core conceptions behind the
innate model of language acquisition while building precise connections to other modules
of mind.
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