 Nativism: Noam Chomsky
 Nativism
 Main question: what is the cognitive code?
 Infant is born with complete world knowledge
 Infants count
 Infants have a concept of objects
 Infants have physics concepts
 Infants have language
 Nativism
 Evidence for the claim of complete world knowledge
 Youngsters learn an extremely complex system (language) effortlessly
 Youngsters learn an extremely complex system (language) in a short amount of time
 Youngsters do not need instruction to learn their mother tongue
 Nativism
 Do youngsters who are born deaf can learn an impoverished language at a level that is
higher than the level they hear?
 Youngsters develop Creole from pidgin
 Infants do not hear grammar; they hear a string of words and infer the syntactic rules
language (impoverishment of the stimulus)
 Infants often hear ungrammatical sentences, yet they learn the grammar
 Nativism: Learning Paradox
 Fodor’s learning paradox: one learns something only if one knows it in advance
 To learn a language you have to know that language in advance
 What you know is at a higher level than what you learn
 Nativism
 In the case of language, infants are born with:

a universal grammar (UG) - a data base of grammar

language acquisition device (LAD) - hypothesis tester
 Nativism
 If the child is born with a LAD and no UG, he doesn’t have anything to hypothesize on
 If the child is born with a UG and no LAD, he cannot hypothesize about the language
 Nativism
 The UG is the cognitive code.
 Unique to humans
 Universal for humans
 If one can describe it, one has cracked the cognitive code.
 Nativism
 Relations between learning and development
 Only learning (deductive)
 No development
 Similar to classical behaviorism
 Nativism: Language Acquisition Device
 hypothesize the grammar in the language you are exposed to
 see if the hypothesis fits the grammar
 if yes, continue with the hypothesis
 if no, make a new hypothesis
 Nativism
 If that is how children learn language, it is impossible, in principle, to develop to a higher level
 How can you hypothesize something that is not already there?
 Nativists say you cannot
 Nativism
 As a consequence, it is best to build the most powerful system so that it is there in infancy

Argument between
Piaget and Chomsky
 CHOMSKY’S POINT:
 Chomsky: One cannot construct more powerful structures because hypothesis testing cannot
take place at a level that is higher than one’s highest level
e.g., conservation: a child cannot
intuitive stage

hypothesize conservation if he is at the
Argument between
Piaget and Chomsky
 Chomsky: One cannot construct more powerful structures because hypothesis testing cannot
take place at a level that is higher than one’s highest level
 Fodor’s learning paradox
e.g., conservation: a child cannot
intuitive stage
hypothesize conservation if he is at the
 Piaget Rebuttal
 Piaget: I don’t have to accept hypothesis testing as the mechanism for learning
 I believe children learn and develop through disequilibrium
 Piaget Rebuttal
 I can describe learning and development in
 Child development (ontogeny)
 History of disciplines (Piaget & Garcia; Kuhn)
 My system allows me to describe two disparate developments: ontogeny and historical
development
 Piaget Rebuttal
 You, the nativists cannot describe the development of disciplines in history in terms of innate
modules within humans
 Bottom line:
 I can describe two developments and you can describe one
 I don’t believe the description you give to language acquisition
 Nativism: Modularity
1. Encapsulation - it is impossible to interfere with the inner workings of a module.
2. Unconscious - it is difficult or impossible to reflect on the operations of module.
3. Speed - modules are very fast.
4. Shallow outputs - modules provide limited output, without information about the intervening steps
that led to that output.
 Nativism: Modularity
5. Obligatory firing - modules operate reflexively, providing predetermined outputs for predetermined
inputs regardless of the
context.
6. Ontogenetic universals - modules develop in a characteristic sequence.
7. Localization - modules are mediated by dedicated neural systems.
 Nativism: Modularity
8. Pathological universals - modules breakdown in characteristic fashion following insult to the
system.
9. Domain specificity - as discussed above.