infinite novelty vs. strict uniformity

[Gerald Vankoeverden]

On the one hand, we have infinite novelty in the meaning what we are saying.
Just as we can never put our foot into the same water of a river twice, we
can never 'mean' exactly the same the same thing twice.  The kalaidescope of
our emotions and the constant modifications of our ideas through new
experiences every day, prevent us from
being able to repeat ourselves exactly as we did before.  (No wonder the
computer scientists have failed at artificial intelligence!)

But on the other hand, I am fascinated by the apparent similarity in how
speakers of all languages learn their native language.

        Here is a quote from Larry Trask's linguistic primer:

        "Now consider how children learn negation.  All children do
this in exactly the same way.  First, they stick a negative word
(usually 'no') at the front of the sentence: 'No I want a juice.'
After a while, that negative word is moved to the front of the verb:
'I no want juice.' Finally, the rather complicated English negative
auxiliaries appear: 'I don't want juice.'  And here's the crunch:
parents, if they like, can correct the child until they're blue in the
face, but she will continue to use her current pattern for making
negatives until she's ready for the next stage.  Even if they don't
correct her (and most parents don't), she will still move through the
same stages until she settles on the adult form.

       ' What is she doing?  Once again, she is clearly formulating
rules for making negatives, and she's trying different rules until she
finds one that gives her the adult forms.  But look: she's not just
trying out any old rules.  Every child tries the same rules in the
same order!  Moreover, children learning other languages do exactly
the same thing-though a child learning, say Spanish can stop at the
second stage, because the 'I no want juice' pattern is exactly the way
negative sentences are constructed in Spanish.

        .....In other words, language acquisition is an 'active'
process: the child is not just passively soaking up bits of language
which come her way: instead she is 'constructing' the language as she
goes." end of quote.(Trask, p.144-5)

       I understand that Chomsky says this process is the same for all
because it's rooted in 'genetics.'  But that explanation doesn't tell me
much.  It has no more explanatory 'punch' then that of the Greeks' "deos ex
machina", where at the end of a play, a god comes swinging out on a vine to
solve all the problems..."Its' in the genes!"

        Not that I think that he is wrong...what else could it be if its so
similar?  But lets suppose that language learning patterns are derived from
a basic functioning  of how we learn anything, a process which in itself has
been set up from genetic code...then we could go deeper into this thing of
how we learn our first language.
What do you think?   Do you know of anybody who has taken this approach???


  gvk

thorn in the side
unfurling petals
dazzling