storage and computation

[PAMELA PRICE KLEBAUM]

        I think you are wrong.  The investigation of child language
acquisition is looking at empirical data as a means to further the
inquiry into what the nature of the formal grammar is, or how it is acquired.

        Pamela Price Klebaum


On Tue, 13 Oct 1998, John Myhill wrote:

> I've been quite interested to read here about specific findings regarding
> how people learn language. As I have been observing the linguistic development
> of my now 6-year-old daughter, I have been coming to the conclusion that
> anyone who thinks that children develop their language by relying more on
> rule generalization than on retrival either doesn't have children or
> doesn't pay any attention to what they say. I have repeatedly attempted to
> use Hebrew morphology playfully to make jokes with Shayna and I have
> repeatedly been disappointed that she just doesn't get it, even though she
> can use the morphological forms she's already encountered perfectly. I have
> struggled mightily to explain to her the subregularities in the Hebrew
> morphological system, but this has no effect whatsoever. She transparently
> has no clue of the morphological structure of the agglutinative Japanese
> forms she uses regularly.
> Unfortunately for linguistics, the formalists whose worldview would most
> benefit from the findings reported in some of the recent postings here
> aren't interested
> in experiments which take them out of their armchairs.
> John Myhill
>