motor impairment and language

[Gary Marcus]

Dear Brian and INFO-CHILDES,

Chomsky's suggestion that structure-dependence is innate is a far cry from
claiming that motor-development plays *no* role in language acquisition.

As far as I can tell, Sieratzki and Woll's  interesting results are
primarily about differences in rates of acquiring language-particular
information (which must, in part, rest on sensory information), whereas the
quote from Chomsky is, -- I think, given how he cashes out "the phenomena
of language that demand explanation" in paragraph 2 and his other work --
primarily about linguistic universals (some or all of which could turn out
to develop in the mind of the child prior to womb-external experience).
Interesting to see whether one could find differences in the putative
universals, and if so whether those could be attributed to differences in
experience.

Best wishes,
Gary




At 06:17 PM 11/30/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Dear Peter and Info-CHILDES,
>
>   Here is one quote from Chomsky that is easy enough to find.  It is from
>page 36 of the famous Royaumont debate between Chomsky and Piaget entitled
>"Language and Learning" edited by Piatelli-Palmarini:
>
>"There are, to my knowledge, no substantive proposals involving
>'constructions of sensorimotor intelligence' that offer any hope of account
>for the phenomena of language that demand explanation.  Nor is there any
>initial plausibility to the suggestions, as far as I can see."
>
>In this way, Chomsky dismisses Piagetian constructivism and then proceeds
>with his famous example of the child's obedience to structure-dependency in
>which (page 40) "A person might go through much or all of his life without
>ever having been exposed to relevant evidence, but he will nevertheless
>unerringly employ H2 (structure-dependence) and never H1 (positional
>dependence), on the first relevant occasions.  We cannot, it seems, explain
>the preference for H2 on grands of communicative efficiency or the like."
>
>I think that these passages match up rather well with the Sieratzki-Woll
>interpretation of Chomsky's position, although the full view really emerges
>by examining the whole of the debate in the "Language and Learning" volume.
>
>--Brian MacWhinney
>