'learning paths' instead of parameters

[Frederick Newmeyer]

Dear colleagues,

I hope that you don’t mind a question from an outsider who has a very small
mastery of the acquisition literature.

There is a recently-developed approach to formal syntax that has abandoned
the idea of innate parameters directing the course of acquisition. In their
place, it posits universal ‘learning paths’, determined by ‘general
cognitive optimization strategies’, and whose operation to a considerable
degree mimics the work once done by parameter hierarchies. In a nutshell,
it posits that for any structural (or constructional?) domain, the child
makes the most general hypothesis first, and then gradually over time zeros
in on the adult grammar.

Let me give a concrete example. Let’s say that a language is consistently
head-final except in NP, where the noun precedes its complements. However,
there is a definable class of nouns in this language do follow their
complements. And a few nouns in this language behave idiosyncratically in
terms of the positioning of their specifiers and complements (much like the
English word ‘enough’, which is one of the few degree modifiers that
follows the adjective).

According to the theory I am describing, the child will go through the
following stages of acquisition:
1. First s/he will assume that ALL phrases are head-final, even noun
phrases.
2. Next s/he will assume that ALL NPs are head-initial
3. Next s/he will learn the class of exceptions to 2.
4. Finally, s/he will learn the purely idiosyncratic exceptions.

Is there any evidence that acquisition actually proceeds in this ‘orderly’
manner? I remember from years ago some inconclusive discussion about the
‘subset principle’, but I would very very interested to hear what you have
to say about recent work that bears on the scenario that I have described
above.

Thanks!

—fritz

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