motor impairment and language

[Brian MacWhinney]

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