inter-innateness interaction

[Keith Nelson]

Dear Joko and colleagues,  As comments already 
indicate it is very reasonable to take seriously 
not only innate biological factors but the 
multiple ways in which children learn from their 
environment.   It is also very important to keep 
in mind that overall proportions in a sample of 
mothers of children do not create an average THE 
MOTHER or THE CHILD that should receive 
theoretical interpretation.
	Instead individual children vary 
tremendously and so do individual sources of 
input such as mothers, siblings, fathers, and 
daycare/preschool personnel that the particular 
child actually interacts with.  Our work and that 
of many others demonstrates how in experimental 
causative designs it is possible to see how 
individual children have been caused to acquire 
particular structures  by both prototypical and 
unprototypical input patterns that carry 
structural challenges of many types for the 
individual children.

Keith Nelson



At 9:00 AM -0600 7/13/07, Philip Dale wrote:
>Dear Joko and colleagues,
>
>It seems to me that this interchange already provides a good example of
>something that needs to be more generally acknowledged: correlations between
>parent input and child language are overdetermined; that is, there are a
>good many mechanisms that might lead to them, including both genetic/innate
>and environmental/learning ones. As interesting as they are, they do not by
>themselves settle any major questions; they are just very useful pieces of
>the puzzle.
>
>Philip Dale
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org]
>On Behalf Of Anat Ninio
>Sent: Friday, July 13, 2007 8:56 AM
>To: Joko-Kusmanto
>Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org; Uri Hershberg
>Subject: Re: inter-innateness interaction
>
>Dear Joko,
>
>If I may paraphrase your message, you found a strong match between the
>proportion of transitive and intransitive verbs in children's speech and
>the proportions of the same in child-directed speech.  As Susana Lopez
>Ornat suggested, such a finding is best interpreted as reflecting 
>learning processes, not innate properties of language.  Certainly the
>speech of children between 2 and 5 years of age cannot be easily taken
>as reflecting prelinguistic features, as they already speak at this
>point for several years.  Why not consider that children actually learn
>to speak from the speech of others in their linguistic environment? Your
>own results join many others that show strong environmental influences
>on the global characteristics of children's speech, and as such, are a
>welcome addition to the empiricist literature.
>
>Anat Ninio
>
>
>Susana Lopez Ornat wrote:
>>  Joko: maybe you should consider this: if, and only if, the empirical
>>  evidence you have really, thoroughly, uncontrovertedly, supported
>>  those results** you mention, then you would have strong evidence
>>  against the non-innateness of the language learning system.
>>  You might want to give a thought to this.
>>
>>  Susana López Ornat
>>  Dpto Psicología Básica II
>>  Facultad de Psicología
>>  Universidad Complutense de Madrid
>>  Madrid 28223
>>  www.ucm.es/info/equial
>>
>>  **: I refer to this paragraph: "It seems to me that the same
>>  proportion of the 1st verb type and the 2nd verb type in the
>>  children's production and in CDS  provide an insight how language
>>  acquisition is possible"
>>
>>
>>  ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joko-Kusmanto" <joko.k at telkom.net>
>>  To: <info-childes at mail.talkbank.org>
>  > Sent: Friday, July 13, 2007 8:52 AM
>  > Subject: inter-innateness interaction
>>
>>
>>>  Dear all,
>>>
>>>  Would anybody here please help me provide some explanations relating
>>>  to my problem as follow.
>>>   Currently I'm looking at the argument structure in children's
>>>  language from 2 - 5 years old. When I compare the verb types found in
>>>  children's production and in children directed speech (CDS), I found
>  >> that they have the same proportion. I classify two basic verb types,
>>>  i.e. (i) verb with Agent-like as Subject and (ii) verb with no
>>>  Agent-like as Subject. The first verb type assigns directly, thus
>>>  govern the theta role, the Object as Patient-like and the second verb
>>>  type does not assigns, thus doesn't govern the theta role, the
>>>  Object. It seems to me that the same proportion of the 1st verb type
>>>  and the 2nd verb type in the children's production and in CDS provide
>>>  an insight how language acquisition is possible. This proportion
>>>  brings me to a conclusion that the proportion of the 1st and the 2nd
>>>  verb type in children's production and in CDS is the picture of the
>>>  innate properties by which language acquisition is possible. The
>>>  children's production is a picture of pre-linguistic innate
>>>  properties (not yet in form of lingual realization) and the CDS is a
>>>  picture of linguistic innate properties (already in lingual
>>>  realization). Thus, language acquisition is possible in the
>>>  interaction between the mechanism of the pre-linguistic innate
>>>  properties and the linguistic innate properties as triggering
>>>  environment. I would say that this is an inter-innateness interaction
>>>  in language acquisition. I assume here that CDS is constrained by the
>>>  linguistic-innate properties which bring on a regular linguistic
>>>  environment and that the poverty of stimulus does not really mean
>>>  that the linguistic environment is random. Would it be possible to be
>>>  like that?
>>>
>>>  Thank you all for your explanations.
>>>
>>>  Joko Kusmanto
>>>  Postgraduate Student of Linguistics
>>>  Universitas Sebelas Maret - Surakarta
>>>  Indonesia
>>>
>>>
>>>
>============================================================================
>============
>>>
>>>  Bosan dengan email yang biasa??
>>>  Ayo cobain kirim email diiringi musik dengan bergabung di Music Mail
>>>  Telkom.net (http://www.telkom.net/mm_seputar.php), dijamin kirim
>>>  email terasa lebih menyenangkan. Jadi  tunggu apalagi buruan cobain
>>>  beremail dengan Music Mail!!
>>>
>============================================================================
>============
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>


-- 



Keith Nelson
Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
423 Moore Building
University Park, PA   16802


keithnelsonart at psu.edu

814 863 1747



And what is mind
and how is it recognized ?
It is clearly drawn
in Sumi  ink, the
sound of breezes drifting through pine.

--Ikkyu Sojun
Japanese Zen Master    1394-1481