Frmal Appr to Lang Acquis

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

This course provides an introduction to language acquisition from the perspective of how we might account for the kind of complex linguistic knowledge a child learner comes to attain, and how that account is both informed by and contributes to linguistic theory. We examine the notion of ‘Universal Grammar’ and how it has evolved over the past several decades, including the historical context in which it arose (e.g., as a response to the prevailing behavioristic learning model of the first half of the 20th century). Topics to be covered include: issues of learnability (including a hypothesized ‘poverty of the stimulus’ and the role of negative evidence in language development); how much is learned from limited input; the hypothesized role of ‘parameters’ in language learning (including acquisition studies of specific parameters and more general questions concerning the evolution and validity of parameter theory for language acquisition); the acquisition of morphosyntactic functional categories and features; and the extent to which knowledge of language at earlier stages of language development is of the same type or ‘continuous’ with the kind of knowledge mature native speakers possess. There will be some emphasis on close reading and critical analysis of primary-source literature (i.e., actual acquisition studies) so that students will have an opportunity to become more familiar with some of the design and experimental methods employed in language acquisition research. Prerequisite: A course in generative syntax.