文档介绍：Language Acquisition
Steven Pinker
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Chapter to appear in L. R. Gleitman, M. Liberman, and D. N. Osherson (Eds.),
An Invitation to Cognitive Science, 2nd Ed. Volume 1: Language. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
NONFINAL VERSION: PLEASE DO NOTE QUOTE.
Preparation of the chapter was supported by NIH grant HD 18381 and NSF grant
BNS 91-09766, and by the McDonnell-Pew Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at
MIT.
1 Introduction
Language acquisition is one of the central topics in cognitive science.
Every theory of cognition has tried to explain it; probably no other topic
has aroused such controversy. Possessing a language is the quintessentially
human trait: all normal humans speak, no nonhuman animal does. Language is
the main vehicle by which we know about other people's thoughts, and the two
must be intimately related. Every time we speak we are revealing something
about language, so the facts of language structure are easy e by;
these data hint at a system of plexity. heless,
learning a first language is something every child does essfully, in a
matter of a few years and without the need for formal lessons. With language
so close to the core of what it means to be human, it is not surprising that
children's acquisition of language has received so much attention. Anyone
with strong views about the human mind would like to show that children's
first few steps are steps in the right direction.
Language acquisition is not only inherently interesting; studying it is one
way to look for concrete answers to questions that permeate cognitive
science:
Modularity. Do children learn language using a "an," some of whose
principles anization are not shared with other cognitive systems such
as perception, motor control, and reasoning (Chomsky, 1975, 1991; Fodor,
1983)? Or is language acquisition just another problem to be solved by
general intelligence, i