I review the classic literature in generative grammar and Marr's three-level program for cognitive science to defend the Evaluation Metric as a psychological theory of language learning. Focusing on well-established facts of language variation, change, and use, I argue that optimal statistical principles embodied in Bayesian inference models are…

The ability to generate novel utterances compositionally using generative knowledge is a hallmark property of human language. At the same time, languages contain non-compositional or idiosyncratic items, such as irregular verbs, idioms, etc. This dissertation asks how and why language achieves a balance between these two systems--generative and…

Generative approaches to language have long recognized the natural link between theories of knowledge representation and theories of knowledge acquisition. The basic idea is that the knowledge representations provided by Universal Grammar enable children to acquire language as reliably as they do because these representations highlight the…

In an attempt to explain first language attrition in emigrant populations, this paper investigates the explanatory power of a framework that has--until now--received little attention: the regression hypothesis (Jakobson, 1941). This hypothesis predicts that the order of attrition is the reverse of the order of acquisition. The regression…

Samples of written language were collected from 140 congenitally deaf children at grade levels 3, 5, 7, and 9. The samples were then subjected to error, quantitative, and transformational analysis. Findings suggested a relationship between the order in which the deaf child acquires the rules of his language and the ordering of rules in a…

Special issue on "Changing Linguistics." (DD)

Intended as an introduction to psycholinguistics from the linguist's point of view, this book addresses itself to three main topics: the innateness of language, the relationship of linguistic knowledge to language usage, and the comprehension and production of speech. In 12 chapters, the book discusses the nature of language development, the…

Three papers from this issue of the Working Papers are provided here. "The Nesting Constraint in Child Language," by Patrick Alan Brogan, discusses a child's ability to perform complex, internally embedded sentences. It is hypothesized that difficulty stems from a child's limited short-term memory. "A Framework for Studying Kin Term…

Developmental trends in the effects of expectations regarding agent/action matches on judgments of sentence acceptability were investigated. Five sentences reflected expected relations ("harmonious") and five contradicted them ("contrary"). Twelve subjects each were in grades 4 through 8 during year 1; the same 60 subjects…

Conceptual models of language learning and language use were made by a committee of school personnel interested in investigating learning differences in preschool language development, even though public school systems do not as yet include preschool classes. Normative information was collected from various research sources and classified.…

THE FREQUENCY OF 'ASPECT' (PERFECT AND PROGRESSIVE IN THE AUXILIARY) WAS REPORTED FOR RETARDED, NORMAL, AND SUPERIOR CHILDREN ACROSS AGE AND THE ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE MODALITIES. DATA WERE LIMITED IN SEVERAL RESPECTS, PARTICULARLY SIZE OF SAMPLE. THIS IS A PILOT STUDY RATHER THAN A SERIOUS EFFORT TO UNDERSTAND PROCESSES OF LANGUAGE…

This unannotated bibliography consists of 160 citations of books and journal articles dealing with linguistics (traditional grammar, semantics, syntax, morphology, inflectional rules, transformational grammar, generative phonology), language usage, language acquisition, psycholinguistics, verbal behavior, psychology, and the philosophy of…

This investigation sought to learn about the oral and written language behavior of students from kindergarten age through grade 7, and to determine the validity of different analytic techniques for measuring children's development in control of syntax. Language samples were collected from 180 children (grades K-3, 5, and 7) by having the children…

This book describes for parents the effects that recent developments in language study have had on the English curriculum. The discussion covers (1) literacy (language development in small children, spelling, reading, writing, and bilingualism); (2) grammar (structural linguistics, transformational grammar, and the new textbooks); (3) usage…