Date: 12-Apr-2007
From: David Lightfoot <dlightfo nsf.gov>
Subject: Final Posting: Author's Response to Review
Michael Arbib addresses five points in my response to his review of How
New Languages Emerge (Cambridge UP, 2006) and here I respond to the
first four.
1. Arbib 'assumed readers would understand ... an I-language approximates an
E-language if the utterances it produces are far more likely than not to belong
to the E-language, with the approximation continually tested as the child hears
and produces new utterances.' His assumption may be right among people who
focus on construction types, but that is part of the problem. An I-language is
not a set of utterances, certainly not a finite set of utterances. There has
been much misleading discussion stemming from that misapprehension, including
discussion of I-languages being subsets of other I-languages, when all
I-languages generate infinite sets of structures. Nor do I know what he means
by 'an E-language,' as if there are enumerable E-languages. Furthermore, a major
point of the cue-based approach to acquisition is to get away from the very
problematic idea that children "test" I-languages against sets of data, as Arbib
himself notes elsewhere in his review.
2. I wrote that Pullum & Scholz (2002) 'do not address' what they call stimulus
absence arguments and therefore that there was nothing for me to respond to. I
did not say that they endorsed such arguments and I would be very surprised if
they did so.
3. If Arbib says in one breath that 'no theory is offered of how the child
activates "cues",' he cannot then 'note that [my] theory seems to offer positive
features ...' He can't have it both ways. Nor does he specify how my treatment
of the expression of cues 'weaken[s] the case that UG is needed to make
language-learning possible,' when I invoked UG throughout the discussion of how
cues are expressed.
4. He notes accurately that my brief response cites no evidence about the
interplay between adult changes and changes in acquisition by young children.
The evidence is provided in the book, which makes a big deal of that interplay.
Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics
Language Acquisition
Sociolinguistics
This Year the LINGUIST List hopes to raise $55,000. This money will go to help keep the
List running by supporting all of our Student Editors for the coming year.
See below for donation instructions, and don't forget to check out our Fund Drive 2007
LINGUIST List Superhero Adventure for some Fund Drive fun!
http://linguistlist.org/donation/fund-drive2007/
There are many ways to donate to LINGUIST!
You can donate right now using our secure credit card form.
Alternatively you can also pledge right now and pay later.
For all information on donating and pledging, including information on how to donate by
check, money order, or wire transfer, please visit:
http://linguistlist.org/donate.html
The LINGUIST List is under the umbrella of Eastern Michigan University and as such can
receive donations through the EMU Foundation, which is a registered 501(c) Non Profit
organization. Our Federal Tax number is 38-6005986. These donations can be offset against
your federal and sometimes your state tax return (U.S. tax payers only). For more
information visit the IRS Web-Site, or contact your financial advisor.
Many companies also offer a gift matching program, such that they will match any gift
you make to a non-profit organization. Normally this entails your contacting your human
resources department and sending us a form that the EMU Foundation fills in and returns
to your employer. This is generally a simple administrative procedure that doubles the
value of your gift to LINGUIST, without costing you an extra penny. Please take a moment
to check if your company operates such a program.
Thank you very much for your support of LINGUIST!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
|
