Poverty of the stimulus

In linguistics, the poverty of the stimulus is the claim that children are not exposed to rich enough data within their linguistic environments to acquire every feature of their language without innate language-specific cognitive biases. Arguments from the poverty of the stimulus are used as evidence for universal grammar, the notion that at least some aspects of linguistic competence are innate. The term "poverty of the stimulus" was coined by Noam Chomsky in Rules and Representations, 1980. A variety of linguistic phenomena have been used to argue for universal grammar on the basis that children do not have sufficient evidence to acquire the phenomena using general (i.e., non-language-specific) cognition alone. Critics of the universal grammar hypothesis have proposed alternative models that suggest acquisition of these phenomena may be less difficult than has been previously claimed. The empirical and conceptual bases of poverty of the stimulus arguments are a topic of continuing debate in linguistics.

Background and history

Noam Chomsky coined the term "poverty of the stimulus" in 1980. This idea is closely related to what Chomsky calls "Plato's Problem". He outlined this philosophical approach in the first chapter of Knowledge of Language in 1986. Plato's Problem traces back to Meno, a Socratic dialogue. In Meno, Socrates unearths knowledge of geometry concepts from a slave who was never explicitly taught them. Plato's Problem directly parallels the idea of the innateness of language, universal grammar, and more specifically the poverty of the stimulus argument because it reveals that people's knowledge is richer than what they are exposed to. Chomsky suggests that humans are not exposed to all structures of their language, yet they fully achieve knowledge of these structures. Linguistic nativism is the theory that humans are born with some knowledge of language (universal grammar), and that one acquires a language not entirely through experience. According to Noam Chomsky, "The speed and precision of vocabulary acquisition leaves no real alternative to the conclusion that the child somehow has the concepts available before experience with language and is basically learning labels for concepts that are already a part of his or her conceptual apparatus." For most generative grammarians, the poverty of the stimulus argument is a central tenet of the broader argument for linguistic nativism. Pullum and Scholz frame the poverty of the stimulus argument by examining all of the ways that the input is insufficient for language acquisition. First, children are exposed only to positive evidence: they do not receive explicit correction or instruction about what is not possible in the language. Second, the input that children receive is degenerate in terms of scope and quality. Degeneracy of scope means that the input does not contain information about the full extent of any grammatical rules. Degeneracy of quality means that children are exposed to speech errors, utterances by nonnative speakers, and false starts, potentially obscuring the underlying grammatical structure of the language. Furthermore, the linguistic data each child is exposed to is different, meaning the basis for language learning is idiosyncratic even within a particular language. However, despite these insufficiencies, children eventually acquire the grammar of the language they are exposed to. Further, other organisms in the same environment do not. From a nativist point of view, the insufficiency of the input leads to the conclusion that humans are hard-wired with a universal grammar, supporting the innateness hypothesis. However, the argument that the poverty of the stimulus supports the innateness hypothesis remains controversial. For example, Fiona Cowie claims that the Poverty of Stimulus argument fails "on both empirical and conceptual grounds to support nativism".

Examples The literature contains a variety of Poverty of the Stimulus arguments regarding a variety of phenomena.

Syntax

Binding theory – Principle C While he was dancing, the Ninja Turtle ate pizza. He ate pizza while the Ninja Turtle was dancing. In general, pronouns can refer to any prominent individual in the discourse context. However, a pronoun cannot find its antecedent in certain structural positions, as defined by Binding Theory. For example, the pronoun "he" can refer to the Ninja Turtle in (1) but not (2), above. Given that speech to children does not indicate what interpretations are impossible, the input is equally consistent with a grammar that allows coreference between "he" and "the Ninja Turtle" in (2) and one that does not. But, since all speakers of English recognize that (2) does not allow this coreference, this aspect of the grammar must come from some property internal to the learner.

Passives I believe the dog to be hungry The dog is believed to be hungry I believe the dog's owner to be hungry. The dog's owner is believed to be hungry. * The dog is believed's owner to be hungry. The sentences in (1) and (2) illustrate the active-passive alternation in English. The Noun Phrase after the verb in the active (1) is the subject in the passive (2). Data like (2) would be compatible with a passive rule stated in terms of linear order (move the 1st NP after the verb) or syntactic structure (move the highest NP after the verb). The data in (3–5) illustrate that the actual rule is formulated in terms of structure. If it were stated in terms of linear order, then (4) would be ungrammatical and (5) would be grammatical. But the opposite is true. However, children may not be exposed to sentences like (3–5) as evidence in favor of the correct grammar. Thus, the fact that all adult speakers agree that (4) is grammatical and (5) is not suggests that the linear rule was never even considered and that children are predisposed to a structure based grammatical system.

Anaphoric "one" The English word "one" can refer back to a previously mentioned property in the discourse. For example in (1), "one" can mean "ball".

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