Over the years, Craig has expressed a deep disdain for the notion that grammar cannot possibly be innate.

In his latest post, he writes the following indicating why we must reject innateness:

>>> Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> 12/07/08 9:34 AM >>>
   Innateness is just one part of the theory. If grammar is wired in, then
it has no central connection to our embodied experience of the world or
our social interactions or the shared building of meaning within our
disciplines. The rules are rules about "forms", not observations about
the rich and interactive construction of meaning.

Some really smart people have considered what "the rich and interactive construction of meaning" might mean.

I have over the last several years shared those observations and Craig has yet to respond.  In hopes that Craig has now got a response, here are there observations Bickerton makes about Craig's that grammar is about "our embodied experience of the world or our social interactions or the shared building of meaning within our disciplines."

All of the following is from Bickerton (1985). 

First, what is in our "embodied experience" that accounts for the fact that the following sentences have different meanings.

 	1) John wants someone to work for.
	2) John wants someone to work for him.

Second, given the fact that absence of the pronoun him in (1) and (2) make a difference, why, with or without the pronoun, (3) and (4) have the same meaning (for those who find such sentences possible in their dialect)?

 	3) Which letters did Bill destroy without reading?
	4) Which letters did Bill destroy without reading them?

Finally, what, in our experiences, allows (5) and (6) but does not allow  (7)?

 	5) Mary is someone that people like as soon as they see.
	6) Mary is someone that people like as soon as they see her.
	7) *Mary is someone that people like her as soon as they see.

Of course, these are questions that someone who sees language as a formal system would ask.  And, there are formalist explanations.

However, Craig is committed to a theory of language that claims all of these differences are the result of our experience of the world. Someday, I hope he will provide that explanation for the sentences above.

***
Craig continues:

Innateness also brings with it the widespread belief that children
know most of an adult language by the time they reach school. We don't
pay much attention to the complex ways in which that language grows
and needs to grow as the child enters into more mature roles and more
mature relationships with the world. Reducing it to acquiring
"Standard English" is part of the problem.


The only work I know which considers how language "grows" is Perera's work on how certain grammatical constructions occur only in writing. 

I don't know of any systematic teaching of those structures anywhere in the curriculum and I have no idea how these structures reveal a person having a more mature relationship with the world.

Perhaps, Craig will share with us an example of a grammatical structure that when learned(?)/acquired(?) by a language learner is part of the maturing he is writing about.  

Craig, in that second passage, are you saying if a language learner's language does not "grow" that person will be unable to enter into more mature roles and more mature relationship with the world? 

 Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri

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