Bob - As usual, a thoughtful, well-considered, helpful post. I always look forward to seeing your name in the discussion. I recall your good humor in Kansas City several years ago. Geoff Layton >From: Robert Yates <[log in to unmask]> >Reply-To: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar ><[log in to unmask]> >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Re: Grammar Must Be Taught >Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2006 12:49:13 -0500 > >I will let Johanna explain what perspective she speaks from. > >However, many of the claims in the following are just plain wrong. > > >>> [log in to unmask] 09/03/06 7:37 AM >>> > >Johanna speaks from the transformational/generative perspective which >*assumes* that *native* speakers of a language know the *grammar* of >that language. Unfortunately, this theory has never been supported with >evidence. There is evidence, though, that children never exposed to >language will never speak a human language. Language, as cognitive >linguistics affirms is learned, and not innate. > >*** >For the teaching of grammar to native speakers, this debate has >important consequences. If Eduard is right, then a lot of grammar >categories have to be explicitly taught because students don't know >them. If language is innate, then a lot of grammar instruction can be >dispensed with (does any native speaker get taught how the article >system in English works?), and for those categories that are important >for students to know explicitly, we can define those categories in such >a way as to show students how their innate knowledge can identify them. > >Much of Eduard's claims that language cannot be innate go to the poverty >of the stimulous argument that is made by innatists. Essentially, all >native speakers know things about their language that cannot possibly be >in the input. There is evidence for the poverty of the stimulous >argument. > >I) We all know that children produce utterances that they have never >heard. If language is not innate and the language we use crucially >depends on the input, we left trying to explain how that is possible. > >Moreover, even those of us who have full native-speaker competence can >make judgements about possible sentences that we have never been exposed >to. An example I like to use is relativizing the genetive of the object >of a comparative. > >1) There is the woman whose daughter my daugher is prettier than. > >That is a perfect good sentence in English; it is not possible in most >languages of the world; and I am confident most of us have never heard >or read it. Eduard's claim is that linguistic categories are not >"innate." It will be interesting to read an explanation about how we >"learned" that (1) is possible without any reference to abstract >linguistic categories. > >II) It should be observed that dogs are talked to all the time and >never learn the language that is address to them. Obviously, children >need some kind of input, but the serious issue is what does the nature >of that input have to be. Contrary to what Eduard claims, there is >evidence that that input can be very, very minimal. > >First, there is the work on home sign by Susan Goldin-Meadow and >colleagues. Home sign is the gestural system of deaf children born in >hearing households in which no one has learned or will learn America >Sign Language. I recommend the following article by Goldin-Meadow and >Mylander in Language. > >Goldin-Meadow, S and Mylander. (1990). Beyond the input given: The >child's role in the acquisition of language. Language, 66, 323-355. > >Goldin-Meadow and Mylander discuss one child who developed agreement >morphology (hand shape was different depending on the object being >manipulated) that the child regularly used. NO ONE in his family >regularly used hand shape in this way. In other words, this child >created a morphological system without any input. This is predicted by >the innatist claim. I have no idea the story that someone who believes >language is not innate would tell. > >Second, there is the work of Jenny Singleton with Simon. You can find >this research cited in Chapter Two of Pinker's The Language Instinct. >(An aside: Sampson makes no mention of this work in his book refuting >Pinker.) > >Simon was born deaf to deaf parents. Simon's only ASL (American sign >language) was from his parents who had learned ASL late and were not >native-like in their signing. Singleton found that Simon's ASL did not >look like his parents' ASL but like kids born to native ASL signers. In >other words, Simon went beyond the language he had been exposed to and >regularized it. These results are predicted by the innatist hypothesis >and not by a claim that language must be "learned." > >III) I found nothing particular insightful in Sampson's book refuting >the innatist hypothesis. I will consider an example that Sampon spends >a lot of spacing on: yes - no questions in which there is a tensed >clause in the subject. > >Sampson is correct to observe Chomsky has cited such sentences, and >beginning linguistics texts, use such sentences as evidence that we have >knowledge about language that is not in the input. Here is the example >used by Sampson. Notice that in the following sentence only "will" can >be moved to make a good yes-no question and "are" can't. > >2) Will those who are coming raise their hands? >3) *Are those who coming will raise their hands? > >For innatists, the kind of knowledge we have to know (2) is possible and >(3) is not cannot come from the input. Try to explain why (2) is >possible and not (3) without any grammatical categories. Remember if >language is not innate, then children don't have those categories. Note >that (4) is possible. > >(4) Are those [children] coming? > >It is instructive to observe how Sampson refutes the poverty of the >stimulous claim about such yes-now questions. On page 82, he provides a >number of examples from a written corpus of 90 million words. He says >he found many examples, but doesn't tell us how many. Children are not >really exposed to those written sources, so this really is not any >refutation. > >Sampson reports he could not find any examples of such questions in a >spontenous speech corpus. It is very revealing to read his speculation >on why he was unsuccessful: > >Certainly the possibility exists, as always, that my failure to find the >[relevant examples in the spoken language corpus] was because of some >shortcoming in the search patterns I used used and there really are >examples which my automatic search missed. (Sampon (2005), The >'language instinct' debate, p. 82) > >For those of us how are native speakers, we don't have any shortcomings >in our search patterns for such sentences, and more importantly, we >don't even know what we are searching for to determine whether the >search was successful or not. Of course, this is not problematic if >language is innate, but Sampon's own speculation here shows how >difficult it is to connect just input to what we know is possible in a >language. > >Much of grammar is innate. We can use this fact to help us teach >grammar to native speakers. This is not a new observation. Both >DeBeaugrande and Noguchi have made this proposal and shown how native >speaker intuitions can help students understand grammar. > >Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University > >To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface >at: > http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html >and select "Join or leave the list" > >Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/