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Explanatory adequacy is not enough: Response to commentators on ‘Child language acquisition: Why universal grammar doesn't help’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Ben Ambridge ,
Julian M. Pine  and
Elena V. M. Lieven
Ben Ambridge*
Affiliation:
University of Liverool and ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LuCiD)
Julian M. Pine*
Affiliation:
University of Manchester and ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LuCiD)
Elena V. M. Lieven*
Affiliation:
University of Liverool and ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LuCiD)
*
Ambridge and Pine, University of Liverpool, Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, Bedford Street South, Liverpool, L69 7ZA, United Kingdom, [Ben.Ambridge@liverpool.ac.uk]
[Jpine@liverpool.ac.uk]
Lieven, University of Manchester School of Psychological Sciences Coupland 1 Building Coupland Street, Oxford Road Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom [Elena.Lieven@manchester.ac.uk]
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Abstract

In this response to commentators on our target article ‘Child language acquisition: Why universal grammar doesn't help’, we argue that the fatal flaw in most UG-based approaches to acquisition is their focus on describing the adult end-state in terms of a particular linguistic formalism. As a consequence, such accounts typically neglect to link acquisition to the language that the learner actually hears, instead assuming that she is able, by means usually unspecified, to perceive her input in terms of high-level theoretical abstractions.

Keywords

binding principleschild language acquisitionfrequent framesparameter settingprosodic bootstrappingsemantic bootstrappingstructure dependencesubjacencysyntaxmorphosyntaxuniversal grammar

Information

Type
Perspectives
Information
Language , Volume 91 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. e116 - e126
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 Linguistic Society of America

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