PSY 357 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Ke Family, Creole Language, Ray Jackendoff
Document Summary
Arguments for and against innateness: universal grammar, parameters, pidgins and creoles, lack of negative evidence, foxp2 gene. Universal grammar: idea popularized by noam chomsky. Even if they don"t explicitly know rules of language (which most of us don"t) 5000 languages: important aspect of ug: Not all languages are svo (subject-verb-object) or sov or vso. Vso: opened the man the door: a visiting martian scientist would surely conclude that aside from their mutually unintelligible vocabularies, earthlings speak a single language. (steven pinker, 1994) Parameters: what innate mechanism allows these commonalities to occur, parameters: inborn switches . Once switch for svo is turned on by exposure to language, also turn on switch for prepositions: Once switch for sov is turned on, also turn on switch for postpositions: Video: pidgin and creole languages: surinam: people with no common language had to start their own language (slave trading from different parts of africa that didn"t speak the same language)
