Do We Need Innate Knowledge In Order To Be Able To Learn Language? If So, What Kind Of Innate Knowledge Do We Need?

According to the poverty of the stimulus account, some form of innate knowledge is required to learn a language. The language that children are exposed to is not sufficient enough for them to learn the rules of syntax by exposure alone. Chomsky originally proposed that in order to explain this phenomenon, children must be born with an innate propensity to acquire language, which he terms an innate language acquisition device.

Moreover, the fact that all languages have SVO, SOV, or VSO word order, suggests that language learning relies on an innate knowledge. As all languages have each proponent of the sentence (Subject, Verb and Object), the variance in word order is not enough of a difference to argue that there is no innateness in language. However, computational modelling -whereby a computer is programmed to learn language- has demonstrated that it is possible to learn language through only language exposure, with a complete absence of an innate ability for language learning.

Nativists highlight two types of innate knowledge that humans need to learn language. Despite grammatical variations between languages, they all contain several syntactic features, or linguistic universals. Although word order is not consistent between all languages, these common features give enough restraint to observe common patterns and features. Secondly, nativists argue that language derives from implicational universals sets of systematic rules that are consistent within all languages with the same word order. E.g. all SVO languages put question indicators at the beginning of a sentence, whereas SOV languages have them at the end. So, in Thai modt mai (where mai indicates that a question is being asked), would be equivalent to the English sentence have you finished? despite the question indicating words occurring at different points in the sentence. This does not seem to need innate knowledge at all, instead seems to rely on a child s ability to recognise repeated structures.

Chomsky s notion of universal grammar is an example of necessary innate knowledge, needed for language acquisition. However, it makes more sense to justify the difference between languages by saying that languages have evolved from a single shared language. Additionally, it seems that universally people s lives are similar enough that we would distinguish between the same objects and traits, and assign them linguistic signifiers, rather than there being an innate knowledge of language learning.