ALDS 2203 Lecture 4: Universal Grammar & Second Language Acquisition - Jan 13, 2016

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Applied Linguistics and Discourse Studies
• Course: ALDS 2203
• Professor: Trudy O' Brien

Document Summary

Alds 2203 universal grammar & second language acquisition. Ug consists of set of principles which constrain options from which child must choose when learning mother tongue. The rationale for unviersal grammar lies in what is known as the poverty of the stimulus". i. e. , the child cannot possibly arrive at a grammar for the target language on the basis of input data alone. Universal grammar is made up of formal and substantive universals. These help the child to build a core grammar consisting of unmarked rules. But there are also other rules that universal grammar does not determine. They form the periphery and are marked in varying degrees. Core rules are un marked (i. e. , they are default system: in accord w/ general tendencies of language, represent most generalized & abstract parts of grammar, not fully capturable. Peripheral rules are marked (need to be explicitly understood: consist of more accessible forms we see in a language, or exceptional in some way.