LINGUIS 51 Study Guide - Final Guide: Nicaraguan Sign Language, Generative Grammar, Home Sign
Document Summary
Review questions: biological bases of language (stated and cited from dr. pearl"s notes final review session 6) Because even if there was no language model to learn from, humans would spontaneously create language (i. e. pidgins and creoles, homesign systems, the case of nicaraguan sign language. Because adults who are creoles (like their children, but not like their parents or the children"s grandparents) have grammatically more complex language, containing structures that are in the pidgin language. Such structures include consistent word order, tense marking, and multi-clause sentences. Children (creoles) add something that wasn"t already in the. When children acquire language, they sometimes add something extra, which is sometimes thought to be universal to human language and part of children"s innate endowment for language (i. e. universal grammar). Nativists believe at least one thing is innate. They believe that an lad exists, which contains some domain-specific knowledge about the structure of language, known as universal grammar.
