Studies in the Acquisition of Anaphora

Studies in the Acquisition of Anaphora Synopsis

Today, one fundamental set of issues confronts both the linguistic theory of 'Universal Grammar' and the psychological study of human cognition. These issues concern the question of to what degree and how the human mind is "programmed," presumably biologically, to acquire the complex knowiedge of human language. As discussed in Volume I, anaphora has been critical to this study because, while a critical property of language knowledge, it is largely underdetermined by available evidence. While most previous research projects have generally addressed these issues through either linguistic analyses or psychological analyses of language data, and have concerned themselves with either the role of innateness or the role of experience in language knowledge, this volume, with its predecessor, attempts to combine these approaches; in fact to develop a research paradigm for their joint study. While Volume I emphasized study of the content and nature of the initial state, i. e. , of the language faculty, this second volume emphasizes study of the way in which experience does or does not interact with this language faculty to determine language acquisition. We argue in the introduction that the issues addressed in Volume II are appreciable, if not necessary, com- plements to those addressed in Volume I. This is not only because a more comprehensive model of language acquisition requires so, but because valid definition of the content of 'the initial state' may require so.