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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: What's innate? (Was Re: Artificial Neural Networks and Cognition
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Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 17:16:49 GMT
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In article <3f6il0$io6@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In <3f6ep0$r5f@oahu.cs.ucla.edu> colby@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Kenneth Colby) writes:
>>>He refers to this as the "poverty of stimulus" argument.  The young
>>>child supposedly does not hear a wide enough range of sentences to
>>>fix the grammar, yet still appears to select the correct one.
>
>>   I have never been able to buy the "poverty of stimulus" argument.
>
>Nor have I.
>
>>   Children are immersed in language from day one ( and even before -
>>   prenatals recognize their mother's voice) with parents, siblings,
>>   peers, TV, etc. In their dreams they hear people talking, they
>>   talk in their sleep, they practice language aloud or silently
>>   before falling asleep. By age four, they have had at least 20,000
>>   hours of experience with language - hardly "poverty".

>I think the poverty of stimulus argument is based on some
>questionable assumptions.  Firstly, it ignores much of the child's
>experience by refusing to count that as stimulus.  You have nicely
>illustrated that in the above paragraph.  Secondly, it is based on an
>unreasonable theory of how learning should work (Stimulus-Response
>learning).  Thirdly, it is based on a presumption that learning a
>language implies learning the grammar of that language (supposing
>that there is such a thing as the grammar of a natural language).

>If, as I suggested, natural language has no grammar, then the
>learning task is simpler.  The child tries an approximate grammar,
>and with experience makes ad hoc modifications to that grammar to
>bring it closer to the way other people seem to talk.  This might
>mean that we all have empirically constructed approximate grammars,
>but we do not all have the same approximate grammar.  And we are all
>willing to violate the constraints of our approximate grammars when
>semantic necessity demands it.

So what's supposed to be going on with Chomsky?  Is he not aware
of the > 20,000 hours?  Is there anyone here who knows enough about
Chomsky's position to say whether the the views criticized in this
and other recent articles match Chomsky's or what Chomsky might say
in reply?  Does C suppose there is _the_ grammar of a language,
that any 2 speakers ever have exactly the same grammar, or even
that learning is confined to Stimulus-Response learning?

Indeed, does anyone know what evidence Chomsky has for saying there's
a poverty of stimulus?  Presumably it's not just "looks that way to me".

Sure, children encounter language all the time, but do they
encounter enough to explain their performance at every point?

-- jeff
