Cowie on the Poverty of Stimulus |
| |
Authors: | John Collins |
| |
Institution: | (1) Philosophy, SOC, University of East Anglia (Norwich), Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K. E-mail |
| |
Abstract: | My paper defends the use of the poverty of stimulus argument (POSA) for linguistic nativism against Cowie's (1999) counter-claim that it leaves empiricism untouched. I first present the linguistic POSA as arising from a reflection on the generality of the child's initial state in comparison with the specific complexity of its final state. I then show that Cowie misconstrues the POSA as a direct argument about the character of the pld. In this light, I first argue that the data Cowie marshals about the pld does not begin to suggest that the POSA is unsound. Second, through a discussion of the so-called `auxiliary inversion rule', I show, by way of diagnosis, that Cowie misunderstands both the methodology of current linguistics and the complexity of the data it is obliged to explain. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|