Back Poverty-of-the-Stimulus-Argument German Malriĉo de la stimulo argumento Esperanto Pobreza del estímulo Spanish Ärsykkeen köyhyys Finnish Pauvreté du stimulus French Ingerszegénységi érv Hungarian Povertà dello stimolo Italian 刺激の貧困 Japanese Paupertas stimuli Latin Sự nghèo nàn của tác nhân kích thích Vietnamese
Poverty of the stimulus (POS) is the controversial[1] argument from linguistics that children are not exposed to rich enough data within their linguistic environments to acquire every feature of their language. This is considered evidence contrary to the empiricist idea that language is learned solely through experience. The claim is that the sentences children hear while learning a language do not contain the information needed to develop a thorough understanding of the grammar of the language.[2]
The POS is often used as evidence for universal grammar. This is the idea that all languages conform to the same structural principles, which define the space of possible languages. Both poverty of the stimulus and universal grammar are terms that can be credited to Noam Chomsky, the main proponent of generative grammar. Chomsky coined the term "poverty of the stimulus" in 1980. However, he had argued for the idea since his 1959 review of B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior.
- ^ Shatz, Marilyn (2007). "On the development of the field of language development". In Hoff and Schatz (ed.). Blackwell Handbook of Language Development. Wiley. pp. 1–15. ISBN 9780470757833.
- ^ Chomsky, N. (1980) On Cognitive Structures and their Development: A reply to Piaget. In M. Piattelli-Palmarini, ed. Language and Learning: The debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky. Harvard University Press.