lgondor@utcsrgv.UUCP (Les Gondor) (07/20/83)
Given the assumption that a single innate grammar is used by children
when learning a language (with modifications to suit the native language's
grammar), wouldn't it be a worthwhile linguistic exercise to set up a
few contrived languages whose grammars differ progressively more from
a Creole grammar?
One could then test the persistence of an innate grammar against the
pressure to learn one of the graded non-Creole contrived languages.
If the innate grammar hypothesis is valid, a very non-Creole grammar
would require the most time and effort to master (or even learn to a
significant extent). The vocabularies of the languages would have to be
kept constant in order to eliminate that source of difficulty.
I have no idea how one would set up the experiment (controls, etc.),
since it involves very young human subjects.
Les Gondor, U of Toronto. {allegra,floyd,ihnp4,decvax!utzoo}!utcsrgv!lgondorgary@rochester.UUCP (07/21/83)
This sounds like a very weird experiment: are you going to force little kids to learn artificial languages? A better approach would be to grade the current natural languages against the supposed "innate" SVO grammar and see how hard it is for kids to learn non- SVO languages: comparative psycholinguistics. This sounds like it must have been done. Does anyone have any pointers to such comparisons? /gary cottrell (allegra or seismo)!rochester!gary