Générativisme

Question 1

2 reasons why the number of possible sentences in natural language is infinite

Answer 1

creativity (any native speaker is able to produce and understand new sentences) and recursion (itération) (adjectival iteration (the church is old, ancient, beautiful,…), coordination (Jack saw Julie, Julie saw Bob, Bob saw…), prepositional phrase attachment (the bowl under the lamp with the box…)

Question 2

What is competence?

Answer 2

As native speakers we are able to instinctively know which sentences are correct (The table saw the woman is semantically incorrect, Bob put the car, etc)

Question 3

Two types of components of generative grammar

Answer 3

Phrase structure components (rule system) and lexicon. Together they form generative grammar. According to GG, language is an instinct and there exists a universal grammar.

Question 4

Two arguments that support UG

Answer 4

• Babies go through the same stages of development no matter what their native language is
• They master language way faster than they should if they started from nothing

Question 5

Language acquisition

Answer 5

Babies prefer labial consonants, stops, and low vowel like a and ae and o