This paper focuses on a parametric difference between French and English, namely the verb movement parameter. Previous re-search shows that verb-raising in causes learnability problems for Anglophone learners. Because of raising French, an adverb may be placed its direct object, allowing subject-verb-adverb-object (S-V-Adv-O) structure. However, lack prohibits S-V-Adv-O structure English. The a...

throughout the years, philosophers and psychologists have striven to solve the mind-boggling question of learning by juxtaposing the two competing theories, namely, empiricism and rationalism. they have usually opted for one and ruled out the other on the grounds that it cannot account for learning because theoretical and empirical evidence discredits it. since 1965, with the publication of cho...

Language acquisition research in the Universal Grammar tradition has witnessed a wealth of studies focusing on various aspects of phonology and syntax. The concept of parameter setting as the core of acquisition is at the heart of these studies. As a methodology, computational modeling has hardly given rise to experimental studies that actually implement the theoretical constructs invoked by an...

The acquisition and processing of language is governed by a number of universal constraints. Undoubtedly, many of these constraints derive from innate properties of the human brain. Theories of language evolution seek to explain how these constraints evolved in the hominid lineage. Some theories suggest that the evolution of a Chomskyan universal grammar (UG) underlies these universal constrain...

Contraction of want to to wanna is subject to constraints which have been related to the operation of Universal Grammar. Contraction appears to be blocked when the trace of an extracted wh-word intervenes. Evidence for knowledge of these constraints by young English-speaking children in as been taken to show the operation of Universal Grammar in early child language acquisition. The present stu...