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A Piagetian Alternative?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

David Lightfoot*
Affiliation:
University of Maryland

Extract

O’Grady (1983) complains that in arguing for task-specific genetic principles the transformational-generative enterprise has not given proper consideration to the alternative Piagetian view that there are no genetic principles specific to language, but that the relevant principles hold for all cognitive domains (he does not specify what the “cognitive domains” are). Although he notes judiciously that “the current research program in linguistics cannot be undermined by simple reference to possible alternate analyses for one or two phenomena” (168), he nonetheless sketches alternatives to two analyses given in The Language Lottery (Lightfoot 1982), claiming that his alternatives do not require appeal to task-specific innate principles and are thus consistent with a Piagetian view of the mind.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1984

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References

Hornstein, Norbert 1984 Logic as Grammar. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lightfoot, David 1982 The Language Lottery. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
O’Grady, W. 1983 Review of D.W. Lightfoot The Language Lottery. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 28:161169.Google Scholar