How Language Learning Explains Language Design

Charles Yang

What's special about Universal Grammar? We cannot begin to address this question unless we turn to the study of language acquisition, which has over the years accumulated sufficient quantitative data to assess the contributions from innate knowledge and learning through experience. In this talk, we identify two major types of language learning, one characterized by gradual competition among potential grammars, and the other by abrupt transitions from one hypothesis to another. Both types of learning can be accounted for by adapting models from machine learning, mathematical psychology, and decision analysis. Furthermore, these mechanisms of learning appear to be not unique to language and may in turn explain why languages are the way they are, but not the way they are not.

Selected publications:

Yang, C. (2006). The infinite gift: How children learn and unlearn languages of the world. New York: Scribner's

Yang, C. (2004). Universal grammar, statistics, or both. Trends in Cognitive Science, 8, 451-456.

Yang, C. (2002). Knowledge and learning in natural language. Oxford University Press.