LANGUAGE-ACQUISITION AND USE - LEARNING AND APPLYING PROBABILISTIC CONSTRAINTS

What kinds of knowledge underlie the use of language and how is this k nowledge acquired? Linguists equate knowing a language with knowing a grammar. Classic ''poverty of the stimulus'' arguments suggest that gr ammar identification is an intractable inductive problem and that acqu isition is possible only because children possess innate knowledge of grammatical structure. An alternative view is emerging from studies of statistical and probabilistic aspects of language, connectionist mode ls, and the learning: capacities of infants. This approach emphasizes continuity between how language is acquired and how it is used. It ret ains the idea that innate capacities constrain language learning, but calls into question whether they include knowledge of grammatical stru cture.