84

CHAPTER -IV

Language and Mind

Noam Chomsky, being a linguist, proposes a mentalistic turn in

linguistics which again is called a new turn in the philosophy of language in
general. It is claimed that 20th century philosophy has taken aU-turn towards
linguistic philosophy. With the appearance of Chomsky the linguistic turn of
philosophy has directed towards a new turn what is called mentalistic turn .
Barring many other thinkers, it is Chomsky who takes the leading role in this
regard. Chomsky inclines to say that linguistics is a branch of cognitive
psychology and in this regard he insists upon the importance of generative
grammar for the investigation of the structure and predisposition of the human
mind. Chomskyan mentalistic approach is the outcome of the criticism of
behaviourist approach as propounded by Bloomfield. According to Bloomfield
a mechanistic account of language in terms of stimulus and response was
more substantive and more scientific than the traditional mentalistic description
of language as a vehicle for the expression of thought. Besides Bloomfield, we
can also cite the name of Skinner, an eminent behaviourist, who also holds the
acquisition of language within the framework of behaviouristiC learning theory.
Chomsky has severely criticized the behaviouristic approach on many
accounts. For him one of the most inherent property of language is its creativity,
which cannot be apprehended by the behaviouristic psychology. It is true to
say, Chomsky holds, that a child of five to six years of age can produce and
understand an infinitely large number of utterances, which are not previously
encountered. Behaviorists learning theory, however, would like to say that there
underlies certain networks of habits and associations in the behaviour patterns
of human beings through which they can understand new sentences on the basis
of old ones. But Chomsky rules out this standpoint. Chomsky, further inclines
 85

to say that the terminology of behaviorism such as stimulus , response, habit,

conditionin& and reinforcement etc, though precise and could be applied to
language, is so loose that it could cover nothing specifically and hence devoid
of empirical content.
We think Chomskyan criticism of behaviorism is cogent to some extent.
Chomsky, however, does not rule out the relevance of behaviorism in case of
language acquisition. What he wants to say is that the behaviourist account of
the acquisition of language, which is based on stimulus and response, fails to
cope up with the problem of creativity. Chomsky further goes on to say that the
grammar of a language is an idealized description of the linguistic competence
of native speakers of that language. Any psychological model of the way this
competence is put to use in actual performance will have to take into account a
number of additional facts which the linguist deliberately ignores in his
definition of the notion of grammaticality. The proposed psychological relevant
facts include the limitations of human memory and attention, the time it takes
for neural ~ignals to pass from the brain to the muscles that are involved in
speech, the interference of one psychological process and so on. Even many
grammatical sentences may not in fact occur naturally and hence difficult to
understand by the native speakers within behaviouristic and psychological
parameters. Such sentences even will contain a variety of mistakes and
distortions due to the malfunctioning of the psychological mechanisms involved.

It is important to note here that although linguistics and psychology

take a different point in examining language, still there underlies, says Chomsky,
a close proximity between these two disciplines. When Chomsky, understands
linguistics as a branch of psychology, he however, does not hold that linguist
takes a tum from the investigation of language to the investigation of the use of
language, nor he does hold that it even takes a tum from linguistic competence
to linguistic performance. Rather he is interested to the scientific study of
language, or more specifically generative grammar which has a contribution,
of course, a very special contribution to our understanding of mental process.
Linguists may come closer to psychology not for making any substantive change
 86

in subject matters, but for the ultimate significance of its results.

Elsewhere, in his later work, Chomsky pleas for intuitions of nativ~
speakers i.e. his mental representation of the grammar of this language. For
him the intuitions of the speaker rather than the sentences themselves are the
true object of description. One may, however, think that Chomsky's appeal to
the intuitions of the native speaker implies some relaxation of the standards of
rigour and objectivity characteristic of Bloomfieldian linguistics. We think this
is not to be the case because Chomsky does not think that the speaker's
intuitions are immediately accessible, nor does he say that they are equally
reliable. In principle, Chomsky would like to say that the questions relating to
the acceptability of sentence and its implications fall within the scope of the
native speaker's intuition and hence are subject to empirical verification. But
from this it does not lead us to say that Chomsky by appealing native speaker's
intuition actually endorses behaviouristic psychology as expounded by
Bloomfield and Skinner.

In order to substantiate mentalistic standpoint, Chomsky renounces or

rebuffs behaviouristic psychology and thereby pleas for philosophical
implication of generative grammar. Although the concept of grammar or more
specifically universal grammar was appeared in the 13th and again in the 18th
centuries, the connection between logic and grammar was made explicit and
given some kind of philosophical justification. In fact the so-called logic as
propounded by Aristotle was subordinated by grammar. With the appearance
of Chomsky, the concept of universal grammar has been revived. In fact
Chomskyan version of universal grammar makes the same assumption as earlier
versions do about the universality of logic and about the interdependence of
language and thought. Chomsky seems to have conceived that the empirical
study of language is far more relevant than logic to the philosophy of mind and
also holds that the so-called philosophy of language also contributes to
linguistics. Both Smith and Wilson have neatly summarised the originality of
Chomsky in a recent introduction to the theory of language and of linguistics.
They say, " ... he (Chomsky) was probably the first to provide detailed
 87

arguments from the nature of language to the nature of mind, rather than vice-
versa ". < 1 ~
According to Chomsky, language gives rise to evidence for mentalism.
Language equally provides a belief in the existence of mind. But this point
often raises debate because the so-called mentalism is often equated with either
idealism or dualism as propounded by Bloomfield. But Chomsky is neither an
idealist nor necessarily a dualist. By introducing the concept of mentalism,
Chomsky goes on to say that the acquisition and use of language cannot be
explained without an appeal to principles which are currently beyond the scope
of any purely physiological account of human beings. Chomsky does not hold
that mind is some non- physical entity distinct from the brain or any other part
of the body. Rather he withholds the supposed logical prejudices of
psychologists and behaviorists who insist that everything that is traditionally
described as mental is the outcome of simple physical processes. This indicates
that iike the behaviorists and psychologists, Chomsky is not rigorous in
addressing his theory of mentalism. Thus, it is claimed that Chomskyan
mentalism has both positive as well as negative aspect. His negative aspect of
mentalism is far more interesting and controversial than his positive aspect of
mentalism, as it is anti-physicalism or anti-materialism and very often anti-
behaviourism. We think that behaviourism is an inner form of materialism which
aims to restrict the subject matter of psychology to human behaviour and thereby
sets out to explain all forms of behaviour on the basis of deterministic
physiological and biochemical processes. Such form of materialism is pleaded
for Bloomfieldian form of behaviourism and thereby equally discourages many
linguists form engaging in any serious work in semantics. But such form of
behaviorism as propounded by Bloomfield has been severely criticised by
Chomsky as unpromising. For Chomsky behaviorism gradually loses its
foothold what it has been acquired a generation ago.
We think that the most pertinent burden of Chomskyan mentalism is to
explore the language acquisition device. Acquisition of knowledge regarding
language is the process of mind or reason in one hand and the process of

1. Smith, N. V & Wilson, D.: Modern Linguistics: The Resultsofthe ChomskyanRevolution, Harmonds
Worth: Perguin 1979, P. 9.
 88

experience of the senses on the other. Those who adhere to the role of reason
are traditionally called rationalists and those who stress the importance of
experience or sense data are called empiricists. Rationalist, for example, Plato
or Descartes, claims that the mind is the sole source of human knowledge, on
the other hand, the empiricist, for example, either Locke or Hume, inclines to
say that all knowledge flows or springs from experience. Chomsky, however,
rightly favours rationalism and thereby inclines to say that the knowledge
acquired by mind is innate. Like many rationalists, he holds that mind is not
simply a blank slate ( tabula rasa) upon which experience leaves its imprint ,
but it should be thought of, analogically as Leibnitz did as a block of marble
which can be shown into several different shapes, but whose structure imposes
constraints upon the sculptor's creativity. The empiricist doctrine has been very
influential in the development of modern psychology combined with
physicalism and determinism. It holds that human behaviour are wholly
determined by the environment. According to physicalism all statements made
about a person's thoughts, emotions and sensations can be reformulated as
statements about his bodily condition and observable behaviour. Determinism,
on the other hand, holds that all physical events and phenomena are subject to
the laws of cause and effect. Chomsky's view of man is very different. For him
we are endowed with a number of specific faculties i.e. mind, which plays the
all-important role in our acquisition of knowledge.
According to Bloomfield acquisition of language is based on inductive
generalizations. The only useful generalizations, says Bloomfield, about
language are inductive generalizations. Chomsky vehemently opposes the
concept of inductive generalization. Contrarily, he holds that it is the prime
objective of linguistics to construct a deductive theory of the structure of human
language, which is at once sufficiently general to apply to all languages. For
him linguistics should determine the universal and essential properties of human
language. Here Chomsky calls upon the Russian linguist, Roman J akobson,
who has been one of the most outspoken critics of the Bloomfieldian tradition.
Like Jakobson, Chomsky also appears to conceive that there underlies certain
phonological , syntactic and semantic units that are thought to be universal,
 89

not in the sense that they are necessarily present in all languages, but in
somewhat different sense of the term universal . They can be defined
independently of their occurrence in any particular language and can be
identified when they do occur in particular languages. According to Chomsky
there we have a fixed set up of twenty distinctive features of phonology, but
not all of these will be found in the phonemes of all languages, Similar situation
may occur in the case of syntax as well as semantics. These phonological,
syntactic and semantic elements are what Chomsky calls the substantive
universal of linguistic theory. Chomsky elsewhere calls upon the concept of
formal universal which determine the form of the rules and the manner of their
operation in the grammar of particular languages. For him transformations
which relate various sentences and constructions " are invariably structure
dependent in the sense that they apply to a string of words by virtue of the
organisation of these words into phrases. " 2
C>

As a follower of rationalist tradition, Chomsky seems to have conceived

that language works for the expression of thought. He further holds that human
beings are innately or genetically endowed with the ability to form some
concepts rather than others and that concept formation is a precondition of
one's acquisition of the meaning of words. However, Chomsky's concept with
language deviates from that of his rationalist predecessors at least on two
accounts. This is what makes his contribution to the philosophical discussion
of this issue both original and important. Unlike the rationalist tradition,
Chomsky makes it clear that learning or more specifically acquiring the
grammatical structure of one's native language stands as much in need of
explanation as does the process of matching the meaning of a word with its
form. Accordingly, it can be said that his formalization of different kinds of
generative grammar has set up a new standards of precision for those who wish
to evaluate the structural complexity of human languages in relation to the
systems of communication. Secondly, he further holds that the nature of
language and the process of language acquisition are such that they are
inexplicable apart from the assumption that there is an innate language
acquisition faculty.
2. Chomsky, Noam: Language and Mind, New York, Hart Brace Jovanovich, 1968,
P. 51.
 90

We have already pointed out that Chomskyan understanding of

innateness and species -specificity of the language faculty actually hinges on
or relies upon the universality of certain arbitrary formal properties of language
structure. These formal properties are commonly subsumed under the general
heading of structure dependency, which is most obviously the characteristic of
syntax apart from phonology and morphology. To say that a rule or principle is
structure dependent is to say that the set of objects to which it applies has an
internal structure and the rule makes essential reference to this structure as a
condition of applicability of its manner of application. The syntactic structure
of a sentence can be generated by means of a phrase structure grammar, the
rules of which are structure dependent in the required sense. Moreover, relations
between corresponding sentences of different types, e.g. John wrote the book
and Did John write the book ? ; John wrote the book and Was the book written
by Joh~ ? can be made clear with the help of phrase markers that formalise
their phrase structure by means of transformation rules. Compared to phrase
structure rules, the so-called transformation rules are more powerful and hence
involve in a more complex notion of structure dependency.

We think that Chomskyan concept of structure dependency is the key of

understanding his theory of mentalism. Importantly, his positive contribution
to the philosophy of the mind as well as to the psychology of language
acquisition rests upon his recognition of the importance of structure dependency
as an apparently universal property of human language and of the necessity of
showing how children can come to acquire the mastery of this property in the
acquisition and use of language. The so-called mind, says Chomsky, can best
be described in terms of a set of abstract structures whose physical basis is yet
to be relatively unknown. Language faculty is only one of many mental
structures lies within the brain. We think that as far as language acquisition is
concerned the mentalism as proposed by Chomsky is not the only kind of
mentalism to have been developed in recent years. There are at least four stages
in the development of the child's mental processes. Language acquisition, says
Paiget, is the transition from the sensor-motor stage, which lasts until the child
is about two years old. After that the child turns into another stage what -is
 91

called pre-operational stage which lingers till the age of reason (i.e. about seven
years old). During this period, the child can manipulate words and phrases on
the basis of his prior understanding of language. Accordingly, it can be said,
following Paiget that language acquisition is a process of mental development.
Chomsky, however, does not agree with Paiget because syntactic structure
cannot be accounted for in functionalist terms and that language acquisition
appears to be unaffected by differences in children's intellectual ability. Even
there are many linguists and psychologists who would evaluate Paiget's view
as untenable. Paiget's theory of mental development actually stands between
the traditional extremes of rationalism and empiricism. He stresses the
importance of experience, particularly sensory motor experience on the one
hand and also takes several stages of cognitive development on the other.
Likewise, though Chomsky favours rationalism, he, however, does not rule OlJ.t
the essential role of experience in the case of acquisition of knowledge.

Language and the brain

The biological side of language is the subject of increasing research

and advances are made possible because of the growing sophistication of
available experimental technique and equipment. Recently, it has been revealed
from the study of individuals with injured brains that whenever disease or injury
affects the left side of the brain, some aspect of the ability to produce language
may be disturbed. Individuals with such brain disease are said to be aphasic
and their brain disturbances can give us insight into how the human brain carries
out its language-related tasks. Aphasia is a broad term encompassing numerous
syndromes of communicative impairment. Some aphasic produces a single word
whereas others effortlessly produce long but meaningless utterances. It is
revealed from recent researches that there underlies a close relation between
speech and language on the one hand and the human nervous system on the
other. Neurolinguists are very much interested in the correlation between brain
 92

damage and speech and language deficits. It has, therefore, been claimed by
many specialists concerning language and brain that the study of language
form and use will reveal principles of brain function and equally the study of
brain function may support or refute specific linguistic theories. Thus we can
say that the locus of language actually lies submerged in the brain. This is
justified by Chomsky when he claims that language is the mirror of human
mind or brain. Now the most pertinent question is that: where in the brain are
speech and language localised ? How does the nervous system function to
encode and decode speech and language? Are the components of languages
viz., phonology, syntax, and semantics neuroanatomically distinct?
As far as the localization of language within the brain is concerned, it
has been held by many that there is a specific region in the brain, which is
responsible for language. Anti localizationists, however, hold that speech and
language are the consequences of the brain functioning as a whole. Today's
scientists however agree that specific neuroanatomic structures, generally of
the left hemisphere, are vital for speech and language. For them language is
controlled by the left hemisphere. One hemisphere of the brain is specialized
for the performance of certain functions is known as lateralization. The process
of lateralization is maturational in the sense that it is genetically predetermined,
but it takes time to develop . Importantly, lateralization appears to be specific
to human beings. It is usually started when the child is about two years old and
to be completed at some time between the age of five and the onset of puberty.
It is important to note here that laterlization for language is not only the kind of
specialization of function that develops in human beings with respect to one
hemisphere of the brain rather than another, it has equally been responsible for
men's development of superior intelligence. Further, it has also been held
nowadays that lateralization is a precondition, both philogenetically and
autogenetically, of the acquisition of language. Consequently, it can be said
that the so-called language acquisition begins at about the same time as
lateralization does and language acquisition is completed by the time that the
process of lateralization comes to an end. That means it becomes progressively
 93

more difficult to acquire language after the age at which lateralization is

complete. Thus a particular age is scheduled for language acquisition what
may be called as a critical age for language acquisition. The proposal of a critical
age for language acquisition, however, is not accepted universally. Case study
would reveal that beyond the critical age one could learn or revive language
acquisition device. This is supported by the case of the young girl known in the
literature as. Genie. Genie was discovered by social workers in Los Angeles in
1970, at the age of 13 years old. She had been brought up by her parents in total
isolation from human beings and was beaten whenever she made a noise.
Consequently, she could not speak. But after having been taken into care, she
gradually acquired the process of language acquisition under the counselling
of linguists and psychologists. Moreover, she went through the same stage in
the acquisition of English as normal children do at the normal age. However
within all these things, it is reported, that she has difficulty with all but the
simplest aspects of the grammatical structure of English. It has, therefore, been
claimed that Genie's case not only confirm the critical age hypothesis, it also
revealed that the language acquisition is independent of other intellectual
abilities.

Although left hemisphere is, as a whole, vital to speech and language,

there are at least three important areas in the left hemisphere, namely, Broca's
area, Wernicke's area and the supplemental motor area, which are most vital in
speech and language. Although speech is localized in the left hemisphere, it is
necessary for the cerebral hemisphere to communicate with each other for
speech to function normally. For example, if an object is held in the left hand,
impulses travel from the left side of the body to the right hemisphere, and
although the right hemisphere would recognize the object, verbalizing the name
of the object would require involvement of the speech centre in the left
hemisphere. Recent research, however, suggests that the right hemisphere may
be limited in its linguistic competence. Right hemisphere is generally
unimpaired in grasping the meaning of single words, it performs poorly with
 94

phrases. The following picture of both hemispheres would give a clear idea of
performing language acquisition device.

Holistic processing
.-..-.
Writing Stereognosis
Temporal-order Nonverbal
Judgments Environmental sounds
Language Visuospatial skills
Reading Nonverbal ideation
Associative thought Regocnition and
Calculation memory of melodies
Analytic processing Left visual field
Right visual field

LEFT HEMISPHERE RIGHT HEMISPHERE

We think that a lot of recent scientific and biological researches would

reveal the locus of language in the brain segments. But we do not enter into this
theory. Our objective is to substantiate the apprehension of Chomsky who often
claimed that language being a biological endowment, is the mirror of human
mind or brain. In this regard, we have been talking about the lateralization of
language at a very general level. We have seen in the course of discussion that
various aspects of language processing appear to be more characteristics of
the left hemisphere than others. This does not, however, make sense to say that
the right hemisphere has no role in language procession. Certainly, it can
interpret single words denoting physical entities without difficulty. However,
like· the left hemisphere , the right hemisphere is not good enough at the
interpretation of grammatically complex phrases. Moreover, although the non-
speech sounds are processed directly and efficiently by the right hemisphere,
speech sounds are generally passed to the left hemisphere. The left hemisphere,
though, is better at associative thinking and analytic reasoning, the right
hemisphere is more efficient visuo-spatial processing and the interpretation of
 95

music at all. Thus it is clear that language behaviour involves the integration of
several neuro physiologically distinct processes. But whatever it may be the
case that the left hemisphere plays a distinctive role in language process.
We think what has been explained above is very much relevant to
Chomskyan apprehension of mentalistic interpretation. When Chomsky inclines
to say that language faculty is a uniquely human and genetically transmitted
capacity which is distinct from, but operates in collaboration with other mental
faculties, he is very much held the position of what is explained above. When
Chomsky goes on to say that language is the mirror of human mind or brain ,
he equally emphasizes the locus of brain from which language is being
generated. Moreover, he elsewhere Claims that language acquisition device is
a biological endowment and hence more or less is determined genetically. But
as far as the neurophysical evidence is concerned, there we find hardly any
literature in Chomskyan writings. Thus we can say that the neurophysiological
evidence is far from conclusive. But there is no question of doubt that there
underlies a genetically transmitted language faculty within the human brain
which is very much justified by the slogan of Chomsky : Language is the mirror
of human brain or mind.l

Language-Acquisition

The concept of Language Acquisition Device in short LAD is one of the

important concepts in understanding Chomskyan mentalism. LAD is different
from language learning process. Linguists and psychologists prefer to talk the
term !acquisition instead o~ learning. Why? One plausible reason is that unlike
the term learning, the term acquisition is more neutral with respect to some of
the implications to be associated with the term learning in psychology. One
can say that although the term acquisition is more neutral than the term learning
in the relevant respects, it is still misleading as it entails something with which
 96

one did not previously have. Apparently, it can be said that if language is thought
to be innate as Chomsky and many others held then it can not be acquired.
Language, being innate, should grow or mature naturally or in Chomskyan phrase
organically. But still the term acquisition is supposed to be standard and used
more conveniently within the domain of mentalism. Besides terminological
meaning, acquisition of language manifests itself in the knowledge and use of
particular languages. That means one cannot possess or use language without
possessing or using some particular language. Thus the term language
acquisition can be interpreted as meaning either the acquisition of language or
the acquisition of a language. Although it is true to say that there is some
sense in language, namely language faculty, says Chomsky, which can not be
acquired, but still there remains something on the part of language that can be
acquired. Chomsky has periodically made the striking claim that it is largely
irrelevant to bring back the relevance of learning in language acquisition. For
him in certain fundamental respects, we do not really learn language. Grammar,
for example, says Chomsky , unlike learn grows in the mind.

Language development occurs in all children with normal brain functions,

regardless of race, culture or general intelligence. In other words, the capacity
to acquire language is a capacity of the human species as a whole. Although
different groups of people speak different languages, all humari languages have
a similar level of detail and complexity and all languages share general abstract
properties. Even though languages differ superficially, they all reflect general
properties of a common linguistic system typical of the human species. It is
further noted that any theory of language acquisition must account for what
children do and do not in the course of achieving adult linguistic competence.
This rules out the behaviouristic approach of language which holds that the
child is endowed at birth with general learning abilities but not with any
language specific know ledge . According to this theory linguistic behaviour is
moulded by adult speakers ( e.g., a child learning a language is corrected
when wrong and rewarded when right ) and initiation plays an important role.
We have already noted that the behaviorist approach of language
 97

acquisition is vehemently criticised by Chomsky . Chomsky agrees that

language acquisition cannot be accounted for without passing a linguistically
specific system of principle and parameters. For him every healthy child is
genetically endowed with a system what he calls universal grammar (UG) or as
the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) . However the assertion that children
environment plays no role at all in acquiring their native language would be
unreasonable. Children surely need to be exposed to linguistic data in order to
eventually attain adult competence. In Chomskyan approach the role of the
environment is to be source of data. But Chomsky inclines to say that the
linguistic data available to the child are themselves impoverished and not
sufficient for a child to inductively arrive at a grammar capable of producing
well-formed expressions while at the same time not producing ill-formed
expressions. The linguistic data that the child is exposed to are steams of sound
that may consist of one or more words during any given acoustic event. The
acquired grammar is, then, undermined by the data. Chomsky further seems to
conceive that language development in children occurs spontaneously and does
not require conscious instruction on the part of adults. It is revealed that in a
very short period of time children are able to develop very complex linguistic
systems, moving from a one- ward stage to multiword stages on the basis of
limited and often fragmentary data. According to Chomsky, although adults
often imagine that they are teaching children how to speak, there is no
convincing evidence that children need such instruction even at time it appears
clear that the attempt to instruct children in language can produce frustrating
results~

Child :I I take a cookie

Parent :I Oh, you mean you took a cookie.
Child :I Yes that is right, I talked it.
A more striking example of the insufficiency of overt instruction is facilitating
language acquisition can be gleaned from the following story offered by a 4 -
year old boy.
One day the dog ate his food and the rooster ate his food and then the
 98

duck did. Then the hay got into the hay putter and the hay putter put the hay
where it belonged.
Importantly, the novel word hays putter which the child did not learn
from adult speech but simply made up himself. Next, note his use of pronouns
both present and absent. Moreover, in the first sentence he uses the possessive
pronouq his twice, to refer first to the dog and then to the rooster. We know
that the duck is eating his own food too, not the dog's or the rooster's, even
though the child does not use an overt possessive pronoun in that case.
Importantly, the child has produced an example of what the linguistics literature
terms 'sloppy identity' .(3) However, there is nothing sloppy as far as the
construction of the sentence is concerned. May be it involves mastery of a
structure whose properties are not at all transparent. Children are not taught
how to produce such constructions. On the basis of these examples, Chomsky
concludes that children deductively arrive at a grammar that enables them to
both produce and understand novel expressions.

Various stages of the LAD

It is revealed from the· studies of linguistic development that children

pass through recognizable stages as they master their native language. It may
perhaps to be the case that children will pass through a given stage can vary
significantly from child to child, the particular sequence of stages seems to be
the same for all children acquiring a given language, However, we can mention
a few better known stages of language acquisition for children.
Babbling

Prior to the development of language, all children, regardless of the

language, pass through a stage referred to as babbling. At around 5 to 6 months,
the child utters sound and sound sequences (syllables such as ba, rna, ga.).
Indeed, a number of sounds and syllables of the babbling stage will occur later
3.1 Ross John R. : "Constrains on Variables," Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.

Press, I 967, P. 25.

 99

as the child develops language. It has also been noted that certain sounds that
occur is babbling appear to be lost when the child begins to use language. As
Clerk and Clerk note : " ... when children start to use their first words, they no
longer seem able to produce some of the very sounds they used when
babbling." 4
C>

The one word stage

After babbling phase, children gradually moves way to the earliest

recognizable stage of language what may be called one word stage . It belongs
to the first year of life or the early part of the second year. At this stage the child
begins using recognizable words of the native language. Viewed from the
perspective of adult grammar, the kinds of words that occur at this stage include
simple nouns & verbs.
Multi word stages

At some point during the second year of life, the child utterances
gradually become longer and the one word stage gives way to multiwor:d stages.
At this stage children begin to express a variety of grammatical and conceptual
relations. Here the child's language begins to reflect the distinction between
sentence types such as negative, imperatives and questions. In this stage of
linguistic development, we see the beginnings of a structured language and
thereby beginning to acquire the mastery of the broader grammatical features
of the language.

The Critical period Hypothesis

The critical period hypothesis claims that there is a genetically

determined window of opportunity for language acquisition. If the child does
not learn first language within this period, then he will never attain full native
like mastery of any language. First language acquisition has a much longer
time span at its disposal, but it must take place at the very latest before puberty.

4.1 Clark, H, and E. Clark: Psychology and language :An introduction to psycholinguistics,
New York, 1977, 390.
 100

The second language is acquired after the age of about nine or ten years. It is
important to note that any child learns the language of its environment
faultlessly in the space of a few years, but as soon as he inters into second
language he is facing difficult in acquiring it unlike first language in the same
degree of fluency. It is generally agreed that speech function is lateralised such
that in normal right handed people the language faculty is located in the left
hemisphere. Aphasia (loss of language caused by brain damage) is then typically
associated with damage to the left hemisphere . In some intractable cases of
epileptic seizures, the only treatment is the surgical removal of part of the brain.
Recovery from such an operation in particular the recovery of linguistic ability
is correlated with age. Generally, if the operation is carried out in infancy,
recovery is often good, but operations carried out later have a less successful
outcome and even at puberty recovery of linguistic ability is extremely rare.
However, this may be varied from person to person and thereby suggesting
that the critical period is not rigidly demarcated. Whatever, it may happen, it is
by and large true to say that the correlation is significant and the critical period
hypothesis gives rise to an explanation of that facti
The critical period hypothesis is also witnessed from the differential
linguistic development of Down's Syndrome children with varying severity of
the condition. Down's syndrome children are typically very slow in learning
and using language. Though in some cases mastery of language falls within
normal limits, in severe cases they never develop proper mastery of the syntax
of their native language ; even though their lexical development may continue
through out life, their syntactic development appears to be cut short at around
the age of puberty . This indicates that if language development falls into two
different categories, lexical development and aspects of syntactic development
are parametrically determined. It is this syntactic progress which is cut off at
the end of the critical period. Further suggestive evidence is also found in the
differential acquisition of sign language by the deaf at different ages~ In an
elegant paper Rachel Mayberry showed that subjects who acquired American
sign language as a second language after childhood outperformed those who
acquired it as a first language at exactly the same age. It would appear that this
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second language superiority was counter evidence to claim about the privileged
status of first language acquisition. Mayberry's subjects appear to be unusual
in the following respect. It is revealed that nine out of ten deaf children are
born to hearing parents, while one in ten are born to deaf parents. It is this latter
group which is linguistically privileged. They are exposed to normal linguistic
input from the very beginning, whereas those born to hearing parents risk getting
no usable linguists input at all. According to Mayberry people who had acquired
a spoken language had then gone deaf and so had to learn ASL as a second
language in adulthood. On the other hand, people who had been congenitally
deaf and had had no signed input and so had grown up essentially languageless.
ASL was their first language, but it was being acquired after the critical period.
In such a situation, the prior existence of some language base was apparently
sufficient to trigger the development of the language faculty to a higher degree
than first language acquisition carried out after the critical period. That is, if
first language acquisition is to be perfect, it must take place within this window
of opportunity.
The critical period hypothesis can again be reaffirmed from wolf children
who have been isolated in infancy and again brought up in conditions where
they have been deprived of normal linguistic unit. Genie's case is a point of
issue. Genie's mother was partially sighted and her father was psychotic. From
the age of 2 - 13 years, Genie was kept incarcerated, harnessed to a potty by
day and caged at night half-starved, frequently beaten for making any noise,
growled and barked at by her father and brother and essentially never spoken
to. When she was fortuitously discovered, she gave evidence of knowing a few
words such as rattle, red and bunny, but she appeared to have no syntax at all.
She then was taken into care and exposed to intensive language input, leading
to the possibility of testing the predications of the critical period hypothesis.
After initial progresses she does provide us with some evidence. After a few
years her development was remarkable. But despite the fact that she showed
some ability to create novel utterances, her syntax never developed and thereby
suggesting that the stimuli she was exposed to had come to late outside the
critical period. It seems most plausible that her failure to master ordinary syntax
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was indeed due to her deprivation in the critical period. What is striking is that
she lacked precisely those attributes of language which are, by hypothesis, the
fruit of the maturational unfolding of the genetic program in terms of the fixing
of parameters. It appears clear that the acquisition of vocabulary is not so lightly
constrained as we go on addicting to our vocabulary throughout our life, but
the acquisition of the core syntactic properties of language is restricted to this
critical period. The pertinent question is: Why should there be a critical period?
We think, following Chomsky, that the benefits are clear in the case of imprinting.
As far as imprinting mechanism is concerned it is crucial, as after a certain
period the imprinting mechanism must be switched off once its work has been
done. In language you need to fix your parameters as early as possible so that
you can deploy the system in its full complexity without continual changes.
Chomsky himself inclines to say that even with a large innate component, there
is still a lot more to internalise in language.

It is important to note here that until the early 1960's there had been
little systematic investigation of the acquisition of grammatical structure. But
this tradition has been changed with the appearance of Chomsky who has
claimed that languages are rule - governed in respect of grammar. Chomsky,
therefore, claims that the existing theories could not adequately account for
the acquisition of rule - governed systems with the property of productivity.
With the influence of Chomsky the psycholinguistic analysis was centered
around with grammar throughout the 1960's. However, subsequently, there we
have been witnessing a new development in favour of the view that child's
developing grammatical competence is not feasible in isolation from his general
cognitive, emotional and social development. The scope of child language
studies has now been broadened to cover, not only phonology, grammar and
vocabulary, it also includes the semantic structure of utterances, their role in
social interaction and the reflection of the child beliefs about the world.
Chomsky, as we saw, however, does not rule out the relevance of other thing
barring grammar. What he wishes to say is that grammar is the determinate
factor of language irrespective of other things. There we also find some other
view too which is surely gone against Chomsky. It has been claimed that much
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of the grammatical structure of a language may not be properly mastered until

the child is about ten years old. This view may be gone against Chomsky, but at
the same time we do not think that it invalidates the innateness and species -
specificity hypothesis as proposed by Chomsky.

Other determinate factors of Chomskyan

Psycholinguistic analysis

Although LAD is one of the most important concept of understanding or

substantiating Chomskyan mentalism, but apart from LAD, there we have seen
other determinate factors of understanding Chomskyan mentalism. We have
already seen in the previous sequel that his general theory of language actually
hinges upon his distinction between competence and performance. Objectively
these terms were not used before the introduction of transformational generative
grammar in the mid 1960s. Irrespective of these concepts, the distinction
between the language system conceived as a set of rules to native speakers and
the use of these rules in language behaviour was much more clear enough from
the very outset. The outcome of the concept of generative grammar influences
not only psycho linguistics, but also for the study of human behaviour in general.
Miller's famous comment on the impact that Chomsky's work had made upon
him and subsequently upon many of his colleagues, is worth quoting at thiss
point. He says, ' I now believe that mind is something other than a four letter
word.' ~5 >

There is no questions of doubt that most of the psycho linguistics research

were inspired by Chomskyan generative grammar. However a good deal of
confusion has been caused by Chomsky's definition of performance to include
not only actual behaviour, but also the non-linguistic knowledge underlying
that behaviour. To put it crudely, have we all got a generative grammar in our
heads ? and what role , if any, do these rules play in the production and
comprehension of utterances ? It is to be noted here that some of the earliest

5. Miller, G.A.: The psychology of communication; Seven essays, New York, 1967, P. 19.
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psycholinguistic research influenced by Chomskyan generativism was

addressed to the second of these questions and was based on the assumption,
though Chomsky did not make, that all the rule require to generate a sentence
were as employed by users of the language in performance. Evidentially, it is
claimed that a native speaker makes a quick response to affirmative sentences
rather than negative sentences and also to active sentences rather then passive
sentences . In fact the difference between the reaction times for active
affirmative and passive negative sentences could be accounted for by adding
together the differences for active and passive sentences, on the one hand, and
for passive and negative sentences on the other. That means the mental
processing of sentences involved such rules as those of passive formation and
negative insertion. Even if we do have a generative grammar of our native
language in our heads, the structure of the linguistic's model of that grammar
is not likely to reflect the operation involved in language processing. Granted
that generative grammar are psychologically real in the sense that we do have
rule systems stored neurophysiologically in our brain, it is reasonable to assume
that other psychological rules or strategies are brought into play which enable
us to by pass some of the grammatical rules as such . It is in any case quite clear
that language comprehension is based upon sampling, rather than upon a
complete processing of the input signal. Likewise, it is a matter of everyday
observation that we start making predictions about the grammatical structure
of utterances as soon as our interlocutor starts speaking. Thus there is no need
for us to know every thing about the linguistic structure of an utterance owing
to understand it.

Chomsky , however, maintains that although linguists should continue

to set aside what is laiown about psychological mechanisms and processes in
their definitions of linguistic competence, still there are several generative
grammarians who disagree with him. However, the so-called psychologically
real grammar appears to be gaining strength with the help of Chomskyan
generativism. There underlies no question of doubt that the psychological
investigation of language storage and language processing has made
considerable progress in recent years under the influence of Chomskyan
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generative grammar. What made Chomsky's theory of language- structure

so attractive to psychologists in the first place was the fact that it yields
experimentally testable hypothesis. One should not, however, rule out the
philosophical grounds for calling into question the Chomskyan use of the term
knowledge in relation to linguistic competence. It has been claimed that
competence, i.e., the knowledge that manifests itself in behaviour, is different
from the kind of epistemic knowledge that is describable as true belief . In fact
Chomsky's theory of mind is excessively intellectualist and hence differs from
the traditional views of the structure of the mind. Unlike the traditional views it
says nothing about the non-cognitive faculties, viz., the emotions and the will.
It appears that Chomsky himself has on several occasions defended himself
against philosophical criticisms of this kind.

Although psycholinguistic research has widely been influenced by

generative grammar in recent years, but at the same time it can rightly be said
that not all psychologists are being worked on the generative model of the
language system. It has been revealed that there are many traditionally
recognised topics in the psychology of language, viz., language and thought,
language and memory etc. within the framework of theories which do not operate
with the distinction of competence and performance or are very much neutral
in respect to Chomskyan formulation of generative grammar. As far as the
question of language and thought is concerned, Chomsky himself adopts the
traditional view. As a follower of seventeenth century rationalists, Chomsky
pleas for a kind of language which serves for the expression of pre-existing
thought. However, this view of Chomsky has been challenged by many linguists.
Here we can particularly mention the name of German Scholar Herder who
holds that language and thought has evolved together . They are inseparable
and both of them determine and reflect rational patterns of thought. We think
Herder's view was subsequently echoed by Sapir and Whorf as well . However,
Whorfian hypothesis has been the subject of a certain amount of experimental
research and that the results obtained are consistent with the weaker version of
the hypothesis according to which the language that one speaks influences
thought.
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