In 1965, Noam Chomsky posited that linguistic theory should be able to account for how children acquire a first language. In so doing, he triggered debates that have lasted ever since. What is innate? What and how much language do children hear? Are children's errors corrected? Do children use two different mechanisms for learning grammar: one for regularities in syntax and morphology that can be described with rules, another for irregular forms? But few linguists have spent much time looking at language acquisition itself, pre- ferring to debate the logic of the enterprise within linguistic theory. They have tended to ignore findings from studies of acquisition that are inconsistent with their favourite theories. In short, they have not recognized that describing a language is not the same as describing the process by which people acquire it.
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