Cover not available

In:Current Perspectives on Child Language Acquisition: How children use their environment to learn
Edited by Caroline F. Rowland, Anna L. Theakston, Ben Ambridge and Katherine E. Twomey
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 27] 2020
► pp. 247–262

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Sampling linguistic diversity to understand language development

 | University of Zurich
Published online: 17 September 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.27.11sto
Abstract
Humans have an innate capacity to learn language. This is an undisputed fact. However, what this capacity actually consists of has yet to be worked out in full detail. The main reason for this is that language is an abstract capacity which manifests in thousands of languages that vary widely in every possible domain, and which change continuously over time. Furthermore, empirical research shows that linguistic features of individual languages can influence the learning process and so bias any generalizations about the human capacity for language learning. Thus, any understanding of language or its development must be considered in a cross-linguistic perspective. However, current research in the field has focused on only a small subset of the world’s languages; we have only scratched the surface of what children must learn and how they do it. In this chapter, I offer a solution to this sampling bias. The solution is a maximal diversity approach, which samples from languages that are as structurally diverse as possible. This allows us to simulate the linguistic variability that children must be able deal with in being able to learn any language. Maximum diversity sampling promises insights into the general mechanisms which underlie language development and how distributions of linguistic features in the input work hand in hand with these mechanisms.
Article outline
  • Preface
  • Introduction
  • Cross-linguistic diversity: Why care?
  • The maximum diversity approach
  • Input universals
  • Some candidates of input universals
  • Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (62)
References
Aslin, R. N., Saffran, J. R., & Newport, E. L. (1998). Computation of conditional probability statistics by 8-month-old infants. Psychological Science, 9(4), 321–324. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Behrens, H. (2002). Learning multiple regularities: Evidence from overgeneralization errors in the German plural. In A. H-J. Do, L. Domínguez, & A. Johansen (Eds.), Proceedings of the 26th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 61–71). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bickel, B. (2007). Typology in the 21st century: Major current developments. Linguistic Typology, 11, 239–251. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2014). Linguistic diversity and universals. In N. J. Enfield, P. Kockelman, & J. Sidnell (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of linguistic anthropology (pp. 102–127). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bickel, B., Nichols, J., Zakharko, T., Witzlack-Makarevich, A., Hildebrandt, K., Rießler, M., Bierkandt, L., Zúñiga, F., & Lowe, J. B. (2017). The AUTOTYP typological databases (version 0.1). San Francisco, CA: GitHub. Retrieved from <[URL]> (31 January, 2020).
Bickel, B., & Zúñiga, F. (2017). The ‘word’ in polysynthetic languages: Phonological and syntactic challenges. In M. D. Fortescue, M. Mithun, & N. Evans (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of polysynthesis (pp. 158–185). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bittner, D., & Köpcke, K.-M. (2001). Acquisition of the German plural markings. A case study in natural and cognitive morphology. In C. Schaner-Wolles, J. Rennison, & F. Neubarth (Eds.), Naturally! Linguistic studies in honour of Wolfgang Ulrich Dressler presented on the occasion of his 60th birthday (pp. 47–58). Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brittain, J. (2015). Corpus of the Chisasibi child language acquisition study (CCLAS). Retrieved from <[URL]> (5 February, 2020).
Brodsky, P., Waterfall, H. R., & Edelman, S. (2007). Characterizing motherese: On the computational structure of child-directed language. In D. S. McNamara & G. T. Jackson (Eds.), Proceedings of the 29th Cognitive Science Society Conference (pp. 833–838). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, P. (2010). Cognitive anthropology. In L. Cummings (Ed.), The Routledge pragmatics encyclopedia (pp. 43–46). London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Burgin, C. J., Colella, J. P., Kahn, P. L., & Upham, N. S. (2018). How many species of mammals are there? Journal of Mammalogy, 11, 1–14. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cameron-Faulkner, T., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2003). A construction based analysis of child-directed speech. Cognitive Science, 27, 843–873. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Croft, W. (2000). Parts of speech as language universals and as language-particular categories. In P. M. Vogel & B. Comrie (Eds.), Approaches to the typology of word classes (pp. 65–102). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Demuth, K. (2015). Demuth Sesotho corpus. Retrieved from <[URL]> (5 February, 2020).
Dixon, R. M. W. (1982). Where have all the adjectives gone? and other essays in semantics and syntax. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dryer, M. S., & Haspelmath, M. (Eds.). (2013). The world atlas of language structures online. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library. <[URL]> (31 January, 2020).
Evans, N., & Levinson, S. C. (2009). The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 32, 429–448. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gil, D., & Tadmor, U. (2007). The MPI-EVA Jakarta child language database. A joint project of the Department of Linguistics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and the Center for Language and Culture Studies, Atma Jaya Catholic University. <[URL]> (31 January, 2020).
Grigonytė, G., & Björkenstam, K. N. (2016). Language-independent exploration of repetition and variation in longitudinal child-directed speech: A tool and resources. In Proceedings of the joint workshop on NLP for Computer Assisted Language Learning and NLP for Language Acquisition at SLTC, Umeå, 16th November (pp. 41–50). Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gumperz, J. J., & Levinson, S. C. (1996). Rethinking linguistic relativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haspelmath, M. (2011). The indeterminacy of word segmentation and the nature of morphology and syntax. Folia Linguistica, 45, 31–80. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hauser, M., Chomsky, N., & Fitch, W. T. (2002). The faculty of language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science, 298, 1569–1579. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). Most people are not WEIRD. Nature, 466(7302), 29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hoff, E. (2009). Language development (4th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Thomson Learning.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Janssen, D., Bickel, B., & Zúñiga, F. (2006). Randomization tests in language typology. Linguistic Typology, 10, 419–440. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaufman, L., & Rousseeuw, P. J. (1990). Finding groups in data: An introduction to cluster analysis. New York, NY: Wiley & Sons. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kemmerer, D. (2014). Word classes in the brain: Implications of linguistic typology for cognitive neuroscience. Cortex, 58, 27–51. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Köpcke, K.-M. (1988). Schemas in German plural formation. Lingua, 74(4), 303–335. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1998). The acquisition of plural marking in English and German revisited: Schemata versus rules. Journal of Child Language, 25(2), 293–319. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Küntay, A. C., Koçbaş, D., & Sabri Taşçı, S. (2015). Koç University longitudinal language development database on language acquisition of 8 children from 8 to 36 months of age.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Küntay, A. C., & Slobin, D. I. (1996). Listening to a Turkish mother: Some puzzles for acquisition. In D. I. Slobin, J. Guo, & A. Kyratzis (Eds.), Social interaction, social context, and language: Essays in honor of Susan Ervin-Tripp (pp. 265–286). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2002). Putting interaction back into child language: Examples from Turkish. Psychology of Language and Communication, 6, 5–14.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lieven, E. (2010). Language development in a cross-linguistic context. In M. Kail & M. Hickmann (Eds.), Language acquisition across linguistic and cognitive systems (pp. 91–108). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lieven, E. V. (1994). Crosslinguistic and crosscultural aspects of language addressed to children. In C. Gallaway & B. J. Richards (Eds.), Input and interaction in language acquisition (pp. 56–73). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marcus, G. F. (1995). Children’s overregularization of English plurals: A quantitative analysis. Journal of Child Language, 22, 447–459. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marcus, G. F., Pinker, S., Ullman, M., Hollander, M., Rosen, T. J., Xu, F., & Clahsen, H. (1992). Overregularization in language acquisition. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 57, 1–178. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mintz, T. H. (2003). On the distribution of frames in child-directed speech as a basis for grammatical category learning. In B. Beachley, A. Brown, & F. Conlin (Eds.), Proceedings of the 27th annual Boston University conference on language development (pp. 545–555). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mintz, T. H., Newport, E. L., & Bever, T. G. (2002). The distributional structure of grammatical categories in speech to young children. Cognitive Science, 26, 393–424. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Miyata, S. (2012). Japanese CHILDES: The 2012 CHILDES manual for Japanese. <[URL]> (3 February, 2020).
Moran, S., Blasi, D. E., Schikowski, R., Küntay, A. C., Pfeiler, B., Allen, S. E. M., & Stoll, S. (2018). A universal cue for grammatical categories in the input to children: Frequent frames. Cognition, 175, 131–140. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moran, S., Lester, N., Heath, G., Küntay, A. C., Pfeiler, B., Allen, S. E. M., & Stoll, S. (2019). Variation sets in maximally diverse languages. In M. M. Brown & B. Dailey (Eds.), Proceedings of 43th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 427–440). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moran, S., Schikowski, R., Pajović, D., Hysi, C., & Stoll, S. (2016). The ACQDIV corpus. Zurich: University of Zurich.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moran, S. P. (2012). Phonetics information base and lexicon (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Washington.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nichols, J. (1992). Linguistic diversity in space and time. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ochs, E. (1988). Culture and language development: Language acquisition and language socialization in a Samoan village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Onnis, L., Edelman, S., & Waterfall, H. R. (2011). Local statistical learning under cross-situational uncertainty. In L. Carlson, C. Hoelscher, & T. F. Shipley (Eds.), Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2697–2702). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Onnis, L., Waterfall, H. R., & Edelman, S. (2008). Learn locally, act globally: Learning language from variation set cues. Cognition, 109(3), 423–430. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Palancar, E. (2006). Property concepts in Otomi: A language with no adjectives. International Journal of American Linguistics, 72(3), 325–366. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peterson, J. (2010). A grammar of Kharia: A South Munda language. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pfeiler, B. (n. d.). Pfeiler Yucatec Child Language Corpus. Ms.
Prasada, S., & Pinker, S. (1993). Generalizations of regular and irregular morphological patterns. Language and Cognitive Processes, 8, 1–56. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saffran, J. R., Aslin, R. N., & Newport, E. L. (1996). Statistical learning by 8-month-old infants. Science, 274, 1926–1928. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schiering, R., Bickel, B., & Hildebrandt, K. A. (2010). The prosodic word is not universal, but emergent. Journal of Linguistics, 46(3), 657–709. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. (1985). Crosslinguistic evidence for the language-making capacity. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, Volume 2: Theoretical issues (pp. 1157–1256). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1997). The universal, the typological and the particular in acquisition. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition (Vol. 5, pp. 1–39). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stoll, S., Abbot-Smith, K., & Lieven, E. (2009). Lexically restricted utterances in Russian, German and English child-directed speech. Cognitive Science, 33, 75–103. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stoll, S., & Bickel, B. (2013). Capturing diversity in language acquisition research. In B. Bickel, L. A. Grenoble, D. A. Peterson, & A. Timberlake (Eds.), Language typology and historical contingency: Studies in honor of Johanna Nichols (pp. 195–260). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stoll, S., Lieven, E., Banjade, G., Bhatta, T. N., Gaenszle, M., Paudyal, N. P., Rai, M., Rai, N. K., Rai, I. P., Zakharko, T., Schikowski, R., & Bickel, B. (2019). Audiovisual corpus on the acquisition of Chintang by six children. Zurich: University of Zurich.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stoll, S., & Meyer, R. (2008). Audio-visual longitudinal corpus on the acquisition of Russian by 5 children. Zurich: University of Zurich.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Waterfall, H. R. (2006). A little change is a good thing: Feature theory, language acquisition and variation sets (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wirén, M., Nilsson Björkenstamm, K., Grigonyte, G., & Eir Cortes, E. (2016). Longitudinal studies of variation sets in child-directed speech. In Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Cognitive Aspects of Computational Language Learning (pp. 44–52). Stroudsburg, PA: Association for Computational Linguistics. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Forshaw, William, Lucinda Davidson & Rachel Nordlinger
2025. An acquisition sketch of polysynthetic verbal morphology in Murrinhpatha. Australian Journal of Linguistics 45:3 ► pp. 340 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 6 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue