Studies in Universal Grammar Based on Theory of Language Acquisition : Language Acquisition and Comparative Syntax of Japanese and English

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We continued our research on generative grammar and theory of language acquisition, and wrapped up research results at our final regular meeting as this is the final year of the research term.A brief description of each investigator's research follows :(OTSU)Comprehension experiments with 3- and 4-year olds using sentences with scope-taking words such as wh-words were conducted, and the results clearly show that these children comprehend test sentences in exactly the same fashion as adults, lending another support to the claim that minimal learning leads children to the adult-like linguistic knowledge given the rich internal information available to them in the form of Universal Grammar. Investigation in production data had led to the same conclusion. Survey of relevant psycholinguistic and cognitive-scientific studies was also carried out.(IMANISHI)Extensive research on the interaction between Faculty of Language and other cognitive modules was carried out, aiming at better understanding of the structure and function of human cognition. Comparative syntactic investigations among typologically diverse languages were also carried out with particular emphasis on the distinction between universal properties and non-universal properties.