Cognitive Scientific Research on the Roles of Universal Grammar and Experience in Grammar Acquisition

本项目旨在通过对语法习得过程的详细研究，探讨通用语法与经验之间相互作用的本质。我们以三、四岁的孩子为实验对象进行了一系列的实验。这些实验旨在阐明日语基本短语结构的习得。以下是我们的研究结果的总结：1及物句的基本词序(即：（主语-宾语-动词）和它的“打乱”顺序是在第三或第四年获得的。已经证明，过去关于打乱句子即使对5、6岁的孩子来说也很困难的报道是实验性的人工产物幼儿的语法与成人的语法在本质上是相同的，因为前者涉及（抽象的）等级结构幼儿可以在结构上区分大小写标记和后置。鉴于相关刺激的缺乏，我们认为这些发现有力地支持了特定领域通用语法在语法习得中起重要作用的观点。同时，由于1 - 3也涉及到日语（以及同类型的语言）特有的属性，因此必须得出结论，经验也起着重要作用。通过以更年幼的儿童为研究对象继续进行同样的研究，预计我们将能够更全面地确定通用语法和经验之间相互作用的本质。

This project was intended to explore the nature of interaction between Universal Grammar and experience by investigating processes of grammar acquisition in detail. We conducted a series of experiments with 3- and 4-year-olds as subjects. Those experiments were designed to clarify the acquisition of basic phrase structure of Japanese.The following is the summary of our findings :1 The basic word order of transitive sentences(i.e., subject-object-verb) and its "scrambled" order are acquired by the third or the fourth year. It has been demonstrated that the past reports to the effect that the scrambled sentences are difficult even for 5- and 6-year-olds are experimental artifacts.2 Young children's grammar is essentially the same as adults' in that the former involves(abstract) hierarchical structure.3 Young children can make the structural distinction between case markers and postpositions.In view of the poverty of the relevant stimulus, we argue that those findings lend a strong support to the position that domain-specific Universal Grammar plays an important role in grammar acquisition. At the same time, since 1 - 3 also involve properties peculiar to Japanese (and the languages of the same type), it must be concluded that experience also plays an important role.By continuing the same line of research with younger children as subjects, it is expected that we will be able to pin down more fully the nature of interaction between Universal Grammar and experience.