On the Necessity of an Interdisciplinary Approach to Language Universals

Natural languages share common features known as linguistic universals but the nature and origin of these features remain controversial. Generative approaches propose that linguistic universals are defined by a set of innately specified linguistic constraints in universal grammar (UG). The UG hypothesis is primarily supported by Poverty of Stimulus (POS) arguments that posit that the structure of language cannot be learned from exposure to the linguistic environment. This chapter reviews recent computational and empirical research in statistical learning that raises serious questions about the basic assumptions of POS arguments. More generally, these results question the validity of UG as the basis for linguistic universals. As an alternative, the chapter proposes that linguistic universals should be viewed as functional features of language, emerging from constraints on statistical learning mechanisms themselves and from general functional and pragmatic properties of communicative interactions.