poverty of the stimulus
English edit
Etymology edit
Coined by Noam Chomsky in 1980, though he had argued for the idea some years earlier.
Noun edit
poverty of the stimulus (uncountable)
- (linguistics) The idea that human language cannot be learned by young children with what information they are given, unless they already have an innate knowledge of language or universal grammar.
See also edit
- poverty of the stimulus on Wikipedia.Wikipedia