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The Subset Principle in phonology: why the tabula can't be rasa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2003

MARK HALE  and
CHARLES REISS
MARK HALE
Affiliation:
Concordia University, Montreal
CHARLES REISS
Affiliation:
Concordia University, Montreal
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Abstract

We demonstrate the logical necessity of assuming innate knowledge for language acquisition using toy grammars. The implications are applied to reconceptualizing the Subset Principle in terms of features, rather than, say, segments. Both syntactic and phonological issues are discussed, but the focus is on the acquisition of phonological inventories. We point out that our logical arguments converge with recent empirical results.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , July 2003 , pp. 219 - 244
Copyright
© 2003 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

The authors are indebted to Madelyn Kissock, Ida Toivonen, Afton Lewis and two anonymous JL referees for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Our research was supported in part through the VRQ funded project Le traitement de langue naturelle and the SSHRC-funded Asymmetry Project (both to Anna Maria disciullo, PI), as well as several grants to the authors from Concordia University.