Adquisición del lenguaje y capacidades cognitivas innatas: Un enfoque desde la teoría de los modelos mentales

Miguel López-Astorga

doi:10.5209/clac.63286

Abstract

Según Hornstein, la gramática generativa necesita ofrecer una explicación del hecho deque los niños pueden aprender cualquier idioma viviendo en contextos con muchas limitaciones ydeficiencias desde el punto de vista lingüístico. Piensa que las teorías inductivas no son capaces deaclarar cómo acontece el aprendizaje con tales limitaciones y deficiencias. Del mismo modo, en suopinión, las teorías semánticas no muestran por qué la semántica es necesaria para explicar esehecho. No obstante, el propósito de este trabajo es argumentar a favor de la idea de que una teoríacognitiva esencialmente semántica, la teoría de los modelos mentales, puede no solo clarificar elmencionado hecho, sino también evidenciar que la semántica es fundamental en la mayor parte delas actividades intelectuales humanas.

Highlights

It will be explained how the mental models theory can give an account that is coherent from the linguistic point of view, and that is consistent with what cognitive science appears to accept nowadays, the relevant point being, obviously, that that account can solve the aforementioned problem of language acquisition
Beyond other proposals addressing difficulties akin to this one, such as that of the government-binding theory, or that of minimalism supported by Hornstein, as stated, this paper attempts to argue in favor of the idea that a semantic account, based upon the mental models theory, and very different from the ones deemed as Neo-Fregean by Hornstein (1987), can be absolutely necessary in this way if it is not wished to ignore what contemporary cognitive science reveals at present by means of experimental results
As said, following him, the semantic theories are Neo-Fregean, and they differentiate three levels. They speak about a syntactic dimension that leads to semantic elements, to which rules coming from pragmatics are applied

Summary

Conclusions and general discussion

It can be claimed that there is a basically semantic proposal that can solve important difficulties usually linked to the problem of language acquisition. The rules coming from pragmatics do not have a direct influence on semantics, as the semantic level is independent from contextual variables and, pragmatics This is not the structure of the mental models theory. Other alternatives are possible and what is interesting about the mental models theory is that, in addition, it seems to be consistent with the empirical data reported in most of the experimental researches carried out in cognitive science in recent times. This last point alone already makes it valuable. It was neither proposed nor thought with that goal and its interests are initially different, perhaps an unanticipated consequence of it is as explained here, that it has the necessary machinery to offer an account of the problem of language acquisition and the difficulties regarding the limitations and deficiencies with which that process occurs, whatever the particular language being learned

Introduction

The problem of language acquisition

The mental models theory: iconicity and possibilities