Practice question · True or false
The behaviourist framework Chomsky attacked in 1959 held that language is acquired through association and reinforcement.
Hints
- The target was Skinner's Verbal Behavior.
- Chomsky argued the input is too impoverished for that to work.
Show the answer
True
Why
True. Skinner's account treated verbal behaviour as shaped by reinforcement like any other behaviour, and Chomsky's review argued the input is far too impoverished and the output far too novel for association to explain. The review is often credited with ending behaviourism's hold on psychology, which overstates a real influence.
Practise A History of Linguistics
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More questions on A History of Linguistics
- Why is a systematic sound correspondence better evidence of relatedness than a set of similar-looking words?
- The Neogrammarians claimed sound change is strictly exceptionless, yet Grimm's Law showed apparent…
- Arrange these milestones in the history of linguistics in chronological order.
- Pāṇini's grammar of Sanskrit uses a formal metalanguage with ordered rules and abbreviation conventions.
- Match each figure or school to the position they are known for.
- Approximately how many rules does Pāṇini's grammar contain, to the nearest thousand?
- Sort each statement by whether it belongs to the COMPARATIVE method or to GENERATIVE grammar.
- Which are true of Grimm's Law?
- Complete the account of the comparative method.