QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF EXPERIENCE IN ACQUISITION OF A MINIATURE ARTIFICIAL LANGUAGE
Hiroshi Nagata · Japanese Psychological Research · 1976
To examine the quantity and quality of experience required to acquire a phrase structure grammar, the numbers of exemplars and reference conditions were controlled, using a miniature artificial language. The results showed that (a) under Semantic Referent Conditions a constant amount of experience was necessary for syntax acquisition;(b) semantic referents facilitated the overall acquisition of the syntax; but (c) even under Non-Semantic Referent Conditions some Ss could acquire the syntax. These results were interpreted as to suggest that a constant amount of experience based on position learning together with the mediation of semantic referents was required for syntax acquisition, and the LAD hypothesis proposed by Chomsky and others was discussed from an empirical point of view of language acquisition.