Paper addresses the language acquisition process from the mental models theory

• by Miguel López Astorga
• in News
• posted September 2, 2019

The paper is written by Miguel López-Astorga and published in the journal Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación. This is its abstract:

According to Hornstein, generative grammar needs to give an account of the fact that

children can learn any language living in contexts with many limitations and shortcomings from

the linguistic point of view. He thinks that inductive theories are not able to explain a learning with

such limitations and shortcomings. Likewise, in his view, semantic theories do not show why

semantics is necessary to account for that fact. However, this paper is intended to argue in favor of

the idea that an essentially semantic cognitive theory, the mental models theory, can not only to

explain the aforementioned fact, but also make it evident that semantics is essential in most human

intellectual activities.