Innateness and Language 2

To be sure, many theorists have recognized the crucial part played by language in our lives, and have speculated about the (syntactic and/or semantic) properties of language that enable it to play that role. However, few had much to say about the properties of us in virtue of which we can learn and use a natural language. To the extent that philosophers before the 20th century dealt with language acquisition at all, they tended to see it as a product of our general ability to reason — an ability that makes us special, and that sets us apart from other animals, but that is not tailored for language learning in particular.

資料來源：http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/innateness-language/

不可置疑的,許多理論已經認同了天賦觀念在我們語言當中所扮演的角色,而且已有那種推測(語法上或是語意上的)語言的性質,能夠提供它(一些天賦觀念的研究)在語言當中所扮演的角色。無論如何,我們或多或少都有那樣的的特殊性,內在於我們的能力,使得我們可以學習以及使用日常語言。在20世紀以前,哲學家用來解決語言這個區塊的問題的方法,絕大部分都是傾向認為,我們使用日常語言的能力得自於我們的普遍理性能力---也就是我們人之所以能夠與動物區分開的那種能力,但是對語言的學習而言,那不是被特別講究的部分。