Innateness and Language 5

If that's the case, though, language mastery can be no simple matter. Modern linguistic theories have shown that human languages are vastly complex objects. The syntactic rules governing sentence formation and the semantic rules governing the assignment of meanings to sentences and phrases are immensely complicated, yet language users apparently apply them hundreds or thousands of times a day, quite effortlessly and unconsciously. But if knowing a language is a matter of knowing all these obscure rules, then acquiring a language emerges as the monumental task of learning them all. Thus arose the question that has driven much of modern linguistic theory: How could mere children learn the myriad intricate rules that govern linguistic expression and comprehension in their language — and learn them solely from exposure to the language spoken around them?

若是如此,那特殊的語言現象就可以沒有任何簡單元素。當代的語言學理論已經顯示,人類的語言有非常多複雜的東西。當代的語法學決定了句子的組成,而語意學指派了句子的意義,而[句子組成的]片段仍非常複雜,然而語言的使用者每天都將[字句]使用千百次,[這些字句]全然是沒有功用和無意識的。但若知道一個語言就是知道那些晦澀的規則,那麼習得一個語言所呈現的就像是全面的學習學習它們的全部。因此才產生了當代的語言學理論。孩童是如何學習數量極大的瑣碎規則,而且將它們表達道與自己的語言一致---而且從表達出的語言詞彙當中學到那些瑣碎規則?