Innateness and Language4

All this changed in the early twentieth century, when linguists, psychologists, and philosophers began to look more closely at the phenomena of language learning and mastery. With advances in syntax and semantics came the realization that knowing a language was not merely a matter of associating words with concepts. It also crucially involves knowledge of how to put words together, for it's typically sentences that we use to express our thoughts, not words in isolation.

二十世紀時,語言學家,心理學家和哲學家越來越關心,也越來越靠近語言學習的現象時,過去的這些看法都改變了。語法和語意學的成果使[這些專家們]了解,語言不僅是連結字和概念而已。最重要的發展是組合字的知識, 典型地說,它(組合字的知識)是我們表達想法的句子,不僅是獨立的字而已。

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