ABSTRACT
Current discussions of language development seldom avoid distinguishing nature from nurture. Lip service may be paid to “epigenetic experience” or to “interaction between genes and environment,” but the belief that we can divide the causes of development into two discrete, additive classes remains largely untouched. Even a casual scan of two fairly recent collections of essays on language acquisition (MacWhinney, 1986; Wanner & Gleitman, 1982) reveals recurrent words and phrases assuring us that the issue is not yet dead: “innate,” “natural,” “prepared to learn,” “initial state,” “genetic endowment,” and so on.
