ABSTRACT
Communicating by means of language is the most characteristically human of all man's behaviour patterns. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that men throughout the ages have allowed their imagination to dwell on the possibilities of how human beings first acquired language. This chapter examines something for which there is much tangible and observable evidence: how a particular human being acquires his or her native language. It focuses on two major factors of language acquisition: firstly an innate human potential for the acquisition of a language and secondly a linguistic environment. The development of grammatical distinctions is dependent on the development of an adequate phonological system. It would seem appropriate to look in more detail at the phonetics and phonology of language acquisition before considering grammar and syntax. Jakobson's theory of the development of phonological systems is closely linked with the notion of distinctive feature phonology of which he was one of the pioneers.
