Socio-demographic influences on language structure and change: Not all learners are the same

Behav Brain Sci. 2016 Jan:39:e66. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X15000710.

Abstract

The Now-or-Never bottleneck has important consequence for understanding why languages have the structures they do. However, not addressed by C&C is that the bottleneck may interact with who is doing the learning: While some languages are mostly learned by infants, others have a large share of adult learners. We argue that such socio-demographic differences extend and qualify C&C's thesis.

Publication types

  • Comment

MeSH terms

  • Demography
  • Dissent and Disputes
  • Humans
  • Language Development
  • Language*
  • Learning*