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\title{Essay on\\Chapters One and Two of\\{\em The Language Lottery}\\by David Lightfoot}
\author{Matthew K. Gray\\21.900J: The Study of Language\\Professor James W. Harris}
\date{10 October 1991}
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The study of language has been approached in a variety of ways.   These approaches have ranged from the specific to the broad.  In {\em The Language Lottery: Toward a Biology of Grammars}, David Lightfoot gives examples of ``highly specific(to describe Dutch in such a way that it can be learned easily by Indonesian speakers), to more general ones, such as to determine how a language may differ from one historical stage to another''.\footnote{{\em The Language Lottery: Toward a Biology of Grammars} by David Lightfoot (The MIT Press, 1983), page 23}  Lightfoot, however, directs his attention to one specific approach to the study of language.  Lightfoot's approach, based substantially on the work of Noam Chomsky, includes the concept of Universal Grammar, ``deficiency of the stimulus'' and approaches language from a biological perspective.
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Lightfoot begins with a general overview of genetics and evolution, in order to elucidate his explanation of language as a genetically pre-programmed aspect of human beings.  Shortly after completing his description of evolutionary biology and genetics, he begins applying these concepts**what concepts?** to the problem of language acquisition.  On page 11, he states ``If the capacity for symbolic language is so central to an understanding of humanness, if it is essentially the biological basis for human culture, the question arises: what does biology contribute to human language?''\footnote{{\em ibid.}, page 11}  While he does not explicitly answer this question, his discussion of the issue revolves around this.**clarify**One repeated analogy that he uses is comparing the regular growth of the liver, and its independence of external environmental developmental influences, to the regular and independent development of Universal Grammar within an individual.
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First, in order to obtain a more accurate perception of what is {\em a priori}, and what is merely a common aspect of specific languages, Lightfoot deals with the problem of language acquisition.  By dealing with this ``Central Problem'' without applying it specifically to any language, he assures that his points will be applicable to the general case.  One of his most significant points involves the premise that in the process of learning a language, some portion, 5\% by his estimation, of all utterances a child hears are incorrect, without any easy way of distinguishing the correct from the incorrect.  This imperfection is the first part of what Lightfoot means when he refers to as the ``deficiency of data'' or ``deficiency of stimulus''.  This problem, he explains, is further compounded by the fact that ``a child encounters only a finite range of expressions but comes to be able to deal with an infinite range of novel sentences, going far beyond the sentences actually heard in childhood.''\footnote{{\em ibid.}, page 16}  Lightfoot believes, even an even more crucial ``deficiency of stimulus'' comes from the complete lack of experience in certain cases, however an individual fluent in a language intuitively knows how to deal with such situations, despite the fact that it may not resemble anything the individual has ever encountered before.  It is substantially on this basis that Lightfoot concludes there must be some {\em a priori} language knowledge, which is presumably genetic.  He briefly addresses the possibility of non-linguistic experience as a source for this knowledge, however, takes some genetic cause to be the primary origin of this knowledge.
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The conclusion that genetically determined language structure within the human cortex exists has a number of implications, and provides a number of explanations for observed linguistic phenomena.  The most obvious implication of genetic predisposition for language is the likelihood of a Universal Grammar.  A Universal Grammar, which shall be discussed in more detail later, would put specific constraints and potentials on all possibilities for human language.  Another implication is some physical or structural manifestation of this linguistic structure.  Neither Universal Grammar nor any physical manifestations have been conclusively described or detected, however Universal Grammar in particular provides explanations of many variances and similarities in language.  For example, Universal Grammer, while inherited, is not language specific and allows children to learn any natural language essentially equally well.  That is, a displaced Kurdish child would not have any difficulty learning Mandarin Chinese, because Universal Grammar, as it is barely detectable, is not detectably biased toward or against any real language.  Additionally, because of many unknown details of Universal Grammar, there arise striking similarities in widely scattered languages.  Also, with the exception of rare cases, language acquisition is an independent trait, not connected to intelligence or any other observable attribute.  This is observed by the fact that young children easily acquire language regardless of their intellectual level.
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One of the most significant concepts of Lightfoot's writing is the treatment of grammer not as a set of rules but as a psychology.

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