A significant argument for this conclusion rests on what some have called the ‘productivity’ argument. Experimental psychologists will often attest to the speed at which grammatical ability develops in children around the age of two or three, an ability that goes far beyond the meagre input of language they’ve been exposed to. Consequently, it would seem plausible to suppose the child has a head-start. The grammatical rules do not need to be learnt, they are hardwired in the mind: early exposure to language merely acts as a trigger, and the child develops his linguistic competence at an
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