The Binding Principles, perhaps the most well studied principles in human language, state where in a sentence nominals (e.g., pronouns, common and proper nouns, etc.) may occur, and what they may/may not refer to. Many prominent researchers argue that these principles are part of our innate linguistic endowment because (i) they occur in the vast majority of languages for which we have data, and (ii) children in every language studied to date exhibit them at the very earliest testable ages. This argument for innateness is threatened somewhat by the existence of a handful of languages, e.g., Thai, in which the Binding Principles appear not to hold. If these principles are innate, exceptional languages like Thai should not exist.
So why don't Thai speakers obey the Binding Principles? Thai children hold the answer to this puzzle: if Thai children, unlike Thai adults, exhibit knowledge of the Binding Principles at young ages, this will show that the principles are indeed part of our innate linguistic endowment, and that as children mature, they 'unlearn' these principles on the basis of adult input. However, if Thai children show no evidence of the Binding Principles at any stage in development, this will suggest that the principles are not innate. If this is the case, children acquiring other languages (e.g., English) do not have access to these innate principles, and must simply learn them on the basis of experience and other (non-linguistic) mechanisms. This project will test 80 Thai children aged 3yrs-7yrs and 20 adult Thai speakers on six experiments, each targeting a different aspect of the Binding Principles. The project will not only address one of the biggest debates in cognitive science (nature versus nurture), but it will also gather data from an understudied language, as well as establish and foster relations between academic institutions in Thailand and the United States. Moreover, this work will lay the foundation for the development of standards for the acquisition of Thai that may be used for Speech Pathology or educational assessment purposes.
