doi:10.1017/S0142716408080296 The acquisition of tense in English: Distinguishing child second language from first language and specific language impairment

Brief recap of arguments for UG from L1A • Uniform stable state despite variation in experience • Knowledge system is complex beyond evidence from the input • Grammatical errors children make are few and confined • Acquisition does not appear to involve conscious effort • Biologically determined window of opportunity • Language knowledge is largely opaque to introspection From these things we conclude... There is some kind of innate predisposition for language (acquisition) that governs the course of acquisition and the representation of language—“Universal Grammar ” (“UG”). The role of UG in generative linguistics Generative linguistics is essentially the exploration of the properties of UG. Current conceptions of UG take it to be comprised of: Principles of representation, computation, and interface with language-external systems. Parameters of variation between languages affecting particularly aspects of representation and