Language acquisition
I am reading a book for grad school called The Infinite Gift: How Children Learn and Unlearn the Languages of the World by Charles Yang. So far it is a very layman-friendly take on Chomsky's and Pinker's views on language acquisition. I haven't given a lot of conscious thought to hardcore linguistics since my grad school class in summer of '05, but this book is bringing it all back. For instance, I am really dwelling on Yang's overuse of the epistemic modal "must." Here are just a few examples that have stuck out like sore thumbs in the first two chapters:
"This means that the neural hardware for language must be plastic; it must leave space and possibilities for the brain to respond to the particular environment the child is born into...."
"Remarkably a strong preference for the native tunes was discovered; this affinity then must have come from the genome."
"Since we get on fine, hidden assumptions must reside somewhere in the brain."
"It doesn't take a leap of faith to conclude that the uniquely human ability for language must ultimately reside in some uniquely human genes."
I don't really buy into all of it just yet, and his use of epistemic modals isn't swaying my opinion just yet so much as it is annoying me!
"This means that the neural hardware for language must be plastic; it must leave space and possibilities for the brain to respond to the particular environment the child is born into...."
"Remarkably a strong preference for the native tunes was discovered; this affinity then must have come from the genome."
"Since we get on fine, hidden assumptions must reside somewhere in the brain."
"It doesn't take a leap of faith to conclude that the uniquely human ability for language must ultimately reside in some uniquely human genes."
I don't really buy into all of it just yet, and his use of epistemic modals isn't swaying my opinion just yet so much as it is annoying me!