An important argument which favors the generative approach, is the poverty of the stimulus argument. The child's input (a finite number of sentences encountered by the child, together with information about the context in which they were uttered) is, in principle, compatible with an infinite number of conceivable grammars. Moreover, rarely can children rely on corrective feedback from adults when they make a grammatical error; adults generally respond and provide feedback regardless of whether a child's utterance was grammatical or not, and children have no way of discerning if a feedback response was intended to be a correction. Additionally, when children do understand that they are being corrected, they don't always reproduce accurate restatements. Yet, barring situations of medical abnormality or extreme privation, all children in a given speech-community converge on very much the same grammar by the age of about five years. An especially dramatic example is provided by children who, for medical reasons, are unable to produce speech and, therefore, can never be corrected for a grammatical error but nonetheless, converge on the same grammar as their typically developing peers, according to comprehension-based tests of grammar.
an important argument which favors the generative approach is the poverty of the stimulus argument the child's input (a finite number of sentences encountered by the child together with information about the context in which they were uttered) is in principle compatible with an infinite number of conceivable grammars moreover rarely can children rely on corrective feedback from adults when they make a grammatical error; adults generally respond and provide feedback regardless of whether a child's utterance was grammatical or not and children have no way of discerning if a feedback response was intended to be a correction additionally when children do understand that they are being corrected they don't always reproduce accurate restatements yet barring situations of medical abnormality or extreme privation all children in a given speech-community converge on very much the same grammar by the age of about five years an especially dramatic example is provided by children who for medical reasons are unable to produce speech and therefore can never be corrected for a grammatical error but nonetheless converge on the same grammar as their typically developing peers according to comprehension-based tests of grammar