Bootstrapping (linguistics)

Bootstrapping is a term used in language acquisition in the field of linguistics. It refers to the idea that humans are born innately equipped with a mental faculty that forms the basis of language. It is this language faculty that allows children to effortlessly acquire language.[1] As a process, bootstrapping can be divided into different domains, according to whether it involves semantic bootstrapping, syntactic bootstrapping, prosodic bootstrapping, or pragmatic bootstrapping.

  1. ^ Hohle, Barbara (2009). "Bootstrapping Mechanisms in First Language Acquisition" (PDF). Linguistics. 47 (2): 359–382. doi:10.1515/LING.2009.013. S2CID 145004323. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-10-28. Retrieved 28 October 2014.