Language acquisition and language change in bidirectional Optimality Theory

Many theories of language assume that the change of a language over time and the acquisition of a language by an individual are interrelated. In this paper we compare and try to relate Mattausch’s (2004) diachronic bidirectional Optimality Theory (bi-OT) account of the development of pronominal binding in English to Hendriks and Spenader’s (2004; 2005/6) synchronic bi-OT account of English-speaking children’s acquisition of pronominal binding. Our examination shows that Mattausch’s frequencybased approach does not yield an adequate explanation for children’s acquisition and adults’ processing of pronominal binding in Modern English. On the other hand, the grammaticalization of Principle B in English is not readily explainable from Hendriks and Spenader’s nonfrequentist approach to language acquisition. This suggests that a linguistic theory aiming to explain language change as well as language acquisition should take into account both statistical patterns in the language input and linguistic and cognitive factors involved in language use.