Item-based vs. rule-based learning: the acquisition of word order in wh-questions in English and Norwegian

This paper discusses an item-based and a rule-based model of language acquisition in relation to children's acquisition of word order in wh-questions in English and Norwegian. Constructivist work argues that English-speaking children are sensitive to wh-word + auxiliary combinations in the input, while generative work asserts that children acquire a rule of subject-auxiliary inversion or generalized verb second at an early stage. The paper questions both approaches, re-evaluates some previous work, and provides some further data, generally concluding that the acquisition of wh-questions must be the result of a rule-based process. Based on variation in adult grammars, an extended cue-based model to language acquisition is presented, according to which children are sensitive to so-called micro-cues in the input. Inversion is not considered to be one major rule, but several smaller-scale cues, which means that the full complexity of inversion may not necessarily fall into place at once.