The Poverty of the Stimulus

            The Poverty of the Stimulus
       (“the poor we have with us all ways”)
           
  “Although children hear many  utterances, the language they
hear is incomplete, noisy, and unstructured.”  Not sufficient
to explain the ability to speak and converse.  Fromkin et al,
                          
           The acquisition of language
 
The data we are exposed to is impoverished. Less than
what is necessary to account for the richness and complexity
of the  grammar we attain and wield.
 
Not yr old man’s grammar or  Dr. Bradshaw’s concatenation
of clause & phrase, indirect & direct object distinctions,
ratios of independence & subordination  & the etiquette of
conjunction, proper punctuation, non-terminal  pre-positions;
nor the humanist  capacity  for tedious systematic taxonomies
of  sound & sense devastatingly demonstrated in our so-called
Introduction to Language course.
 
But the Grammar of Talk  talking:  asking questioning 
quibbling quarreling claiming clamoring claiming whining--
communicating state of the art always going on & on:
the  deep psyche-logical richness & complexity of the

                      Grammar of
                   Converse-action :
 
thoughtless, rule-driven, structured, syn-tact & context-
dependent machinery early provoked by the linguistic
environmentalism I  swim in, indifferent to its token
topics, subject-object matter: fast food or global
warming, mitochondria or  monkey  business:
it can  handle it. Manipulate.  
 
Or call it a wee official grammarian behind my
eyebrows, designated driver designed to manufacture
if not what I’m talking right now, then how: my media
messenger .Maybe what, too: so often a surprise —
what I have to say & don’t know it till I hear it.
See?  Analyze THAT.

I am not taught to converse. .
 
A provocation. An awakening. Equipment turns on,
activated by prompts & specimen samples. Can you
remember  how it happened? Your first words in the
beginnings? 

Never the less: we have theories.
Flatlander Interpretations & Explanations.
Hard  Balls & Mallet determinations.
 
            “The Poverty of the Stimulus.”
 
IN OTHER WORDS:  one's ability to speak, talk,
converse—can not be explained by one's environment
—necessary and yet inadequate to account for the richness
of anyone’s expression and interaction ability.

The potential  is  innate—like dropping freeze dried
soup or coffee into a cup of hot water.   A poor
metaphor for a rich process.   .

           The Richness of the Stimulus                    
 
Walk through a field or mall during Christmas.
Sit in  class with a slab of  peer ruminations and
commentary. A day of courses,  work, recreation.
Aren’t we all  embarrassed (behind bars) by the
richness of the stimulus?
 
Over whelmed?
 
     (Whelm = womb: matrix. We swim in the matrix,
   so to speak soaking wet in amniotic fluid—as it were.)
 
            The Poverty and the Richness
                    of the Stimulus
 
      My life is impoverished by the richness.      
             It’s an embarrassment.
                    ("behind bars")