Re: Do children learn language more easily?

On Sun, 03 Dec 2006 15:07:09 -0500, Nathan Sanders
<nsanders@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:nsanders-C786BF.15070903122006@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> in
sci.lang:

In article <1hjg2olt4k2co$.1hy7qkyw7han1$.dlg@xxxxxxxxxx>,
"Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sun, 03 Dec 2006 13:31:00 -0500, Nathan Sanders
<nsanders@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:nsanders-E9D18F.13310003122006@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> in
sci.lang:

[...]

some variation is mathematically expected. Once we accept
natural statistical variation, we can get pretty
detailed in the order and nature of developmental
milestones.

I don't disagree. I am, however, a bit touchy on the
subject, having run into a few too many assertions that were
presented as exceptionless when I knew that they were not.

It is indeed a problem that people are often not careful
enough to consider or allow for exceptions to their
assertions. But in just about anything besides
mathematics or other formal abstractions, some amount of
natural variation will exist, so I usually take the
(perhaps naive) stance that variation is always assumed
but ignored, unless explicitly noted otherwise (or when
dealing with an area that doesn't typically have such
variation).

It seems a bit more productive (especially in environments
like Usenet)

I'm afraid that I've been on Usenet long enough to be
reflexively suspicious!

to, by default, treat all absolute pronouncements as
merely robust generalizations, with understood but
unmentioned variation, rather than getting sidetracked
by nitpicking statistically anomalous isolated
exceptions.

Except that as I said, on this subject I've had too many
people tell me that similar assertions were exceptionless.
And some of them, in my opinion, should have known better.

[...]

Brian
.

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