Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT4) Practice Exam 2025 - Free CAT4 Practice Questions and Study Guide

Chomsky observed that children often produce sentences that they have never heard before, which significantly challenged Skinner's theory of language acquisition that emphasized imitation and reinforcement. According to Skinner, children learn language primarily by mimicking the speech of adults and receiving positive reinforcement for doing so. However, the phenomenon of children generating novel sentences—structures they’ve likely never encountered in their language environment—suggests that language acquisition involves innate cognitive structures rather than mere imitation.

This capacity for creativity in language use indicates that children understand underlying grammatical rules and can apply them independently. This observation led Chomsky to propose that humans are born with an inherent ability for language generation, known as the "language acquisition device," which enables them to construct sentences based on an internal understanding of language rules rather than simply replicating what they hear.