Question 135·Hard·Cross-Text Connections
Text 1
Writing in the 1950s, linguist Eric Haldane argued that children possess an innate grammatical blueprint. According to Haldane, young speakers routinely produce sentences they have never heard before, indicating that exposure alone cannot explain linguistic creativity; instead, children must be born with the core rules of grammar already in place.
Text 2
A recent corpus-based study of 250 English-learning toddlers by researchers Mei and Lawson examined how children’s earliest utterances relate to adult speech. The pair found that over 85% of the children’s early utterances were formulaic phrases directly traceable to adult speech—phrases such as “I want ___” or “Where’s the ___?”—and that departures from these phrases occurred incrementally as the children substituted new words into familiar slots. Mei and Lawson argue that these patterns suggest grammatical knowledge can develop from repeated exposure to structured input, without needing to assume that children begin with a fully specified set of syntactic rules.
Based on the texts, how would Mei and Lawson (Text 2) most likely respond to Haldane’s position in Text 1?
For cross-text connections, write a one-phrase summary of each text’s claim, then label the relationship (agree, disagree, qualify). Next, in the second text, locate the specific evidence and conclusion it uses. Pick the answer that matches both the relationship (here, Text 2 pushes back on an inborn-blueprint claim) and the basis (formulaic phrases + gradual slot-filling), and eliminate options that add new claims (extra concessions, neutrality, praise) not supported by the text.
Hints
State each text’s main idea in 10 words or fewer
Text 1: what explains children’s grammar—born with it or learn it? Text 2: what does the toddler-speech data suggest?
Focus on what Text 2 uses as evidence
Text 2 emphasizes “formulaic phrases” and “incrementally” substituting words into “slots.” What does that imply about where early grammar comes from?
Eliminate choices that add unsupported claims
Be cautious of answers that introduce ideas not stated in Text 2 (e.g., strong agreement with innate grammar, or claims that the study can’t bear on the question at all).
Step-by-step Explanation
Identify the claim in Text 1
Haldane’s main claim is that children have an innate grammatical blueprint. His reasoning is that children produce sentences they’ve never heard, so exposure alone can’t explain grammar; therefore, core rules must be inborn.
Identify the claim in Text 2
Mei and Lawson report that most early toddler utterances are formulaic and traceable to adult input, and that new utterances appear incrementally through substitutions into familiar patterns. They argue this supports grammar developing from repeated exposure to structured input, not from a fully specified inborn rule system.
Describe how Text 2 would respond to Text 1
Since Text 2 offers an input-based explanation for early grammar (memorized patterns + gradual generalization), Mei and Lawson would likely say Haldane’s conclusion that grammar must be inborn is stronger than necessary given evidence that patterned exposure can account for early production.
Match that response to the choices
The choice that captures (1) disagreement with an inborn blueprint and (2) the specific evidence from Text 2 (formulaic phrases and gradual substitutions) is:
They would argue that the toddlers’ reliance on adult-derived phrases suggests early grammar develops through learning patterns from input, so Haldane’s claim of an inborn blueprint is too strong.