The Poverty of the Stimulus (PoS) argument holds that children do not receive enough evidence to infer the existence of core aspects of language, such as the dependence of linguistic rules on hierarchical phrase structure. We reevaluate one version of this argument using a Bayesian model of grammar induction, and show that a rational learner faced with typical child-directed input and without initial language-specific biases could learn this dependency. This enables the learner to master aspects of syntax, such as the auxiliary fronting rule in interrogative formation, even without having heard the sort of data often assumed to be necessary for learning (e.g., interrogatives containing an auxiliary in a relative clause in the subject NP). |