Abstract
Universal Grammar and language acquisition: Some problems in the research of infants' anaphoric reference. The Theory of Universal Grammar attempts to provide a system of principles, conditions and roles that are elements or properties of all natural languages. First language acquisition is a basic field of the research paradigm inspired by the Theory of Universal Grammar. The present paper focuses on some problems and shortcomings of the studies in the acquisition of anaphora within that paradigm. The dual nature of the Theory introduces a "cognitive bias", making difficult for the experimental design the isolation of grammatical from non-grammatical factors in characterizing the child's language knowledge. The validity of different methodologies is controversial both within Linguistic Theory and within experimental Psychology of Language. The results strongly concern a principle of linearity, addressing the issue of whether linearity relations such as "precedence" are theoretically motivated in Universal Grammar. The paper attemps to combine the linguistic and psychological approaches to language acquisition to develop a research paradigm for their joint study.
