Word.ws English Dictionary

poverty of the stimulus

poverty of the stimulus noun: the idea that human language cannot be learned by young children with what information they are given, unless they already have an innate knowledge of language or universal grammar.

Noun

poverty of the stimulus (uncountable)

  1. The idea that human language cannot be learned by young children with what information they are given, unless they already have an innate knowledge of language or universal grammar.

Origin of poverty of the stimulus

Coined by Noam Chomsky in 1980, though he had argued for the idea some years earlier.

Questions about poverty of the stimulus

What does poverty of the stimulus mean?
Poverty of the stimulus means the idea that human language cannot be learned by young children with what information they are given, unless they already have an innate knowledge of language or universal grammar.
What part of speech is poverty of the stimulus?
Poverty of the stimulus is a noun.

Words near poverty of the stimulus in the dictionary

  1. poverty grasses
  2. poverty is a mindset
  3. poverty is a state of mind
  4. poverty line
  5. poverty lines
  6. poverty of the stimulus
  7. poverty poker
  8. poverty porn
  9. Poverty premium
  10. Poverty Row
  11. poverty trap

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: poverty of the stimulus (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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