A
core question in
linguistics and
psycholinguistics. The
nativists claim that the ability to
acquire lanuage (note they avoid the word
learn) must be an
innate ability and that, indeed, much of the
structure of
language must also be
innate. The non-nativists (for lack of a better term) argue that the
human cognitive architecture is
sufficient to
learn language without
postulating additional
factors such as an innate language system, and therefore the point of view that language is learned is to be preferred according to
Occam's Razor.
In many ways this is a special case of the nature vs. nurture argument.