A unified explanation for production/comprehension asymmetries

In the past decades, research on language acquisition has identified several asymmetries between production and comprehension in various languages and in various areas of language. Many of these asymmetries came as a surprise to their investigators, because no asymmetries are expected under the traditional view of the grammar as a direction-insensitive system of rules. This paper argues that viewing the grammar as a direction-sensitive system of constraints on form and meaning, as in Optimality Theory, allows for a unified linguistic explanation of various types of production/comprehension asymmetries in language acquisition.The definitive version of this paper is published in Language acquisition and development : proceedings of GALA 2007 and is available at http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/Language-Acquisition-and-Development--Proceedings-of-GALA-20071-84718-618-1.htmHendricks, P. (2008). A unified explanation for production/comprehension asymmetries. In A. Gavarró, & M.J. Freitas (eds.), Language acquisition and development : proceedings of GALA. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.ISBN:9781847186188 (published conference proceedings)This investigation was supported by a Vici grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, NWO (grant no. 277-70-005)