Verb Island as Evidence Against Universal Grammar in the Usage-Based Model

This paper reviews the previous literature on whether the Verb Island phenomenon challenges the Universal Grammar account and supports the Usage-Based Model, as well as the alternative approach provided by the Construction Grammar of Goldberg. This paper argues that Verb Islands reflect learning from experience rather than innate grammatical knowledge. Research on young children shows that their early verb use is limited to individual verbs and does not show broad grammatical productivity. Therefore, it fits well with usage-based explanations that link development to input frequency and gradual learning. The paper also considers how Construction Grammar accounts for early verb-specific patterns. In Construction Grammar, language learning is described as extending from the primary constructions that consist of fixed schemas, which is similar to what the Verb Islands have found in children. Therefore, compared with Universal Grammar, Construction Grammar can be used as a more effective theoretical account for explaining the mechanisms of child language acquisition.