A view of first language acquisition , Elizabeth Bates advocated by Michael Tomasello and others that at odds with nativism State.

this view is that when children acquire a language, what they actually do construction s: linguistic units of various sizes and increasing level of abstractness. As the complexity and abstractness of units increases, linguistic creativity begins to emerge. According to this view the creativity that exhibited by young children in their early language happens because they are trying to build expressions out of already mastered constructions in ways to facilitate the expression of a communicative intention is.

Thus from this perspective is the process of language acquisition ' emergent ', in which a huge amount of learning, rather than as a result of a congenital pre-specification for language, a ' universal grammar '.