b. 1948
Judy Kegl is an American linguist and cognitive scientist best known for her fieldwork documenting the emergence of Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL) in the 1980s, a rare natural experiment in language genesis. Her work has had significant implications for debates in the philosophy of language and linguistics regarding the innateness of grammar, the poverty of the stimulus, and the learnability of linguistic systems from primary linguistic data.
Documented the spontaneous emergence of Nicaraguan Sign Language, providing evidence for innate linguistic capacity
Advanced arguments concerning the unlearnability of grammar from primary linguistic data (poverty of the stimulus)
Contributed to debates on language genesis and the biological basis of syntax
Conducted longitudinal research on successive cohorts of NSL signers to track grammatical complexification
Linked empirical fieldwork in sign language to theoretical questions in nativist linguistics