A difícil aritmética do corpo e da linguagem: reflexões sobre o input e a aquisição de linguagem

From the point of view of reflection on Language Acquisition, the thesis that inspires this article brings to discussion the impossibility of searching for reconciliation between two natures differently conceived for body and language – the body, as a sensitive organism is in the domain of biology, whereas language, with its structures and categories, is in the realms of linguistics. In this case, to the area of language acquisition is left the ungrateful and fruitless task of operating the relationship between those two different natures. That task limits itself to the operations of addition or subtraction. In order to conduct such reflection, two theories were called into play: Chomsky’s, whose research in linguistics was responsible for the consolidation of the area of language acquisition and Skinner’s, which is the trigger for Chomsky’s option for the rationalist principles in search for an answer to the question of how a child masters the complex structures of a language disclosed by means of formalization applied to linguistics which signals the entrance of that author in the area of linguistics.