Certain principles must allow for a continual balance to occur between simplification and elaboration. It was the generative transformational claim that simplification was the result of children’s generalization processes at all levels of grammar, whether phonological, lexical, or syntactic, hence their ability to mutate, while elaboration was the result of the adults’ ability to add (or innovate) without modifying their system.
- Traugott (1977), Pag. 80