Acquiring a language vs. inducing a grammar

Cognition. 2024 Mar 19;247:105771. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105771. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTStandard computational models of language acquisition treat acquiring a language as a process of inducing a set of string-generating rules from a collection of linguistic data assumed to be generated by these very rules. In this paper I give theoretical and empirical arguments that such a model is radically unlike what a human language learner must do to acquire their native language. Most centrally, I argue that such models presuppose that linguistic data is directly a product of a grammar, ignoring the myriad non-grammatical systems involved in the use of language. The significance of these non-target systems in shaping the linguistic data children are exposed to undermines any simple reverse inference from linguistic data to grammatical competence.PMID:38507944 | DOI:10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105771

Source: Cognition - March 20, 2024 Category: Neurology Authors: Gabe Dupre Source Type: research