Elsevier

Cognition

Volume 7, Issue 3, 1979, Pages 217-283
Cognition

Formal models of language learning

https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(79)90001-5Get rights and content

Abstract

Research is reviewed that addresses itself to human language learning by developing precise, mechanistic models that are capable in principle of acquiring languages on the basis of exposure to linguistic data. Such research includes theorems on language learnability from mathematical linguistics, computer models of language acquisition from cognitive simulation and artificial intelligence, and models of transformational grammar acquisition from theoretical linguistics. It is argued that such research bears strongly on major issues in developmental psycholinguistics, in particular, nativism and empiricism, the role of semantics and pragmatics in language learning, cognitive development, and the importance of the simplified speech addressed to children.

Résumé

Analyse d'une recherche centrée sur l'apprentissage du langage humain, développant des modéles mécanistes précis susceptibles, en principe, d'acquérir le langage à partir d'une exposition aux données linguistiques. Une telle recherche comporte des théorémes (empruntés à la linguistique mathématique) des modéles informatiques pour l'acquisition du langage (empruntés à la simulation cognitive et à l'intelligence artificielle) des modéles d'acquisition de la grammaire transformationnelle (empruntés à la linguistique théorique). On soutient que cette recherche repose étroitement sur les thèmes principaux de la psycholinguistique de développement et en particulier sur l'opposition nativisme-empirisme, sur le rôle des facteurs sémantiques et pragmatiques dans l'apprentissage du langage, sur le développement cognitif et l'importance du discours simplifié que les parents adressent aux enfants.

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    I am grateful to John Anderson, Roger Brown, Michael Cohen, Martha Danly, Jill de Villiers, Nancy Etcoff, Kenji Hakuta, Reid Hastie, Stephen Kosslyn, Peter Kugel, John Macnamara, Robert Matthews, Laurence Miller, Dan Slobin, and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Preparation of this paper was supported in part by funds from the Department of Psychology and Social Relations, Harvard University; the author was supported by NRC and NSERC Canada Postgraduate Scholarships and by a Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship.

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