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Indirect Evidence and the Poverty of the Stimulus: The Case of Anaphoric One
Author(s) -
Foraker Stephani,
Regier Terry,
Khetarpal Naveen,
Perfors Amy,
Tenenbaum Joshua
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
cognitive science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.498
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1551-6709
pISSN - 0364-0213
DOI - 10.1111/j.1551-6709.2009.01014.x
Subject(s) - computer science , linguistics , grammar , generative grammar , stimulus (psychology) , linguistic competence , cognitive psychology , psychology , artificial intelligence , philosophy
It is widely held that children’s linguistic input underdetermines the correct grammar, and that language learning must therefore be guided by innate linguistic constraints. Here, we show that a Bayesian model can learn a standard poverty‐of‐stimulus example, anaphoric one , from realistic input by relying on indirect evidence, without a linguistic constraint assumed to be necessary. Our demonstration does, however, assume other linguistic knowledge; thus, we reduce the problem of learning anaphoric one to that of learning this other knowledge. We discuss whether this other knowledge may itself be acquired without linguistic constraints.