Open AccessLanguage Learning and Language Universals
Author(s) -
Jeffrey Lidz
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
biolinguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1450-3417
DOI - 10.5964/bioling.8785
Subject(s) - generative grammar , linguistic universal , rule based machine translation , linguistics , computer science , grammar , problem of universals , language acquisition , natural language processing , emergent grammar , artificial intelligence , leverage (statistics) , cognitive science , psychology , philosophy
This paper explores the role of learning in generative grammar, highlighting interactions between distributional patterns in the environment and the innate structure of the language faculty. Reviewing three case studies, it is shown how learners use their language faculties to leverage the environment, making inferences from distributions to grammars that would not be licensed in the absence of a richly structured hypothesis space.