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Knowledge and Learning in Natural Language
It is a simple observation that children make mistakes when they learn a language. Yet, to the trained eye, these mistakes are far from random; in fact, they closely resemble perfectly grammatical utterances by adults--who speak other languages. This type of error analysis suggests a novel view of language children are born with a fixed set of hypotheses about language--Chomsky's Universal Grammar--and these hypotheses compete to match the child's ambient language in a Darwinian fashion. The book presents evidence for this perspective from the study of children's words and grammar, and how language changes over time.
188 pages, Paperback
First published January 2, 2003
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August 23, 2019
Underwhelming. A weak work compared to the giants in the linguistics realm like Aronoff, Grimshaw or Lieber. The author never reaches the level of density observed in the books of those, leading the reader to wonder whether the substance presented here would be more adequate for a couple of articles, rather than a whole book. There are quite a lot of repetitions and filler segments, which make reading less of a burden, but wastes time for the informed reader.
The central thesis is more than convincing; the existence of multiple grammars competing for dominance over each other is almost obvious to me. Why this is an idea still rarely adopted in the literature is beyond my understanding. Nevertheless, the adoption of the P&P approach as the basis for this undertaking may be problematic for readers leaning towards the empiricist side, like myself.
The learning algorithm is quite simple, perhaps simple enough to invite a future revision for a more sophisticated one; but at the end of the day, it gets the job done. As an incremental learning algorithm with competing solutions, it reminds me of connectionist frameworks, where competing solutions are represented in a distributed, and consequently more abstract fashion. It is understandable why the nativist, rationalist side would prefer a markedly symbolic, P&P-based account of language acquisition, but I have no hesitation in claiming a similar connectionist account would be more psychologically plausible.
As I see it, some assertions presented in the book are supported by technically flawed arguments. To avoid spoiling the book for new readers, I refrain from pointing to specific pages, but it was at times painful to read the third chapter. Several bold claims are made in that chapter only supported by evidence from tiny samples. I was also perplexed at the author's ignoring some crucial pieces of data from the analyses; which conveniently removes counterevidence against his claims. It is also possible to point out more than a few cases where logically unsound attacks were made against competing theories. Due to such inconsistencies, I was not satisfied with the rigor and robustness in this work.
In spite of all shortcomings, and due to the endorsement on its cover, this book must be attracting a large audience, mostly consisting of Chomsky followers.
The central thesis is more than convincing; the existence of multiple grammars competing for dominance over each other is almost obvious to me. Why this is an idea still rarely adopted in the literature is beyond my understanding. Nevertheless, the adoption of the P&P approach as the basis for this undertaking may be problematic for readers leaning towards the empiricist side, like myself.
The learning algorithm is quite simple, perhaps simple enough to invite a future revision for a more sophisticated one; but at the end of the day, it gets the job done. As an incremental learning algorithm with competing solutions, it reminds me of connectionist frameworks, where competing solutions are represented in a distributed, and consequently more abstract fashion. It is understandable why the nativist, rationalist side would prefer a markedly symbolic, P&P-based account of language acquisition, but I have no hesitation in claiming a similar connectionist account would be more psychologically plausible.
As I see it, some assertions presented in the book are supported by technically flawed arguments. To avoid spoiling the book for new readers, I refrain from pointing to specific pages, but it was at times painful to read the third chapter. Several bold claims are made in that chapter only supported by evidence from tiny samples. I was also perplexed at the author's ignoring some crucial pieces of data from the analyses; which conveniently removes counterevidence against his claims. It is also possible to point out more than a few cases where logically unsound attacks were made against competing theories. Due to such inconsistencies, I was not satisfied with the rigor and robustness in this work.
In spite of all shortcomings, and due to the endorsement on its cover, this book must be attracting a large audience, mostly consisting of Chomsky followers.
Displaying 1 of 1 review