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Language learning from positive evidence, reconsidered : a simplicity-based approach
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Hsu, Anne S., Chater, Nick and Vitányi , Paul M. B. (2013) Language learning from positive evidence, reconsidered : a simplicity-based approach. Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 5 (Number 1). pp. 35-55. doi:10.1111/tops.12005
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tops.12005
Abstract
Children learn their native language by exposure to their linguistic and communicative environment, but apparently without requiring that their mistakes be corrected. Such learning from positive evidence has been viewed as raising logical problems for language acquisition. In particular, without correction, how is the child to recover from conjecturing an over-general grammar, which will be consistent with any sentence that the child hears? There have been many proposals concerning how this logical problem can be dissolved. In this study, we review recent formal results showing that the learner has sufficient data to learn successfully from positive evidence, if it favors the simplest encoding of the linguistic input. Results include the learnability of linguistic prediction, grammaticality judgments, language production, and form-meaning mappings. The simplicity approach can also be scaled down to analyze the learnability of specific linguistic constructions, and it is amenable to empirical testing as a framework for describing human language acquisition.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School > Behavioural Science Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School |
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| Journal or Publication Title: | Topics in Cognitive Science | ||||
| Publisher: | Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc. | ||||
| ISSN: | 1756-8757 | ||||
| Official Date: | January 2013 | ||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | Volume 5 | ||||
| Number: | Number 1 | ||||
| Page Range: | pp. 35-55 | ||||
| DOI: | 10.1111/tops.12005 | ||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access |
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