Learnability and Linguistic Theory

✍ Scribed by Robert J. Matthews (auth.), Robert J. Matthews, William Demopoulos (eds.)

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1989
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 220
• Series: Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics 9
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The impetus for this volume developed from the 1982 University of Western Ontario Learnability Workshop, which was organized by the editors and sponsored by that University's Department of Philosophy and the Centre for Cognitive Science. The volume e~plores the import of learnability theory for contemporary linguistic theory, focusing on foundational learning-theoretic issues associated with the parametrized Government-Binding (G-B) framework. Written by prominent re­ searchers in the field, all but two of the eight contributions are pre­ viously unpublished. The editor's introduction provides an overview that interrelates the separate papers and elucidates the foundational issues addressed by the volume. Osherson, Stob, and Weinstein's "Learning Theory and Natural Language" first appeared in Cognition (1984); Matthews's "The Plausi­ bility of Rationalism" was published in the Journal of Philosophy (1984). The editors would like to thank the publishers for permission to reprint these papers. Mr. Marin Marinov assisted with the preparation of the indices for the volume. VB ROBERT 1. MATTHEWS INTRODUCTION: LEARNABILITY AND LINGUISTIC THEORY 1. INTRODUCTION Formal learning theory, as the name suggests, studies the learnability of different classes of formal objects (languages, grammars, theories, etc.) under different formal models of learning. The specification of such a model, which specifies (a) a learning environment, (b) a learn­ ing strategy, and (c) a criterion for successful learning, determines (d) a class of formal objects, namely, the class that can be acquired to the level of the specified success criterion by a learner implementing the specified strategy in the specified enviroment.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-vii
Introduction: Learnability and Linguistic Theory....Pages 1-17
Learning Theory and Natural Language....Pages 19-50
The Plausibility of Rationalism....Pages 51-75
On Applying Learnability Theory to the Rationalism-Empiricism Controversy....Pages 77-88
On Certain Substitutes for Negative Data....Pages 89-105
Markedness and Language Development....Pages 107-127
Learning the Periphery....Pages 129-154
Some Problems in the Parametric Analysis of Learnability....Pages 155-176
From Cognition to Thematic Roles: The Projection Principle as an Acquisition Mechanism....Pages 177-210
Back Matter....Pages 211-219

✦ Subjects

Psycholinguistics; Theoretical Languages; Language Translation and Linguistics