Connectionist approaches to language learning
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Gert Westermann
Abstract
In the past twenty years the connectionist approach to language development and learning has emerged as an alternative to traditional linguistic theories. This article introduces the connectionist paradigm by describing basic operating principles of neural network models as well as different network architectures. The application of neural network models to explanations for linguistic problems is illustrated by reviewing a number of models for different aspects of language development, from speech sound acquisition to the development of syntax. Two main benefits of the connectionist approach are highlighted: implemented models offer a high degree of specificity for a particular theory, and the explicit integration of a learning process into theory building allows for detailed investigation of the effect of the linguistic environment on a child. Issues regarding learnability or the need to assume innate and domain specific knowledge thus become an empirical question that can be answered by evaluating a model's performance.
© 2009 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Introduction: concepts of development, learning, and acquisition
- Implicit and explicit modes of learning: similarities and differences from a developmental perspective
- Generative approaches to language learning
- Language acquisition in optimality theory
- Bootstrapping mechanisms in first language acquisition
- Usage-based and emergentist approaches to language acquisition
- Connectionist approaches to language learning
- Learning your language, outside-in and inside-out
- Language learning from the perspective of nonlinear dynamic systems
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Introduction: concepts of development, learning, and acquisition
- Implicit and explicit modes of learning: similarities and differences from a developmental perspective
- Generative approaches to language learning
- Language acquisition in optimality theory
- Bootstrapping mechanisms in first language acquisition
- Usage-based and emergentist approaches to language acquisition
- Connectionist approaches to language learning
- Learning your language, outside-in and inside-out
- Language learning from the perspective of nonlinear dynamic systems
