Behavioural, electrophysiological and connectionist studies in inflectional morphology
Theories of generative linguistics hold that language processing occurs by means of the manipulation of symbols by explicit rules. The past 15 years have seen the development of a radical challenge to this view, derived from a form of computational modelling called Parallel Distributed Processing or connectionism. Connectionist linguistic theory holds that language processing takes place at a subsymbolic level, and that the appearance of rule-driven behaviour is formed by the abstraction of patterns from the environment. The English past tense has become a critical arena of dissent between symbolic and subsymbolic theories of linguistics. There are two current dominant theories of past tense inflection: hybrid dual-route theory, championed by Pinker, posits a symbolic, explicit, default rule for the regularisation process, and an associative memory component for irregular exceptions; single-route theory maintains that regular and irregular inflectional morphology may both be accounted for within a single, subsymbolic, associative system which contains no explicit linguistic rules. This doctoral thesis describes a new classification of phonological similarity between verbs ('neighbourhood density'), which is
Shilson, Giles
Behavioural, electrophysiological and connectionist studies in inflectional morphology. Theories of generative linguistics hold that language processing occurs by means of the manipulation of symbols by explicit rules. The past 15 years have seen the development of a radical challenge to this view, derived from a form of computational modelling called Parallel Distributed Processing or connectionism. Connectionist linguistic theory holds that language processing takes place at a subsymbolic level, and that the appearance of rule-driven behaviour is formed by the abstraction of patterns from the environment. The English past tense has become a critical arena of dissent between symbolic and subsymbolic theories of linguistics. There are two current dominant theories of past tense inflection: hybrid dual-route theory, championed by Pinker, posits a symbolic, explicit, default rule for the regularisation process, and an associative memory component for irregular exceptions; single-route theory maintains that regular and irregular inflectional morphology may both be accounted for within a single, subsymbolic, associative system which contains no explicit linguistic rules. This doctoral thesis describes a new classification of phonological similarity between verbs ('neighbourhood density'), which is
behavioural connectionist study inflectional morphology theories generative linguistics hold language_processing occur mean manipulation symbol explicit rule see development radical challenge_view derive form computational modelling call parallel processing connectionist linguistic_theory hold language_processing take_place level appearance rule driven behaviour form abstraction pattern environment english past_tense become critical arena dissent symbolic theory linguistics current dominant theory past_tense inflection hybrid dual route theory champion pinker posit symbolic explicit default rule process associative memory component irregular exception single route theory maintains regular irregular inflectional morphology may account within_single associative system contain explicit linguistic_rule doctoral describe new classification phonological_similarity verb neighbourhood density