Productivity And Reuse In Language: A Theory Of Linguistic Computation And Storage (mit Press)
by Timothy J. O'Donnell /
2015 / English / PDF
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A proposal for a formal model, Fragment Grammars, that treats
productivity and reuse as the target of inference in a
probabilistic framework.
A proposal for a formal model, Fragment Grammars, that treats
productivity and reuse as the target of inference in a
probabilistic framework.
Language allows us to express and comprehend an unbounded number
of thoughts. This fundamental and much-celebrated property is
made possible by a division of labor between a large inventory of
stored items (e.g., affixes, words, idioms) and a computational
system that productively combines these stored units on the fly
to create a potentially unlimited array of new expressions. A
language learner must discover a language's productive, reusable
units and determine which computational processes can give rise
to new expressions. But how does the learner differentiate
between the reusable, generalizable units (for example, the affix
Language allows us to express and comprehend an unbounded number
of thoughts. This fundamental and much-celebrated property is
made possible by a division of labor between a large inventory of
stored items (e.g., affixes, words, idioms) and a computational
system that productively combines these stored units on the fly
to create a potentially unlimited array of new expressions. A
language learner must discover a language's productive, reusable
units and determine which computational processes can give rise
to new expressions. But how does the learner differentiate
between the reusable, generalizable units (for example, the affix-ness
-ness, as in
, as incoolness, orderliness, cheapness
coolness, orderliness, cheapness) and
apparent units that do not actually generalize in practice (for
example,
) and
apparent units that do not actually generalize in practice (for
example,-th
-th, as in
, as inwarmth
warmth but not
but notcoolth
coolth)?
In this book, Timothy O'Donnell proposes a formal computational
model, Fragment Grammars, to answer these questions. This model
treats productivity and reuse as the target of inference in a
probabilistic framework, asking how an optimal agent can make use
of the distribution of forms in the linguistic input to learn the
distribution of productive word-formation processes and reusable
units in a given language.
)?
In this book, Timothy O'Donnell proposes a formal computational
model, Fragment Grammars, to answer these questions. This model
treats productivity and reuse as the target of inference in a
probabilistic framework, asking how an optimal agent can make use
of the distribution of forms in the linguistic input to learn the
distribution of productive word-formation processes and reusable
units in a given language.
O'Donnell compares this model to a number of other theoretical
and mathematical models, applying them to the English past tense
and English derivational morphology, and showing that Fragment
Grammars unifies a number of superficially distinct empirical
phenomena in these domains and justifies certain seemingly ad hoc
assumptions in earlier theories.
O'Donnell compares this model to a number of other theoretical
and mathematical models, applying them to the English past tense
and English derivational morphology, and showing that Fragment
Grammars unifies a number of superficially distinct empirical
phenomena in these domains and justifies certain seemingly ad hoc
assumptions in earlier theories.
