Research Article: Barriers: As Tools for Language Acquisition

by Murali Vemula

Introduction:

Despite the apparent complexity of language, nearly every human being masters its use in the first then years of life. We would like some theory to explain the phenomenon. Ideally, such a theory should explain processes that lead from native to sophisticated language use. The natural places to turn for such process descriptions are the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cognitive science. In particular, one should look for machine learning. In this paper, we examine their implications for theories of language acquisition. We begin by reviewing for basic learning skills that have been the focus of the machine learning work, describing each in terms of a common framework. We then turn to the task of grammar learning, comparing and contrasting it with other learning skills. (more…)