Abstract
Over the past few years Steven Pinker has argued that although some aspects of language may be more associational, and therefore properly modeled in connectionist networks, for the most part human language is still best characterized as a modularized set of rulesymbol systems. In support of his claim, Pinker garners a broad array of clinical, experimental, and observational data from neurology, psychology, and linguistics. Those data, unfortunately, are not compelling because they do not support his position uniquely. In this paper, I show how each of his arguments is compatible with alternative interpretations. I argue, moreover, that in focusing on certain details of connectionist models Pinker and his colleagues actually overlooked both the most serious deficiencies of the connectionist approach and its most significant theoretical contribution. I conclude by sketching briefly some emerging alternatives to connectionism which avoid those deficiencies while retaining its strengths over the rule-symbol systems of linguistic theory.
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This research was funded in part by University of Idaho Seed Grant 681-Y304.
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Chandler, S. Are rules and modules really necessary for explaining language?. J Psycholinguist Res 22, 593–606 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01072938
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01072938