Models of Language Acquisition

This work presents advances by leading researchers in the computational modelling of language acquisition. Sophisticated theoretical models can now be tested using simulation techniques and large corpora of linguistic data. Renewed interest in learning neural networks and the ability to test new solutions to fundamental problems has fuelled debates in an already very active field The 24 authors in this collection have been drawn from departments of linguistics, cognitive science, psychology, and computer science. The book as a whole shows what light may be thrown on fundamental problems when powerful computational techniques are combined with real data. A central question addressed in the book concerns the extent to which linguistic structure is readily available in the environment. The authors consider the evidence in relation to word boundaries and phonotactic structure, stress patterns, text-to-speech rules, and the mapping of lexical semantics, one author arguing that a child's own output may serve as a key source of linguistic input.

Review from hardback edition This is a volume which fairly depicts the field that it represents.

Peter Broeder is at Tilburg University (Intercultrual Communication). Previously he participated in the European Science Foundation Project on the ecology of adult language acquisition (Max Planck Institute, Nijmegen). He currently directs large scale language surveys in Europe and South Africa.Jaap Murre is a Research Fellow in the Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam. Previously he worked as a scientist at the Applied Psychology Unit of the Medical Research Council in Cambridge. Dr Murre also heads a research group sponsored by a PIONIER grant from the Netherlands Organzation for Scientific Research (NWO).