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Cited by 508Neurobiology of Language and BilingualismLanguage Development and DisordersReading and Literacy Development

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The Declarative/Procedural Model of Lexicon and Grammar

Ullman, Michael T.·2001·Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
DOI 10.1023/a:1005204207369
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Abstract

Our use of language depends upon two capacities: a mental lexicon of memorized words and a mental grammar of rules that underlie the sequential and hierarchical composition of lexical forms into predictably structured larger words, phrases, and sentences. The declarative/procedural model posits that the lexicon/grammar distinction in language is tied to the distinction between two well-studied brain memory systems. On this view, the memorization and use of at least simple words (those with noncompositional, that is, arbitrary form-meaning pairings) depends upon an associative memory of distributed representations that is subserved by temporal-lobe circuits previously implicated in the learning and use of fact and event knowledge. This "declarative memory" system appears to be specialized for learning arbitrarily related information (i.e., for associative binding). In contrast, the acquisition and use of grammatical rules that underlie symbol manipulation is subserved by frontal/basal-ganglia circuits previously implicated in the implicit (nonconscious) learning and expression of motor and cognitive "skills" and "habits" (e.g., from simple motor acts to skilled game playing). This "procedural" system may be specialized for computing sequences. This novel view of lexicon and grammar offers an alternative to the two main competing theoretical frameworks. It shares the perspective of traditional dual-mechanism theories in positing that the mental lexicon and a symbol-manipulating…

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Metadata

Authors
Ullman, M. T.
Affiliations
Georgetown University (US)
Corresponding author
Ullman, Michael T.
ORCID
Ullman, Michael T.
Venue
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2001-01
Volume
30
Issue
1
Pages
37-69
ISSN
  • 0090-6905 (ISSN-L)
  • 1573-6555
DOI
10.1023/a:1005204207369
OpenAlex
W1498096105
Cited by
508
References
122
Citations by year
2026: 16 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 37 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 32 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 20 · 2016: 25 · 2015: 32 · 2014: 25 · 2013: 40 · 2012: 30
FWCI
0.60
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
Locations
  • Journal of Psycholinguistic Research (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
National Institute of Mental Health (MH-58189, R01MH058189)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
Keywords
procedural memory, mental lexicon, mental grammar, associative memory, temporal lobe, frontal cortex, basal ganglia, morphological complexity, morphological productivity, double dissociation, implicit learning, symbolic computation, language acquisition, computational models of language, grammar learning
MeSH terms
Aphasia, Brain, Brain Diseases, Electroencephalography, Frontal Lobe, Humans, Linguistics, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Memory, Psycholinguistics, Semantics, Tomography, Emission-Computed, Vocabulary, Magnetoencephalography

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