Against stored abstractions: A radical exemplar model of language acquisition

Ambridge, Ben

doi:10.1177/0142723719869731

Cited by 185Language Development and DisordersSyntax, Semantics, Linguistic VariationCategorization, perception, and language

Against stored abstractions: A radical exemplar model of language acquisition

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Ambridge, Ben·2020·First Language

DOI 10.1177/0142723719869731

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Abstract

The goal of this article is to make the case for a radical exemplar account of child language acquisition, under which unwitnessed forms are produced and comprehended by on-the-fly analogy across multiple stored exemplars, weighted by their degree of similarity to the target with regard to the task at hand. Across the domains of (1) word meanings, (2) morphologically inflected words, (3) n-grams, (4) sentence-level constructions and (5) phonetics and phonology, accounts based on independently-represented abstractions (whether formal rules or prototype categories) fail for two reasons. First, it is not possible to posit abstractions that delineate possible and impossible form; e.g. that (1) rule in pool tables and data tables, but rule out chairs, (2) rule in the past-tense forms netted and bet but rule out * setted and * jet, (3) rule in the bigram f+t but rule out (probabilistically) v+t, (4) rule in both John feared Bill and John frightened Bill but rule out * John laughed Bill, (5) rule in Speaker A but rule out Speaker B as the person who produced a particular word (e.g. Sa’urday). Second, for each domain, empirical data provide evidence of exemplar storage that cannot be captured by putative abstractions: e.g. speakers prefer and/or show an advantage for (1) exemplar variation even within word-meaning ‘category boundaries’, (2) novel inflected forms that are similar to existing exemplars, (3) n-grams that have occurred frequently in the input, (4) SVO sentences with he as SUBJECT and it as OBJECT and (5) repeated productions of ‘the same’ word that are phonologically similar or, better still, identical. An exemplar account avoids an intractable lumping-or-splitting dilemma facing abstraction-based accounts and provides a unitary explanation of language acquisition across all domains; one that is consistent with models and empirical findings from the computational modelling and neuroimaging literature.

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Authors: Ambridge, B.
Affiliations: University of Liverpool (GB)
Corresponding author: Ambridge, Ben
ORCID: Ambridge, Ben
Venue: First Language
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2019-09-09
Volume: 40
Issue: 5-6
Pages: 509-559
ISSN: 0142-7237 (ISSN-L)
1740-2344
DOI: 10.1177/0142723719869731
OpenAlex: W2973169533
Cited by: 185
References: 205
Citations by year: 2026: 13 · 2025: 19 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 44 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 30 · 2020: 34 · 2019: 2
FWCI: 41.02
Type: journal article
Language: en
Open access: hybrid
doi.org
Licence: cc-by
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (unspecified)
Locations: First Language (publishedVersion, cc-by)
Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
Funders: H2020 European Research Council (681296: CLASS)
Economic and Social Research Council (ES/L008955/1)
Topics: Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Categorization, perception, and language
Keywords: exemplar models, language acquisition, child language, analogy, abstraction, word meaning, morphological inflection, n-grams, sentence construction, phonology, phonetics, category boundaries, novel word learning, computational modelling

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