From Holophrases to Abstract Grammatical Constructions: Insights from Simulation Studies

The construction grammar framework provides a rich formalism for the characterization of development in language acquisition, in part because it allows for a graceful transition from idiom-like holophrases, to fully abstract argument constructions. From the perspective of learning complexity, this means that rather than mastering the grammar used by an adult to generate or understand an utterance, the child can exploit more direct correspondences between fixed utterances and their meanings in the form of holophrases, and then progressively apply procedures for generalization in order to develop an abstract argument construction repertoire. The current chapter presents a neuro-computational model that addresses aspects of the construction grammar formalism, and uses this model to explain a possible trajectory from idiom-like holophrases to progressively more abstract argument constructions. The goal of the current research is thus to test a theory of form to meaning mapping that takes substantial input from the proposals of usage based construction grammar analogical mapping from sentence to meaning (Fisher 1996), and cue coalitions that specify or identify the mappings (Bates et al. 1982). In particular, the model will provide a functional framework for analysis of the progression of schematicity (Croft 2001) or abstraction (Tomasello 2003) in the evolution of grammatical constructions from fixed structure " holophrases "-i.e. unparsed holistic utterances that correspond directly to a meaning-to fully productive abstract schematic constructions. The 2 essential idea that will be developed is that there are two complimentary mechanisms for mapping form to meaning. The first, which will be exploited during early development in the holophrase period, involves a direct link between the utterance structure representation and the meaning. The second involves a process that can " cut and paste " arguments into the representation of the utterance structure. The combination of the two mechanisms allows the development of progressively abstract argument constructions in which the form of the construction is processed by the first mechanism, and the insertion of specific arguments into the construction is processed by the second. The advantage of this approach is that the system can get started early with holistic form to meaning mappings before learning about word categories and the possible roles they can play in more abstract constructions. Within the nativist vs. usage-based debate, this work is positioned near the later. In the nativist context Chomsky (1959) defined a research program for linguistics in which language acquisition was characterized in terms of grammar induction, and …