morphological? - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

and assigned the same class. Finally, combinatorial patterns are defined in terms of acquired
classes, a generalization step turning patterns into rules proper. This logical sketch may vary
considerably in aspects of detail, and learning models may disagree about the amount and type of
knowledge required at each step. Be that as it may, however, it seems impossible to avoid the
conclusion that lexical storage and rule--based combinatoriality crucially co-determine each other
in Morphology learning.
To sum up, WR theorists postulate a sort of direct correspondence (Miller & Chomsky 1963,
Clahsen, 2006) between theoretical principles of grammar organization (lexicon vs. rules) and
processing substrates (storage vs. computation). However simple, the hypothesis runs against a
wide range of empirical, theoretical and logical facts and could only be the artefact of an outdated
conception of memory as rote storage. In our view, there is wide room for pursuing the alternative
hypothesis of an indirect correspondence. Observed differential effects in human language
behaviour could be the complex outcome of uniform learning and processing principles. The
present talk describes a computer learning model based on Asynchronous Cascaded Self-
Organizing Maps (AXOMs) and puts it to the challenging test of accounting for some apparently
paradoxical effects in child development of inflection Morphology. The psycholinguistic
implications of this set of experiments on issues of storage and computation are discussed at some
length . In particular, by observing the dynamic behaviour of two AXOMs trained on Italian and
English data respectively, we note that paradigmatic relations emerge slowly on the English secondlevel
SOM because of lack of systematic contrast in many present indicative cells. At earlier stages,
the English map tends to look for principles of formal organization other than morphological ones,
and it homes in on natural inflection classes only after being exposed to a large number of different
stems. Such a transition from a lexical to a paradigmatic organization is in fact much easier in the
light of Italian data where the systematic presence of a different formal marker for each present
indicative cell allows the map to acquire the morphologically relevant contrast comparatively early
(Calderone, Herreros & Pirrelli, 2007).
References
Albright, A. (2005), “The morphological basis of paradigm levelling”, in Downing L.J., T.A. Hall,
R. Raffelsiefen (eds), Paradigms in Phonological Theory, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Albright A. and Hayes, B. (2003), “Rules vs. Analogy in English Past Tenses: A
Computational/Experimental Study”, Cognition, 90: 119-161.
Bates, E. and Goodman, J.C. (1999), On the Emergence of Grammar From the Lexicon, in
MacWhinney, B. (ed), Emergence of Language, Lawrence Erlbaum, 29-79.
Behrens, H. and Tomasello, M. (1999), “And what about the Chinese?”, Behavioral and Brain
Sciences, 22: 1014.
Burzio, L. (1998), “Multiple Correspondence”, Lingua 103, 79-109.
Burzio, L. (2000), “Cycles, Non-Derived-Environment Blocking, and Correspondence”, in
Dekkers J., F. van der Leeuw and J. van de Weijer (eds) Optimality Theory: Phonology, Syntax, and
Acquisition. Oxford University Press, 47-87.
Burzio, L. (2005) “Sources of Paradigm Uniformity”, in Downing L.J., T. A. Hall, R. Raffelsiefen
(eds.) Paradigms in Phonological Theory, Oxford: Oxford University
135