<div dir="ltr"><div>Dear All:</div><div><br></div><div>The subset principle is often mistakenly interpreted as favoring the most narrow grammar, or being coextensive with conservatism. Actually this is incorrect. The principle has to do with the size of the language (viz number of sentences generated), not with the restrictiveness of the rules or piecemeal learning vs. generalization.</div><div><br></div><div>In particular, the principle requires that for any two grammars under consideration by the learner, if grammar A generates the set of sentences {a}, which includes all of the sentences generated by grammar B, i.e., the set {b} plus the complementary set {b'} of sentences not generated by grammar B (In other words, the set {a} = {b + b'}), then {b} is a subset of {a}. For example, a grammar that contains an optional rule is a superset of a grammar that contains a obligatory rule for the same structure. According to the subset principle, if the learner starts out assuming grammar A, which generates the larger language, then there will be no direct evidence that this grammar is incorrect in the language input to the learner (assuming other idealizations like the no negative evidence assumption etc.) However, if one starts out with grammar B, which generates the subset language, then as soon as a sentence from {b'} is heard, then this will disconfirm the hypothesis that grammar B is correct. </div><div><br></div><div>In the case of the current question about headedness, it seems clear that the languages generated here are not in a subset-superset relation because they appear to generate languages of roughly the same size, but that are in overlapping distribution rather than one being a subset of the other. The differences have to do with the underlying structural descriptions, which can be learned from distributional factors like pronoun substitution, movement and so on. So, whether or not you believe in the subset principle as something that real children actually consider in real life language learning (which I have doubts about), it is important to get the logic right.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Peter Gordon</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 9:37 AM, Brian MacWhinney <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:macw@cmu.edu" target="_blank">macw@cmu.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word">Dear Maria Teresa,<div><br><div> In Fritz’s example, positive evidence for the second principle (NPs are head-initial) amounts to negative evidence for the first principle (all phrases are near initial). If one assumes a framework such as the Competition Model in which cues compete, then there is no problem with negative evidence, because the child would just be learning cue strength and the cue of NP would dominate over the general cue. This would reduce the problem to a case of a “benign” exception to the logical problem.</div><div> More importantly, if you compare Fritz’s four-stage pathway with that of the learning of the past tense, you will see that the order is largely wrong. For the past tense, it is the high frequency exceptions that are learned first, so the fourth step would come before the first in cases such as “went” or “fell”. Such irregularities in areas where we have clear evidence about the sequence might lead us to question the notion of pathways in general.</div><div><br></div><div>—Brian MacWhinney </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><span>n Sep 27, 2014, at 4:19 AM, <a href="mailto:mariateresa.guasti@unimib.it" target="_blank">mariateresa.guasti@unimib.it</a> wrote:</span><div><br><blockquote type="cite">
<div><span>
Hi,<br><br>
one comment on Brian about the pathway: if the child assumes 1., she can
move to 2. when she listen to head-initial NPs (and this is positive
evidence). It is like the past tense (regularization and then learn the
specific forms based on what one hears). Am I wrong?<br><br>
<br>
About the specific examples of head-initial/head final, there are
proposals in the literature that infants can decide about directionality
based on prosody. In one of the two papers, it is discussed the case of
German and Dutch (languages that have a mixed situation)<br><br>
</span><span><22e5549e.jpg></span><br><br>
<span><22e554ad.jpg></span><span><br><br>
<br><br>
Two more papers on the same issues:<br><br>
<br><br>
</span><span><22e554bd.jpg></span><br><br>
<br>
<span><22e554dc.jpg></span><div><div><br><br>
<br><br>
Maria Teresa Guasti<br><br>
<br>
At 06.04 27/09/2014, Brian MacWhinney wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Fritz and John,<br>
<br>
The general idea that children follow learning
pathways seems like a reasonable one. However, the question is
whether these pathways arise from preexisting universals or from the
actual encounter of children with the specifics of language. The
example of a pathway that Fritz provided involved a gradual retreat from
overgeneralization. It had these four steps:<br>
1. First s/he will assume that ALL phrases are head-final, even noun
phrases.<br>
2. Next s/he will assume that ALL NPs are head-initial<br>
3. Next s/he will learn the class of exceptions to 2.<br>
4. Finally, s/he will learn the purely idiosyncratic exceptions.<br>
<font face="Calibri"><br>
A pathway of this type is not in accord with the Subset Principle,
because that principle is fundamentally conservative, always favoring the
most narrow grammar. In the pathway Fritz describes, the child
starts out with a huge generalization and then has to retreat, possibly
relying on negative evidence. <br><br>
The idea that the child is fundamentally conservative crops up in many
accounts. For example, in my “Mechanisms of Language Acquisition”
book from 1987, Fodor and Crain argued for conservatism in the form of
the Subset Principle. I argued for it in terms of my theory of
item-based learning, and Berwick assumed it in his learning on error
analysis. The literature is full of evidence for conservatism from
older work by Maratsos and Kuczaj to newer work by Lieven, Rowland,
Ambridge, and colleagues. In the area of lexical
overgeneralization, there is similarly strong evidence for
conservatism.<br><br>
Of course, children are not always conservative. Often they are
missing forms and have to resort to overextension. However, I can’t
think of any evidence for the type of raw overextension from the very
beginning suggested by the learning pathway you propose. Is there
any empirical evidence for this?<br><br>
Underspecification, as illustrated by the initial collective
interpretation of distributive quantifiers such as “each” would seem to
be a counterexample. However, the conflict between distributive and
collective interpretations is often a bit opaque in actual communicative
contexts.<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="Calibri"> Brian MacWhinney<br>
<br>
</font>On Sep 25, 2014, at 2:09 PM, Grinstead, John
<<a href="mailto:grinstead.11@osu.edu" target="_blank">grinstead.11@osu.edu</a>>
wrote:<br><br>
<blockquote type="cite">Hi Fritz,<br><br>
It's interesting to think about an alternative to parameters, so thank
you for starting a conversation.<br><br>
That said, I can't really think of any syntactic phenomena that have the
properties you have mentioned. That is, starting with one look and then
completely switching to the opposite is pretty well unattested, as far as
I can remember, at least in morphology, syntax, semantics (subjects, DO
clitics, articles, mass-count, double objects, subject case, subject-aux
inversion). All of these constructions get studied because there are
variations from the adult patterns, but most of them are relatively
subtle. <br><br>
So, child English speakers start using accusative case pronouns in
subject position for a while (e.g. Him cry.), but don't switch to a
completely Ergative-Absolutive system (not really sure what that would
look like, anyway, but it would probably involve some interesting forms
in object position that we don't ever see). Subject-verb agreement can
take a while to develop in Spanish, but kids don't start marking direct
object agreement (as in Swahili or Georgian) or indirect object agreement
on verbs (as in Euskera) all of a sudden. <br><br>
Most constructions just look adult-like. <br><br>
It's like they're not willing to take a stab at a construction until they
have a pretty good idea of what's going on and when they do, it looks
pretty good. This is Stephen Crain's "conservative learner" (I
think that was his phrase) and William Snyder's "Grammatical
Conservatism".<br><br>
The exceptions are not that numerous and they are what we spend most of
our time thinking about.<br><br>
Starting from something that seems unspecified and moving to something
that's specified, on the other hand, is maybe more frequently observed.
So Brooks and Syrett and Musolino and Pagliarini have observed in
separate studies that children's interpretations of distributive
quantifiers like "each" seem to allow them in collective
situations. This tolerance gradually goes away and is replaced by a
restrictive interpretation.<br><br>
I hope that helps.<br><br>
Best,<br><br>
John<br><br>
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Associate Editor<br>
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Department of Spanish and Portuguese<br>
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<br>
From: Frederick Newmeyer
<<a href="mailto:fredericknewmeyer@gmail.com" target="_blank">
fredericknewmeyer@gmail.com</a>><br>
Reply-To:
"<a href="mailto:info-childes@googlegroups.com" target="_blank">
info-childes@googlegroups.com</a>"
<<a href="mailto:info-childes@googlegroups.com" target="_blank">
info-childes@googlegroups.com</a>><br>
Date: Thursday, September 25, 2014 1:24 PM<br>
To:
"<a href="mailto:info-childes@googlegroups.com" target="_blank">
info-childes@googlegroups.com</a>"
<<a href="mailto:info-childes@googlegroups.com" target="_blank">
info-childes@googlegroups.com</a>><br>
Subject: 'learning paths' instead of parameters<br><br>
Dear colleagues,<br><br>
I hope that you don’t mind a question from an outsider who has a very
small mastery of the acquisition literature.<br><br>
There is a recently-developed approach to formal syntax that has
abandoned the idea of innate parameters directing the course of
acquisition. In their place, it posits universal ‘learning paths’,
determined by ‘general cognitive optimization strategies’, and whose
operation to a considerable degree mimics the work once done by parameter
hierarchies. In a nutshell, it posits that for any structural (or
constructional?) domain, the child makes the most general hypothesis
first, and then gradually over time zeros in on the adult
grammar.<br><br>
Let me give a concrete example. Let’s say that a language is consistently
head-final except in NP, where the noun precedes its complements.
However, there is a definable class of nouns in this language do follow
their complements. And a few nouns in this language behave
idiosyncratically in terms of the positioning of their specifiers and
complements (much like the English word ‘enough’, which is one of the few
degree modifiers that follows the adjective). <br><br>
According to the theory I am describing, the child will go through the
following stages of acquisition:<br>
1. First s/he will assume that ALL phrases are head-final, even noun
phrases.<br>
2. Next s/he will assume that ALL NPs are head-initial<br>
3. Next s/he will learn the class of exceptions to 2.<br>
4. Finally, s/he will learn the purely idiosyncratic exceptions.<br><br>
Is there any evidence that acquisition actually proceeds in this
‘orderly’ manner? I remember from years ago some inconclusive discussion
about the ‘subset principle’, but I would very very interested to hear
what you have to say about recent work that bears on the scenario that I
have described above.<br><br>
Thanks!<br><br>
fritz<br><br>
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<u></u><p>
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Full Professor of Linguistics and Psycholinguistics<br>
University of Milano-Bicocca<br>
Department of Psychology<br>
Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1<br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr">Peter Gordon, Associate Professor<div>Biobehavioral Sciences Department, Box 180</div><div>Teachers College, Columbia University</div><div>1152 Thorndike Hall</div><div>525 W120th St. </div><div>New York, NY 10027</div><div>Phone: <a href="tel:212%20678-8162" value="+12126788162" target="_blank">212 678-8162</a></div><div>Fax: <a href="tel:212%20678-8233" value="+12126788233" target="_blank">212 678-8233</a></div><div>E-mail: <a href="mailto:pgordon@tc.edu" target="_blank">pgordon@tc.edu</a></div><div>Web Page:<a href="http://www.tc.columbia.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328" target="_blank">http://www.tc.columbia.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328</a></div><div><br></div></div>
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