Dr. Vito Pirrelli
The talk is intended to make an assessment of the current debate on the processing of regular, sub-regular and idiosyncratic inflections from an interdisciplinary perspective, by tapping existing experimental and empirical evidence and current models (both theoretical and computational) of word processing and learning. We contend that the long-lasting melee among rule-based, hybrid and purely associative approaches to the problem can be seen in an entirely different light if we consider recent advances in computational modeling and morphology theorizing. The theoretical and psychological reality of paradigms, the observation of graded morphological effects in word processing and the possibility for some neural networks to model word structure at a considerable level of abstraction allow us to pursue the hypothesis of an indirect correspondence between theoretical principles of grammar organization (lexicon vs. rules) and processing substrates (storage vs. computation). According to this hypothesis, differential effects in human language behavior are the complex outcome of uniform learning and processing principles. This will be illustrated through analysis of computer simulations of morphology learning sessions carried out through Self-organizing Maps.
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