Please post comments on Becker et al. and Hayes et al. here.
One thought on “Biased learning of alternations”
Minta Elsman
Re Hayes et al.
I was a bit disappointed by how vague the psuedotheory was about the grammar “biasing” learners for natural constraints and against unnatural constraints. How does this bias work? Do learners just focus on the natural constraints first because that’s what’s immediately accessible in the grammar? If a natural constraint conflicts with an unnatural constraint, how much and what kind of help does the unnatural constraint need to overcome the bias against it? While I understand the results of the study, I’m not sure quite what they mean, or what sort of theory it is that they support, since the authors aren’t clear about what the bias towards natural constraints is, how it is encoded, and how it works.
Re Hayes et al.
I was a bit disappointed by how vague the psuedotheory was about the grammar “biasing” learners for natural constraints and against unnatural constraints. How does this bias work? Do learners just focus on the natural constraints first because that’s what’s immediately accessible in the grammar? If a natural constraint conflicts with an unnatural constraint, how much and what kind of help does the unnatural constraint need to overcome the bias against it? While I understand the results of the study, I’m not sure quite what they mean, or what sort of theory it is that they support, since the authors aren’t clear about what the bias towards natural constraints is, how it is encoded, and how it works.