Analogical Processes in Language Learning

Introduction Language acquisition is a complex task, encompassing (at least) perception and categorization of phonemes, segmentation of speech, learning word meanings, and extracting morphological and syntactic regularities. The daunting nature of this task might suggest that a specialized module is required for language acquisition. Yet there is increasing evidence that general learning processes play a major role (e.g., Marcus et al, 1999; Saffran, Aslin & Newport, 1996). In this symposium we present the case for analogical comparison processes in language learning. Analogical comparison recruits a structure-mapping process between two instances that highlights their common relational structure—a critical feature in abstracting regular patterns across utterances. A further outcome of structuremapping is that alignable differences (differences that play the same role in the matching structure) become salient, and this can help learners notice key contrasts. The goal of this symposium is to show how individuals spontaneously use analogical reasoning in language learning. We bring together empirical work addressing language acquisition in young children and second language learners, across three different levels of linguistic structure: phonology, lexical semantics, and syntax. B. Pajak will present work showing that learners infer commonalities between observed phonetic contrasts in their native language, and that this leads them to expect analogous contrasts along the same dimensions when learning a new language. D. Gentner and R. Shao will how analogical processes help children learn new word meanings with limited exposure. They revisit the classic Carey and Bartlett (1978) fast-mapping study and show that structural alignment processes are critical for success. M. Goldwater and C. Echols address the role of analogical processes in learning constructions, using a structural priming paradigm. They show that structural priming in young children depends heavily on overall similarity between primes and target; further, they show that priming with high-similarity ‘easy’ primes renders children more likely to show priming from purely syntactic matches. Both these findings are directly parallel to work on analogical learning on nonlinguistic tasks. Adele Goldberg will be a discussant.