An Iterative Strategy for Language Learning

One of the major challenges of language acquisition is the fact that the auditory signal received by a child underdetermines the structural description of the utterance. This paper approaches the problem by capitalizing on the optimizing structure of Optimality Theory. The learner uses a hypothesized grammar to make a best guess at the full structural description of an observed overt form, lling in the hidden structure not apparent. The learner uses it to modify their grammar, despite the fact that the full description is based in part on the previous (most likely wrong) grammar. The claim is that the learner can go back and forth between estimating the hidden structure and estimating the grammar, eventually converging on the correct grammar. The results of some simulations are presented in support of the claim. The author would like to thank Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky for many valuable discussions. Helpful comments and discussion were also provided by Elan Dresher, John McCarthy, Joe Pater, two anonymous Lingua reviewers, the participants of the second Rutgers/UMass Joint Class Meeting, and especially the organizers and participants of the BCN Workshop on Con icting Constraints.