A Model of Bootstrapping for the Data-Oriented Infant

My intention in this paper is to outline and motivate a novel theory of syntactic bootstrapping, Exemplar-Based Phonological Bootstrapping (EBPB), based on Stochastic Tree-Substitution Grammar. Because I have outlined the basic structure of STSG in other places for assessed work on this degree, I will not recapitulate that work in the body of the present paper, but will instead quote it in full in Appendix A, and hereafter assume that the reader is acquainted with STSG. My hypothesis is that the ontogenetic origin of syntactic structure lies in phonological structure. I will first outline my theory as to how this takes place, and proceed to show that the theory is motivated by the empirical research into the schedule of early phonological and syntactic development. There is however a caveat that must be appended to all of this. STSG is a probabilistic, emergentistic theory of language, and to properly determine whether or not the theory I am about to outline really does make the predictions I think it makes, it will be necessary to model the theory computationally. The present paper, therefore, only amounts to a summary of my reasons for believing that such a computational project is worth pursuing, and likely to be successful.