The use of predictive dependencies in language learning

To what extent is linguistic structure learnable from statistical information in the input? This research investigated the role played by statistical learning in the acquisition of rudimentary phrase structure. One type of statistical cue which might assist in the discovery of hierarchical phrase structure given serially presented input is the dependencies. or predictive relationships. present between form classes within phrases. In order to determine whether learners can use this statistical information, adult and child participants were exposed to an artificial language which contained predictive dependencies as a cue to phrase structure. The results suggest that humans possess statistical learning mechanisms which may assist in the acquisition of this abstract component of natural language. (C) Academic Press 2001.