Research report 2013 - Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
Computational models of language acquisition and production
Authors
Fitz, Hartmut
Departments
Neurobiologie der Sprache, Nijmegen
Summary
Relative clauses are a syntactic device to create complex sentences and they make language structurally productive. Despite a considerable number of experimental studies, it is still largely unclear how children learn relative clauses and how these are processed in the language system. Researchers at the MPI for Psycholinguistics used a computational learning model to gain novel insights into these issues. The model explains the differential development of relative clauses in English as well as cross-linguistic differences.