learning nouns and adjectives a connectionist strongaccountstrong.pdf

LANGUAGE AND COGNITIVE PROCESSES, 1998, 13 (2/3), 269–306 Learning Nouns and Adjectives: A Connectionist Account Michael Gasser Computer Science and Linguistics Departments, Indiana University, USA Linda B. Smith Psychology Department, Indiana University, USA Why do children learn nouns such as cup faster than dimensional adjectives such as big? Most explanations of this phenomenon rely on prior knowledge of the noun–adjective distinction or on the logical priority of nouns as the arguments of predicates. In this article we examine an alternative account, one which relies instead on properties of the semantic categories to be learned and of the word-learning task itself. We isolate four such properties: The relative size, the relative compactness, and the degree of overlap of the regions in representational space associated with the categories, and the presence or absence of lexical dimensions (what colour) in the linguistic context of a word. In a set of ve experiments, we trained a simple connectionist network to label input objects in particular linguistic contexts. The network learned categories resembling nouns with respect to the four properties faster than it learned categories resembling adjectives. Young children learn nouns more rapidly and with fewer errors than they learn adjectives. The nouns that children so readily learn typically label concrete things such as BLOCK1 and DOG. The adjectives that young children learn with greater difculty label the perceptible properties of these same objects, for example, RED and WET. Why are concrete nouns easier for young children to learn than dimensional adjectives? It is common in the study of cognitive development to explain such differe