Partial blocking and associative learning

Linguistics and Philosophy 29 (5):587 - 615 (2006)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

We are going to explain partial blocking as the result of diachronic processes based on what we will call associative learning. Especially, we argue that the task posed by partial blocking phenomena is to explain their emergence from unambiguous and fully expressive languages. This contrasts with approaches that presuppose underspecified semantic meanings or ineffability like Bidirectional Optimality Theory (Bi–OT) and some game theoretic explanations. We introduce a formal framework based on learning, speaker’s preferences and pure semantics for describing diachronic strengthening of meaning. Moreover, we show how the diachronic development of systems of semantically co–extensive forms can be described in terms of a complete system of diachronic laws.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 97,042

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
151 (#132,855)

6 months
10 (#616,985)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations