[CaCL] Modeling Syntax Acquisition with Cognitive Constraints

[Jin, Lifeng]

Hi,

I will give a practice talk in CACL this week:

Modeling Syntax Acquisition with Cognitive Constraints

Children seem to learn their first languages effortlessly, but how they 
are able to do this has been heatedly debated for many years among 
linguists.
Recent advances in computational linguistics have presented us a unique 
opportunity to explore the problem of syntax acquisition with 
computational modeling.
In this talk, I will first introduce syntax acquisition modeling, also 
known as grammar induction, from a theoretical perspective. I will then 
present our efforts in modeling syntax acquisition with statistical 
machine learning models with human memory constraints. Simulations using 
Bayesian and neural network models on natural data in many languages 
have provided insight into how language acquisition may happen without 
universals as inductive biases as well as how cognitive constraints may 
interact with syntax acquisition. Finally I will discuss some 
theoretical considerations and future directions for acquisition modeling.

Lifeng