The use of predictive dependencies in language learning

To what extent is linguistic structure learnable from statistical informati on in the input? This research investigated the role played by statistical learning in the acquisition of rudimentary phrase structure. One type of st atistical cue which might assist in the discovery of hierarchical phrase st ructure given serially presented input is the dependencies. or predictive r elationships. present between form classes within phrases. In order to dete rmine whether learners can use this statistical information, adult and chil d participants were exposed to an artificial language which contained predi ctive dependencies as a cue to phrase structure. The results suggest that h umans possess statistical learning mechanisms which may assist in the acqui sition of this abstract component of natural language. (C) Academic Press 2 001.