dynamic reprstns and lang

[Robert Port]

This paper will be presented at the Cognitive Science Society 
meeting later this week.  It proposes that dynamic systems suggest ways
to expand the range of representational systems.

		`REPRESENTING ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE'  
      by   Robert F. Port (Departments of Linguistics and Computer Science)
      and  Timothy van Gelder (Department of Philosophy)
         Cognitive Science Program, Indiana University, Bloomington.

  We provide a conceptual framework for understanding similarities and 
  differences among  various schemes of compositional representation, 
  emphasizing problems that arise in modelling aspects of human language.  
  We propose six abstract dimensions that suggest a space of possible 
  compositional schemes.  Temporality and dynamics turn out to play 
  a key role in defining several of these dimensions.  From studying 
  how schemes fall into this space, it is apparent that there is no 
  single crucial difference between AI and connectionist approaches to 
  representation. Large regions of the space of compositional schemes remain 
  unexplored, such as the entire class of active, dynamic models that do 
  composition in time. These models offer the possibility of parsing real-time 
  input into useful segments, and thus potentially into linguistic units like 
  words and phrases.  A specific dynamic model implemented in a recurrent 
  network is presented.  This model was designed to simulate some aspects of
  human auditory perception but has implications for representation in general.
  

The paper can be obtained from Neuroprose at Ohio State University.
Use  ftp cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu.  Login as  anonymous  with 
neuron  as password.  Cd to pub/neuroprose.  Then  get port.langrep.ps.Z.
After uncompressing, do lpr (in Unix) to a postscript printer.

		Robert Port, Dept of Linguistics, 
		Memorial Hall, Indiana University, 47405
		812-855-9217