No subject

[Clay M Bond]

>We think that the exact performance level and pattern of the model is not
>the only test of its validity, for the following reasons:
>
>1) Such models work only insofar as they presuppose rule-based
>structures.
>
>2) The past-tense overgeneralization errors are errors of behavior not
>knowledge.

These are not reasons.  They are only so if both sides accept that structures
are rule-based and that there is some difference between behavior and know-
ledge.  For those who do not accept these assumptions, you have no test of
validity; you cannot evaluate a model if you are making different assumptions.


>The exact performance level and pattern of children or models is
>of limited importance for another reason: what is at issue is
>linguistic KNOWLEDGE, not language behavior.  There is
>considerable evidence that the overgeneralization behavior is a
>speech production error, not an error of linguistic knowledge. 

Again, there is no such evidence without first assuming that there exists
some difference between knowledge and behavior.  

>representational scheme.  We think this may be their ultimate
>contribution to behavioral science.  But they solve the puzzle
>about the relationship between structure and behavior no more
>than an adding machine tells us about the relationship between
>the nature of numbers and how children add and subtract. 

Once again, you have made no point above.  Your arguments are remarkably
similar to SLA projects which start out assuming the existence of UG, present
data, and then conclude that UG exists.

Whether one takes an agnostic position on these related differentiations,
knowledge/behavior, competence/performance, brain/mind, micro/macrocognition
is not relevant.  What is relevant is that those who insist that these dif-
ferentiations exists are obligated to show empirically exactly how they
operate, where they reside, and how they map onto actual neurological pro-
cesses, something they have conveniently ignored so far.  That they must
exist is highly debateable, to say the least; this, I think, is possibly
the greatest contribution connectionism has offered.  Until such time as
these things are proven, they will remain religious issues/tenets.

Clay Bond
Indiana University Department of Linguistics, bondc at iuvax.cs.indiana.edu