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The Competition Model Brian MacWhinney- CMU

Elizabeth Bates Csaba Pléh Michèle Kail

Janet McDonald Antonella Devescovi Klaus-Michael Köpcke

Kerry Kilborn Takehiro Ito Ovid Tzeng

Judit Osman-Sági Jeffrey Sokolov Beverly Wulfeck

Vera Kempe Arturo Hernandez Ping Li

Yoshinori Sasaki

Empirical Results Published in:

MacWhinney, B., & Bates, E. (Eds.) The crosslinguistic study of sentence processing. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

15 articles since then

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1. The Input

A. Lexical Functionalism -- constructions

B. Input-driven Learning -- cues, frequencies Cue validity predicts cue strength [p(function)|form] - comprehension

[p(form)|function] - production

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2. The Learner

Distributed representations -> transfer Emergent modularity

Neuronal commitment, automaticity Capacity

Functional neural circuits Perspective-taking

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3. The Context

Classroom context Negative feedback is positive feedback Instructional format interacts with learner

characteristics Role of computerized instruction Setting up input contexts

Role of lexical richness Learner must learn how to learn

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1A. Lexical Functionalism

Form(cue, device)

Function(role, meaning)

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Competition between devicesCompetition between interpretations

AgentMarking

PatientMarking

AgentFunction

PatientFunction

hidden

competition

competition

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Cue validity -> cue strengthCues -> Interpretations Comprehension

Meanings -> Devices Production

hidden

pre

pertopact

thenomagr init

defgiv

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Some cues

The tiger pushes the bear.

The bear the tiger pushes.

Pushes the tiger the bear.

The dogs the eraser push.

The dogs the eraser pushes.

The cat push the dogs.

Il gatto spingono i cani.

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The dog was chased by the cat.

Comprehension - Interpretations compete

Agent: The dog vs. the cat

Patient: The dog vs. the cat Production - Devices compete

Dog placement: preverbal, postverbal, by-clause

Cat placement: preverbal, postverbal, by-clause

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Cue interactions

• Peaceful coexistence• Cue coalitions• Competition between interpretations during

comprehension• Competition between devices during

production• Change from category leakage and

reinterpretation

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Cues vary across languages

English: The pig loves the farmer

SV > VO > Agreement

German: Das Schwein liebt den Bauer.

Den Bauer liebt das Schwein

Case > Agreement > Animacy>Word Order

Spanish:El cerdo quiere al campesino.

Al campesino le quiere el cerdo.

"Case" > Agreement > Clitic > Animacy > Word Order

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Exotic Patterns

Navajo:

*Yas lééchaa’í yi-stin.

snow dog him-frooze.

Lééchaaa’ yas bi-stin

dog snow him-frooze

7-level hierachy of Animacy -- switch reference

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Basic results

Reliable Cues Dominate Cue Strengths Summate Competition Cells show most variability

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Ungrammaticality

Continuity for pockets of grammaticality Hungarian possessive for accusative Croatian neutralized case in masculine Japanese “wa” marking

Slowdown for grammatical sentences in Russian, Hungarian, Spanish without the “preferred cue”

Cue summation for pronominal processing

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English Word Order

NVN VNN NNV0

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Language by Word Order Cognition (1982)

German

Italian

English

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Italian Agreement

Ag0 Ag1 Ag20

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40

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Language by AgreementJVLVB 1984

German

English

Italian

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English Children

2 3 4 5 Adult0

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20

30

40

50

60English

Age

Word Order

Animacy

Agreement

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Hungarian Children

3 4 5 60

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20

30

40

50

Hungarian

Age

Case

Animacy

Word Order

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Italian Children

2 3 4 5 Adult0

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20

30

40

50

60

Italian

Age

Animacy

Word Order

Agreement

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Cue validity (availability)

Task frequencyF(task T) / F(all tasks)

Simple availabilityF(cue A present) / F (all cases of task)

Contrast availabilityF(cue A present ^ cue A contrasts)

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Cue validity (reliability)

Simple reliabilityF(cue A present ^ cue A correct) /

F (cue A present)

Contrast reliabilityF(cue A present ^ cue A contrasts ^ cue A correct) /

F (cue A present^cue A contrasts)

Conflict reliabilityF(cue A conflicts with other cue ^ cue A wins) /

F(cue A conflicts with any cue)

SA -> CA -> SR -> CR -> Conflict transition

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Cue validity vs. cue strength

Cue validity is based on (tedious) counts of texts

Cue strength is first assessed through ANOVA analyses in Competition Model experiments

Cue strength is then modeled using MLE

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MLE models of cue strength

P (first noun) = ∏ S i (first) / ∏ S j (others) Two choice case

P (first noun) = ∏ S i (first) /∏ S i (first) + ∏ S j (second)

Models vary number of parameters and can be additive or multiplicative

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Pronouns - an online example

MacDonald and MacWhinney (1989) Just before dawn, Lisa was fishing with Ron in the boat,

and she caught a big trout right away.

and lots of big trout were biting. Priming of referent at 500 msec for unambiguous

gender. Slowdown in processing of probes right at 0msec

delay when there is a gender contrast only.

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Pronouns - implicit causalityMcDonald and MacWhinney (1994)Probes presented at 4 Delay Times:

D1 D2 D3 D4

* 100 * pro * 200 * end *

Gary amazed Ellen time after time, because he was so talented.

N1 V N2 filler , because PRO predicate.

Probes: referent Garynon-referent Ellendistractor Frankverb amazed

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Results and Competition

1. Slowdown in processing of probes at pronoun when there is a contrast.

2. Facilitation from pronoun onwards when first noun advantage agrees with implicit causality.

3. Activation of N2 right at the pronoun for E-S verbs!

4. Standard Competition Model cue summations and competitions, all right when they should occur.

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2. The Learner

Distributed representations -> transfer Emergent modularity

Neuronal commitment, automaticity Capacity

Functional neural circuits Perspective-taking

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Parasitic Learning -- Kroll

Translation route““turtle”turtle” ““tortuga”tortuga”

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Transfer

Principle: Everything that “can transfer” will. Connectionism predicts transfer Word order can transfer Phonology can transfer Meaning can transfer Morphological markings cannot Early bilinguals as mixed

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Transfer beyond the word

I want to go to school. Yo querer ir a escuela.

I would like to go to school. (I) would-like to-go to the-school. xx quer-rí-a ir a la-escuela.

Do you want to eat at my house? You want not want at me eat, huh? Translation with feedback may not be so bad.

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Emergent modularity

Growing modules Farah and McClelland Jacobs, Jordan, Barto

Kim et al. fMRI study

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Capacity restrictions

Detectability Complexity (for production) Assignability (memory load) Online load minimization

One good cue is enough (Russian, Spanish) Waiting for a reliable cue: Russian, Hungarian No use waiting for cue that will not be reliable,

German die Frau küßt der ...

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DutchL1 EnglishL2

NVN VNN NNV0

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Group 1

Group 2

Monolinguals in

Fig 8.5 Group x word order interaction in English

English

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JapaneseL1 EnglishL2

NVN VNN NNV0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100Novice JE 2MonolingualAdvancedMonolingual

Fig 8.7 Group x word order interaction in English

Japanese

EnglishJE2

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EnglishL1 DutchL2

English E/D 1 E/D 2 E/D 3 Dutch0

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40

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Noun animacy

Case inflection

Word order

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DutchL1 EnglishL2

Dutch D/E 1 D/E 2 D/E 3 English0

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40

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Noun AnimacyCase InflectionWord Order

Group

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Aphasics - Word Order

NVN VNN NNV0

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40

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Language x Group x Word OrderBrain and Language (1986)

Word Order

English Broca

English Normals

Italians

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Aphasics - Agreement

Ag0 Ag1 Ag20

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40

60

80

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Language x Group x AgreementBrain and Language (1986)

Agreement

English Broca

Italian Broca

English Normal

Italian Normal

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Case in Croatian NormalsCase in Croatian Normals

Nom-Acc Acc-Nom Ambiguous0

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40

60

80

100

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Case x Animacy in Serbo-Croatian Normals

Case

AA

AIIA

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Case in Croatian Aphasics

Nom-Acc Acc-Nom Ambiguous0

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40

60

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Case

Case x Animacy in Serbo-Croatian Broca's

AI

AA

IA

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Word Order in Production

SVO SOV Other0

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EnglishGermanItalianTurkish

Word Order in Broca's Aphasics

EG

I

TE

G I

T

E G I T

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Some generalizations

Children learn the most valid cues first. Aphasics preserve the most valid cues.

They also rigidify on the strongest devices L2 learners attempt transfer, but then learn

cues. They gradually reach L1 levels of cue strength.

Connectionism predicts transfer.

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3. The Context

Providing negative evidence

meaning

word wordcompetition

episodic support

analogicpressure

go + PAST

went go + edcompetition

episodicsupport

analogicpressure

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Word learning - Merriman

demitassse cupcompetition

episodic

support

extensional

pressure

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Recovery in syntax

Dative Role

to ___competition

“to”

episodic

supportextensional

pressure

V + NP + NP

verb

episodic

support

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Complex cases

"pour arg1 arg2 arg3 "

"1 pours 2 into 3" "1 pours 3 with 2"

competition

lexical frame group frame:

1 verbs 3 with 2

group frame:

1 verbs 2 into 3

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MacDonald et al.

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MacDonald et al.

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Open issues

Neuronal Commitment Social Identification Resonance Setting up Input Contexts

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Conclusions

Models of Input, Learner, and Context must interlock

Competition Model is properly accounts for what we know about language learning, but

The model must be developed still further.