Parallel Distributed Processing and Role Assignment Constraints

I believe that parallel-distributed processing models (i.e., conneelionist models which make use of distributed representations) provide the mechanisms that are needed for these lasks. Argument altachments and role assignments seem to require a consideration of the relative merits of competing possibilities (Marcus, 1980; Bates and MacWhinney, 1987; MaeWhinney, 1987), as deles lexical dlsambigualion. Conuectionist models provide a very natural substrate for these kinds of competition processes (Cottrell, 1985; Wallz and Pollack, 1985).