Language Acquisition and the Discovery of Phrase Structure

A computer program intended as a step towards an empirically adequate theory of first-language acquisition by children is presented. It has been tested on a sample of English transcribed as a sequence of word classes. The structures formed by the program correspond in many cases with recognized structures in English, and there is a significant correspondence between a parsing of the sample by the program and conventional surface-structure analysis. Anomalies in the program's performance are discussed.

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