Objective
Children learn their target language early, fast and efficiently. For instance, nine-month-old infants already display knowledge of the phonotactics of their target language, namely have been shown to react differently to licit versus illicit sound combinations. Children must thus rely on a remarkably efficient phonotactic learning procedure. What does it look like? According to the error-driven learning model, the learner maintains a current hypothesis of the target adult phonotactics and keeps slightly updating its current hypothesis whenever it makes a mistake on the incoming stream of data from the adult language, until it makes no more mistakes. This learning model is very popular in the current acquisition literature because of its cognitive plausibility: it models the observed acquisition gradualness, as it describes a stepwise progression towards the target adult grammar; it relies on surface phonology, without requiring any knowledge of morphology (that plausibly develops later than phonotactics); and it does not impose unrealistic memory requirements, as it only looks at a piece of data at the time without keeping track of previously seen data. Yet, computational phonology has failed so far to develop a computationally sound implementation of the error-driven learning model. This project aims at filling this gap. Two complementary directions are pursued. An analytical direction geared towards learnability uses tools from Machine Learning to investigate the computational efficiency of the error-driven learning model, focusing on issues such as convergence, correctness, error bounds, and robustness. This analytical strategy is complemented by large scale simulations, that test the model on a large database of infant-directed speech and child acquisition data. Combining a computational perspective focused on learnability with a modeling perspective based on acquisition data will allow my project to break new ground in child language acquisition.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences computer and information sciences databases
- humanities languages and literature linguistics phonology
- natural sciences computer and information sciences artificial intelligence machine learning
- social sciences psychology psycholinguistics
You need to log in or register to use this function
We are sorry... an unexpected error occurred during execution.
You need to be authenticated. Your session might have expired.
Thank you for your feedback. You will soon receive an email to confirm the submission. If you have selected to be notified about the reporting status, you will also be contacted when the reporting status will change.
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
3584 CS Utrecht
Netherlands
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.