On the Inseparability of Grammar and the Lexicon: Evidence from Acquisition, Aphasia and Real-time Processing

Elizabeth Bates Judith C. Goodman
1997 Language and Cognitive Processes  
Within linguistic theory, many phenomena that were previously handled by a separate grammatical component have been moved into the lexicon; in some theories, the contrast between grammar and the lexicon has disappeared altogether. In a review of findings from language development, language breakdown and real-time processing, we conclude that the case for a modular distinction between grammar and the lexicon has been overstated, and that the evidence to date is compatible with a unified
more » ... t account. Studies of normal children show that the emergence of grammar is highly dependent upon vocabulary size, a finding confirmed and extended in atypical populations. Studies of language breakdown in older children and adults provide no evidence for a modular dissociation between grammar and the lexicon; some structures are especially vulnerable to brain damage (e.g., function words, noncanonical word orders), but this vulnerability is also observed in neurologically intact individuals under perceptual degradation or cognitive overload. Finally, on-line studies provide evidence for early and intricate interactions between lexical and grammatical information in normal adults. A possible characterization of this unified lexical processor is offered, based on distributed representations in recurrent neural networks.
doi:10.1080/016909697386628 fatcat:swiuttnsurbivczduoqekzsf3m