Like dishwashing detergents, all analogies are not the same: a commentary on Ambridge (2020)

Loes Koring, Iain Giblin, Rosalind Thornton*, Stephen Crain

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

    2 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    This response argues against the proposal that novel utterances are formed by analogy with stored exemplars that are close in meaning. Strings of words that are similar in meaning or even identical can behave very differently once inserted into different syntactic environments. Furthermore, phrases with similar meanings but different underlying syntactic structures can give rise to disparities in meaning in particular contexts. In short, analogy falls short of explaining both adult knowledge of language and children’s syntactic development.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)596-599
    Number of pages4
    JournalFirst Language
    Volume40
    Issue number5-6
    Early online date6 Feb 2020
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Oct 2020

    Keywords

    • analogy
    • formal linguistics
    • hierarchical structure
    • linguistic principles
    • Universal Grammar

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