Models of Language and Multiword Expressions.

Pablo Contreras Kallens,Morten H Christiansen

doi:10.3389/frai.2022.781962

Pablo Contreras Kallens, Morten H Christiansen

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/frai.2022.781962

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Abstract

Traditional accounts of language postulate two basic components: words stored in a lexicon, and rules that govern how they can be combined into meaningful sentences, a grammar. But, although this words-and-rules framework has proven itself to be useful in natural language processing and cognitive science, it has also shown important shortcomings when faced with actual language use. In this article, we review evidence from language acquisition, sentence processing, and computational modeling that shows how multiword expressions such as idioms, collocations, and other meaningful and common units that comprise more than one word play a key role in the organization of our linguistic knowledge. Importantly, multiword expressions straddle the line between lexicon and grammar, calling into question how useful this distinction is as a foundation for our understanding of language. Nonetheless, finding a replacement for the foundational role the words-and-rules approach has played in our theories is not straightforward. Thus, the second part of our article reviews and synthesizes the diverse approaches that have attempted to account for the central role of multiword expressions in language representation, acquisition, and processing.

Highlights

Each of us in our lifetime will only ever hear or speak a finite number of sentences, yet we can understand and produce an infinite number of sentences as long as they are grammatical and we know the words that appear in them
Not unlike how a limited number of types of atoms can combine into the unlimited infinitude of the universe, a limited number of words can be combined into an unlimited set of sentences
We started this article by suggesting that the distinction between lexicon and grammar has traditionally played a central role in explaining how language is understood

Summary

Models of Language and Multiword Expressions

Reviewed by: Ray Jackendoff, Tufts University, United States Peter W. Traditional accounts of language postulate two basic components: words stored in a lexicon, and rules that govern how they can be combined into meaningful sentences, a grammar. This words-and-rules framework has proven itself to be useful in natural language processing and cognitive science, it has shown important shortcomings when faced with actual language use. We review evidence from language acquisition, sentence processing, and computational modeling that shows how multiword expressions such as idioms, collocations, and other meaningful and common units that comprise more than one word play a key role in the organization of our linguistic knowledge.

INTRODUCTION

Idiomatic and Formulaic Expressions

The Pervasiveness of Familiarity

Findings

CONCLUSION