{"pk":25631,"title":"Explaining the Number Hierarchy","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Greenberg’s (1963) Universal 34 states that “No language has\na trial number unless it has a dual. No language has a dual\nunless it has a plural.” We present an associative model of\nthe acquisition of grammatical number based on the Rescorla-\nWagner learning theory (Rescorla & Wagner, 1972) that predicts\nthis generalization. Number as a real-world category is\ninherently structured: higher numerosity sets are mentioned\nless frequently than lower numerosity sets, and higher numerosity\nsets always contain lower numerosity sets. Using\nsimulations, we demonstrate that these facts, along with general\nprinciples of probabilistic learning, lead to the emergence\nof Greenberg’s Number Hierarchy","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"Linguistics; Language acquisition; Learning;\nComputer simulation"}],"section":"Papers","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5917s4b8","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Robert","middle_name":"","last_name":"Malouf","name_suffix":"","institution":"San Diego State University","department":""},{"first_name":"Farrell","middle_name":"","last_name":"Ackerman","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of California, San Diego","department":""},{"first_name":"Scott","middle_name":"","last_name":"Seyfarth","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of California, San Diego","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2015-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/25631/galley/15255/download/"}]}