Large Language Models and Generative Grammar

This video covers a recent topic of interest that is not addressed in the textbook itself. It looks at the question of whether LLMs like ChatGPT constitute a real challenge to Generative Grammar, particularly with respect to the issues of Universal Grammar and Structural Dependence (i.e. are the principles underlying human syntax deterministic and rule-based or are they probabilistic and based in statistical frequency. The conclusion drawn is that LLMs, while impressive and sophisticated, don't replicate the properties of human language COMPETENCE. They are based on large data sets unavailable to children learning a language and they make incorrect inferences about structure. By contrast they are extremely good at PERFORMANCE. So they effectively model something distinct from Generative Grammar and neither approach negates the other.

©2023, Andrew Carnie

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