Chomsky proposes a reformulation of the theory of transformational generative grammar that takes recent developments in the descriptive analysis of particular ...

The question I hope to answer is brief: What does every speaker of a natural language know? My answer is briefer still: Nothing, or at least nothing interesting. Explaining the question, and making the answer plausible, is a longer job.

A set of hypotheses is formulated for a connectionist approach to cognitive modeling. These hypotheses are shown to be incompatible with the hypotheses underlying traditional cognitive models. The connectionist models considered are massively parallel numerical computational systems that are a kind of continuous dynamical system. The numerical variables in the system correspond semantically to fine-grained features below the level of the concepts consciously used to describe the task domain. The level of analysis is intermediate between those of symbolic cognitive models (...) and neural models. The explanations of behavior provided are like those traditional in the physical sciences, unlike the explanations provided by symbolic models. (shrink)

In Connectionism and the Philosophy of Psychology, Horgan and Tienson articulate and defend a new view of cognition.