Re: THEORY: Storage Vs. Computation

No, I'd say that children learning language is an optimal
circumstance, since their brains are primed for it and they can do it
pretty much constantly (infants not having a whole lot else in the way
of responsibilities in most societies).  But yes, it is indeed one of
the things that sets limits on irregularity and suppletion in language
-- in short, which makes calculation rather than storage necessary
even though calculation is infinitely less efficient in *usage*.

Here's an analogy.  Two students take a physics test which requires
them to know a lot of mathematical formulas.  One has memorized the
correct formula to use for any of the situations on the test.  The
other has not memorized any of them, but has the minimal knowledge
necessary to derive the formulas from axioms when he needs them.  It's
a timed test.  Who's got the advantage?  The one who's stored the
information rather than having to compute it.  He loses nothing by
having these formulas in his memory, since human memory is not, in any
practical sense, limited.  However, the other guy *does* lose
something by having to compute them, since human computational
resources are very limited.  If he's smart, once he's computed a
formula, he will *remember* it so he doesn't have to waste time
computing it again.

Of course, the guy who derives the formulas doesn't have to spend any
time memorizing them, and that's where the downside of storage comes
in -- getting the information stored in the first place.

The only reason computation has to come in at all is due to
limitations in time and ability to *acquire* knowledge.
Irregularities and suppletions and the like are utterly unproblematic
from the point of view of language *use* but problematic from the
point of view of language *acquisition*.

So I'd say that language acquisition (especially under difficult
circumstances) regularizes; language use irregularizes (or at least in
language use there is no advantage in regularity since everything
possible will be stored rather than computed).

Ed Heil ------ edheil@postmark.net
--- http://purl.org/net/edheil ---

Nik Taylor wrote:

> Ed Heil wrote:
> > Didn't say it was.  Just said that situations where a lot of people
> > have to learn a language under less-than-optimal circumstances are a
> > normal means of simplification.
>
> Ah, like children learning language, hmmm?  :-)
>
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