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Learning What Not to Say: The Role of Statistical Preemption and Categorization in A-Adjective Production

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

Jeremy K. Boyd  and
Adele E. Goldberg
Jeremy K. Boyd*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Adele E. Goldberg*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
*
Boyd, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 405 N. Mathews Ave. Urbana, IL 61801 [jkboyd@illinois.edu]
Goldberg, Department of Psychology Princeton University Princeton, NJ 08544 [adele@princeton.edu]
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Abstract

A persistent mystery in language acquisition is how speakers are able to learn seemingly arbitrary distributional restrictions. This article investigates one such case: the fact that speakers resist using certain adjectives prenominally (e.g. ??the asleep man). Experiment 1 indicates that speakers tentatively generalize or CATEGORIZE the distributional restriction beyond their previous experience. Experiment 2 demonstrates that speakers are sensitive to STATISTICAL PREEMPTION—that is, speakers learn not to use a formulation if an alternative formulation with the same function is consistently witnessed. Moreover, they are able to generalize the restriction to apply to other members of the category as well. Finally, experiment 3 finds evidence that speakers DISCOUNT a pseudo-preemptive context, rationally ignoring it as uninformative.

Keywords

language acquisitionstatistical learningreasoningnegative evidencepreemptionentrenchment

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 87 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 55 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 Linguistic Society of America

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