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No Integration without Structured Representations: Response to Pater

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Iris Berent  and
Gary Marcus
Iris Berent*
Affiliation:
Northeastern College of Science
Gary Marcus*
Affiliation:
New York University
*
Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, 125 Nightingale, 360 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115 [i.berent@neu.edu]
[gfm1@nyu.edu]
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Abstract

Pater's (2019) expansive review is a significant contribution toward bridging the disconnect of generative linguistics with connectionism, and as such, it is an important service to the field. But Pater's efforts for inclusion and reconciliation obscure crucial substantive disagreements on foundational matters. Most connectionist models are antithetical to the algebraic hypothesis that has guided generative linguistics from its inception. They eschew the notions that mental representations have formal constituent structure and that mental operations are structure-sensitive. These representational commitments critically limit the scope of learning and productivity in connectionist models. Moving forward, we see only two options: either those connectionist models are right, and generative linguistics must be radically revised, or they must be replaced by alternatives that are compatible with the algebraic hypothesis. There can be no integration without structured representations.

Keywords

algebraic rulesstructured representationconnectionismassociationismthe computational theory of mind

Information

Type
Perspectives
Information
Language , Volume 95 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. e75 - e86
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Linguistic Society of America

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Footnotes

*

This research was supported by NSF grants 1528411 and 1733984 (PI: IB).

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