Parsimony and the lexicon
Author:
- John MacnamaraJMJohn Macnamara
- 1 June 1971
- journal article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Language
- Vol. 47 (2) , 359-374
Abstract
Two systems which attempt to describe the structure of the English lexicon have been presented by Katz, Fodor, and Postal (hereafter KFP) and by Quillian. It is argued that the KFP model fails because it mistakenly aims at parsimonious storage of information in the lexicon, and that Quillian's fails because it carries insufficient information and places inadequate limits on the recall of information. What is needed, then, is a lexicon which provides for almost unlimited information storage, but permits parsimonious recall.Keywords
This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:
- Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics1968
- Word concepts: A theory and simulation of some basic semantic capabilitiesSystems Research and Behavioral Science, 1967