New paper: On Modern Language Models, Impossible Languages, and Anti-science

I’ve just submitted a new paper to appear in a forthcoming volume edited by José-Luis Mendívil-Giró. The volume is on the implications of Large Language Models for linguistic theory and my paper is a refinement of what I’ve written here, here, and here. The abstract is:

While “modern language models,” which put into practice empiricist theories of language, are claimed to be refutations of rationalist theories of language, a close look at the claims made in their favour reveals otherwise. In this chapter, I critically review Piantadosi’s (2023) arguments for his claim that MLMs refute rationalist theories of language along with his replies to critiques of those arguments. I argue that, throughout his paper, Piantadosi misstates the claims, predictions, and arguments of contemporary rationalist theories of language, paying particular attention to the problem of impossible languages. I further argue that the goals of rationalist theories of language and MLMs are orthogonal to each other, with the former being a scientific inquiry aimed at explanation and understanding and the latter being an engineering project aimed at making tools, and that confusing the two, as Piantadosi does, can lead one to inadvertently take up an anti-scientific position.

If you’d like a preview, I’ve uploaded a draft on LingBuzz.