EXPERIENCE-BASED LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: A COMPUTATIONAL MODEL OF

iii Modeling, it should be clear, is an art form. It depends on the experience and taste of the modeler. ─John Holland, Hidden Order iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to begin by thanking my wife, Jaimee, for standing behind me and for believing that I would one day finish my dissertation. Without her sacrifice, this dissertation would not be. I would like to thank my family for instilling in me the importance of a good education and express my gratitude to everyone at The Pangburn Company for being flexible and allowing me the time that I needed for research. I would also like to thank my committee for their patience as life, time and again, interrupted my research. The material in this work on language acquisition in children is a direct result of my firsthand exposure to the brilliance of both Emily Smith and Jan Norris. Many of the technical roadblocks in the EBLA system were overcome thanks to the insights and friendship of Chris Branton and Carey Patin. The readability of this document owes much to the grammatical prowess of Sara Aguillard, who has always had the patience to proofread my work. Finally, there is no way that this research would have been finished in time without the tremendous help of Jon Ayo, who aided me with the EDISON port and did much of the filming and editing on the seemingly endless pile of videos for EBLA. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.............................................................................................................