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Linguistics, cognitive psychology, and the Now-or-Never bottleneck

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2016

Ansgar D. Endress  and
Roni Katzir
Ansgar D. Endress
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, City University London, London EC1V 0HB, United [email protected]
Roni Katzir
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics and Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel. [email protected]
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Abstract

Christiansen & Chater (C&C)'s key premise is that “if linguistic information is not processed rapidly, that information is lost for good” (sect. 1, para. 1). From this “Now-or-Never bottleneck” (NNB), C&C derive “wide-reaching and fundamental implications for language processing, acquisition and change as well as for the structure of language itself” (sect. 2, para. 10). We question both the premise and the consequentiality of its purported implications.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 39 , 2016 , e71
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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