A mixed treatment of categoricity and regularity: Solutions that don't do justice to a well-exposed complexity

Abstract:

Jackendoff's position with respect to categories (for lexical items and larger constituents) is unclear. Positing categories is (1) implausible in several respects; (2) it makes the binding problem in language seem more massive than it actually is; and (3) it makes it difficult to explain language acquisition. Waiting for connectionism to fulfill its promise, a different track is sketched which is residually symbolic, exemplarist, and analogy-based.