A commentary on "The now-or-never bottleneck: a fundamental constraint on language", by Christiansen and Chater (2016)

TL;DR

This paper discusses the now-or-never bottleneck in language, emphasizing its implications for processing and proposing connections to linguistics and information theory to support this fundamental constraint.

Contribution

It provides additional evidence for the now-or-never bottleneck and explores its links to quantitative linguistics and information theory, expanding the original framework.

Findings

Supports the existence of the now-or-never bottleneck

Connects the constraint to quantitative linguistics

Suggests implications for language processing models

Abstract

In a recent article, Christiansen and Chater (2016) present a fundamental constraint on language, i.e. a now-or-never bottleneck that arises from our fleeting memory, and explore its implications, e.g., chunk-and-pass processing, outlining a framework that promises to unify different areas of research. Here we explore additional support for this constraint and suggest further connections from quantitative linguistics and information theory.