Imperfect Language, Artificial Intelligence, and the Human Mind: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Linguistic Errors in Native Spanish Speakers

TL;DR

This interdisciplinary study investigates linguistic errors in native Spanish speakers to understand human language cognition and improve AI language models' ability to interpret and replicate these errors.

Contribution

It introduces a new corpus of over 500 authentic Spanish errors and evaluates AI models' understanding of these errors from linguistic, neurolinguistic, and NLP perspectives.

Findings

AI models show limited accuracy in interpreting linguistic errors.

The corpus reveals common patterns in native Spanish errors.

Insights inform development of more cognitively aligned NLP systems.

Abstract

Linguistic errors are not merely deviations from normative grammar; they offer a unique window into the cognitive architecture of language and expose the current limitations of artificial systems that seek to replicate them. This project proposes an interdisciplinary study of linguistic errors produced by native Spanish speakers, with the aim of analyzing how current large language models (LLM) interpret, reproduce, or correct them. The research integrates three core perspectives: theoretical linguistics, to classify and understand the nature of the errors; neurolinguistics, to contextualize them within real-time language processing in the brain; and natural language processing (NLP), to evaluate their interpretation against linguistic errors. A purpose-built corpus of authentic errors of native Spanish (+500) will serve as the foundation for empirical analysis. These errors will be tested against AI models such as GPT or Gemini to assess their interpretative accuracy and their ability to generalize patterns of human linguistic behavior. The project contributes not only to the understanding of Spanish as a native language but also to the development of NLP systems that are more cognitively informed and capable of engaging with the imperfect, variable, and often ambiguous nature of real human language.