Any learning process can be viewed as a self-modification of the leaxnefs current knowledge tArough an. interaction with some information source. Such knowledge modification is guided by the learner's deshe to achieve a certain outcome, and can engage any kind of inference. The type of inference involved depends on he input information, the current (background) knowledge and the learneFs task ax hand. Based on such a view of learning, several fundamental concepts are analized and clarified, in paxticular, analytic and synthetic learning, derivm:ional and hypothetical explanation, constnictive induction, abduction, abstraction and deductive generalization. It is shown that inductive generalization and abduction can be viewed as two basic forms of general induction, and that abstraction and deductive generalization axe two related forms of constructive deduction. Using this conceptual framework, a methodology for multistrategy task-adaptive learning (MTL) is outlined, in which learning strategies axe combined dynamically, depending on the current learning situation. Speccally, an MTL learner anaLizes a "wiad" relationship among the input information, the background knowledge and the learning task, and on that basis determines which strategy, or. a combination thereof, is most appropriate at a given learning step. To implement the MTL methodology, a new knowledge representation is proposed, based on the parametric association rules (PARs). Basic ideas of MTL are illustrated by means of the well-known "cup" example, through which is shown how an MTL learner can employ, depending the above mad relationship, emprical learning, constructive inductive generalization, abduction, explanation-based learning and absuaction.

Any learning process can be viewed as a self-modification of the leamer's current knowledge through an interaction with some information source. Such knowledge modification s graded by the learner s destre to achieve a certain outcome, and can engage any kind of inference. The typ0 of inference involved depends on the input information, the current (background) knowledge and the learne's task,.at h, and: Based on such a view of learning, several fundamental concepts are ananzeu ano clarified, in particular, analytic and synthetic learning, derivational and hypothetical explanation, constructive induction, abduction, abstraction and deductive generalization. It is shown that inductive generalization and abduction can be viewed as two basic forms of general induction, and that abstraction and deductive generalization are two related forms of constructive deduction. Using this conceptual framework, a methodology for multistrategy task-adaptive learning (MTL) is outlined, in which learning strategies are combined dynamically, depending on the current learning situation. Specifically, an MTL learner anali?es a "triad" relationship among the input information, the background knowledge and the learning task, and on that basis determines which strategy, or a combination thereof, is most appropriate at a given learning step. To implement the MTL methodology, a new knowledge representation is proposed, based on the parametric association rules (PARs). Basic ideas of MTL are illustrated by means of the well-known "cup" example, through which is shown how an MTL leamer can employ, depending on the above triad relationship, emprical learning, constructive inductive generalization, abduction, explanation-based learning and abstraction.

this handout and some of the references quoted at www.unice.fr/dsl/tobias.htm

1. O VERVIEW 1.1 A handbook of OT (in phonology) As indicated by the title, the book under review embraces the ambition of representing a field of research, phonology. Handbooks are supposed to stand on the desk of interested people, ready to provide easy and speedy access to the state of the art whenever a question comes up. I think that the book lives up to the promise that is made by handbooks – but regarding Optimality Theory (in phonology), rather than phonology as such. On page 8, Paul de Lacy very carefully argues why the book only contains OT, and he may well have a point: roughly speaking, the book is but a mirror of the field, which is dominated by OT. In a note (29), de Lacy reports that ‘from inspecting several major journals from 1998 to 2004, around threequarters of the articles assumed an OT framework, and many of the others compared their theories with an OT approach’. 2 If the book is thus about phonology, and if phonology today is 75 % OT, then 25 % of the field is

The text below is the unabridged version of a review of de Lacy (ed.) (2007) that was

Abstract. We explore the notion of duality for defeasible entailment relations induced by preference orderings on states. We then show that such preferential entailment relations may be used to characterise Peircean inductive and abductive reasoning. Interpreting the preference relations as accessibility relations establishes modular Gödel-Löb logic as the modal logic of inductive and abductive reasoning. §1. Introduction. The heart of logic is entailment – a relation between information-bearers X and Y according to which Y in some sense follows from X. We take X and Y to be discrete strings (sentences) in some object language. The entailment relation that may hold between premiss X and consequence Y is induced by the choice of a relation E between possibly independent representations

2. The philosophical foundations of generative grammar.......................................................... 3