Evaluating learning-strategy components: Being fair (Commentary on Ambridge, Pine, and Lieven)

I completely agree with Ambridge, Pine, and Lieven (AP&L) that anyone proposing a learning-strategy component needs to demonstrate precisely how that component helps solve the language acquisition task. To this end, I discuss how computational modeling is a tool well suited to doing exactly this, and that it has the added benefit of highlighting hidden assumptions underlying learning strategies. I also suggest general criteria relating to utility and usability that we can use to evaluate potential learning strategies. As a response to AP&L’s request for universal grammar (UG) components that actually do work, I additionally provide a review of one potentially UG component that is part of a successful learning strategy for syntactic islands, and that satisfies the evaluation criteria I propose.