Studies with impossible languages falsify LMs as models of human language

Studies with impossible languages falsify LMs as models of human language Jeffrey S. Bowers, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol Jeff Mitchell, School of Engineering and Informatics, University of Sussex Commentary on Futrell, R., & Mahowald, K. (in press). How linguistics learned to stop worrying and love the language models. Abstract According to Futrell and Mahowald (F&M), both infants and language models (LMs) find attested languages easier to learn than "impossible languages" that have unnatural structures. We review the literature and show that LMs often learn attested and many impossible languages equally well. Difficult to learn impossible languages are simply more complex (or random).