Linguists should learn to love speech-based deep learning models

Open Access
Authors
Publication date 2026
Journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Article number e206
Volume | Issue number 49
Number of pages 4
Organisations
  • Faculty of Humanities (FGw)
  • Interfacultary Research - Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC)
Abstract Futrell and Mahowald present a useful framework bridging technology-oriented deep learning systems and explanation-oriented linguistic theories. Unfortunately, the target article’s focus on generative text-based Large Language Models (LLMs) fundamentally limits fruitful interactions with linguistics, as many interesting questions on human language fall outside what is captured by written text. We argue that audio-based deep learning models can and should play a crucial role.
Document type Comment/Letter to the editor
Note Commentarey to: R. Futrell, K. Mahowald (2026) How linguistics learned to stop worrying and love the language models. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 46:e200.
Language English
Published at
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X26104713 (Final published version)
Downloads
2512.14506v1 (Other version)
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