Relational Network Theory: Neurological correlates of a connectionist model of language

Abstract

Relational Network Theory (RNT) is a connectionist model of the linguistic system of the individual. In Pathways of the Brain, Lamb (1999) demonstrates that the model is neurologically plausible, but the neuroscientific evidence supporting RNT has not been updated since the publication of such volume. Moreover, RNT has not received significant attention in the last few decades, especially in the Spanish-speaking world. In an attempt to partly overcome these situations, the present paper summarizes the basic principles of RNT and offers updated evidence in favor of the theory’s neurological plausibility. Furthermore, the theory is shown to have been constructed via the ‘parallel structures approach’ to neurolinguistic modeling, its merits and limitations being addressed from a theoretical and a methodological stance.