Towards a Theory Grounded Theory of Language

In this paper, we build upon the idea of theory grounding and propose one specific form of theory grounding, a theory of language. Theory grounding is the idea that we can imbue our embodied artificially intelligent systems with theories by modeling the way humans, and specifically young children, develop skills with theories. Modeling theory development promises to increase the conceptual and behavioral flexibility of these systems. An example of theory development in children is the social understanding referred to as “theory of mind.” Language is a natural task for theory grounding because it is vital in symbolic skills and apparently necessary in developing theories. Word learning, and specifically developing a concept of words, is proposed as the first step in a theory grounded theory of language.