The authors argue that Ambridge's radical exemplar account of language cannot clearly
explain all syntactic priming evidence, such as inverse preference effects (greater priming
for less frequent structures), and the contrast between short-lived lexical boost and long-
lived abstract priming. Moreover, without recourse to a level of abstract syntactic structure,
Ambridge's account cannot explain abstract priming in amnesia patients or cross-linguistic
priming. Instead, the authors argue that abstract representations remain the more …

The authors argue that Ambridge's radical exemplar account of language cannot clearly
explain all syntactic priming evidence, such as inverse preference effects, and the contrast
between short-lived lexical boost and long-lived abstract priming. Moreover, without
recourse to a level of abstract syntactic structure, Ambridge's account cannot explain
abstract priming in amnesia patients or cross-linguistic priming. Instead, the authors argue
that abstract representations remain the more parsimonious account for the wide variety of …