Language Evolution and Computation Bibliography

The article demonstrates many aspects of grammar that can be derived from domain-general cognitive processes, especially those of neuromotor automation, chunking, categorization, inference-making, and cross-modal association. Construction grammar posits a direct connection between the conventionalized constructions of a language and their meanings. All constructions have some specific lexical or grammatical material in them. Construction grammar emphasizes the interaction of the lexicon with the syntax. The domain-general processes involved in construction formation and use are sequential processing and categorization. Sequential processing or chunking is the process by which repeated sequences of experience (words or other events) come to be grouped together in memory as units that can be accessed directly. Categorization is necessary to the cognitive representations of constructions in several ways. First, categorization is necessary for the recognition that an element or sequence is the same as one previously experienced. Second, categorization is used to develop the schematic slots of constructions. Constructions are created through the repetition and thus conventionalization of useful sequences of elements and their meanings arise from associations with the context and implications that are present. The most pervasive process by which new constructions are created is grammaticalization, in which a new construction is created along with a new grammatical morpheme and the latter evolves from a lexical morpheme or combinations of grammatical and lexical morphemes.

Constituent structure is considered to be the very foundation of linguistic competence and often considered to be innate, yet we show here that it is derivable from the domain-general processes of chunking and categorization. Using modern and diachronic corpus data, we show that the facts support a view of constituent structure as gradient (as would follow from its source in chunking and categorization) and subject to gradual changes over time. Usage factors (i.e., repetition) and semantic factors both influence chunking and categorization and, therefore, influence constituent structure. We take as our example the complex prepositions of English, for instance, on top of, in back of, and in spite of, whose internal constituent structure has been much debated. From observing strong (but not absolute) usage trends in the corpus data, we find that these complex preposition sequences display varying degrees of emerging constituency. We conclude that constituent reanalysis, like language change generally, proceeds gradually.

This chapter discusses the usage-based theory of language. It argues that from this perspective there are very few synchronic universals in the sense of features that can be found in all languages. The only synchronic universal is that all languages have at least some minimal derivational morphology. It further argues that language change has to be taken into account in order to understand language universals. Factors relating to language useasuch as frequency of usagealead to grammaticalization, which tends to follow specific developmental paths. It suggests that language universals may be best viewed in terms of such unidirectional paths of linguistic change, driven by constraints arising from domain-general processes rather than ones that are specific to language.

Language has a fundamentally social function. Processes of human interaction along with domain-general cognitive processes shape the structure and knowledge of language. Recent research in the cognitive sciences has demonstrated that patterns of use strongly affect how language is acquired, is used, and changes. These processes are not independent of one another but are facets of the same complex adaptive system (CAS). Language as a CAS involves the following key features: The system consists of multiple agents (the speakers in the speech community) interacting with one another. The system is adaptive; that is, speakers' behavior is based on their past interactions, and current and past interactions together feed forward into future behavior. A speaker's behavior is the consequence of competing factors ranging from perceptual constraints to social motivations. The structures of language emerge from interrelated patterns of experience, social interaction, and cognitive mechanisms. The CAS approach reveals commonalities in many areas of language research, including first and second language acquisition, historical linguistics, psycholinguistics, language evolution, and computational modeling.

This is a textbook right in the thick of current interest in morphology. It proposes principles to predict properties previously considered arbitrary and brings together the psychological and the diachronic to explain the recurrent properties of morphological systems in terms of the ...