Language Evolution and Computation Bibliography

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Edit Book :: The Language Phenomenon
2013
Dialogue: Interactive Alignment and Its Implications for Language Learning and Language Change
The Language Phenomenon, pages 47--64, 2013
This chapter discusses language processing during conversation. In particular, it considers why taking part in a conversation is more straightforward than speaking or listening in isolation. We argue that conversation is easy because speakers and listeners automatically align ...MORE ⇓
This chapter discusses language processing during conversation. In particular, it considers why taking part in a conversation is more straightforward than speaking or listening in isolation. We argue that conversation is easy because speakers and listeners automatically align with each other at different linguistic levels (e.g., sound, grammar, meaning) which leads to alignment at the level of interpretation. This alignment process is reflected in the repetitiveness of dialogue at different levels and occurs both on the basis of local mechanisms of priming and more global mechanisms of routinization. We argue that the latter process may tell us something about both acquisition of language and historical processes of language change.
Transitions: The Evolution of Linguistic Replicators
The Language Phenomenon, pages 121--138, 2013
Maynard Smith and Szathmáry (1995) propose a series of major transitions in the evolutionary history of life. Their work provides a rich framework for thinking about replication. They identified the importance of language in this light, but language is a new system of replication ...MORE ⇓
Maynard Smith and Szathmáry (1995) propose a series of major transitions in the evolutionary history of life. Their work provides a rich framework for thinking about replication. They identified the importance of language in this light, but language is a new system of replication in more than one sense: it is both an enabler of cultural replicators with unlimited heredity, and also a new kind of evolutionary system itself. Iterated learning is the process of linguistic transmission, and it drives both language change and the transitions to qualitatively new kinds of linguistic system. By seeing language as an evolutionary system, the biggest payoff we get may be the ability to take biologists’ insights into the evolution of life and apply them to the evolution of language.
Genes: Interactions with Language on Three Levels Inter-Individual Variation, Historical Correlations and Genetic BiasingPDF
The Language Phenomenon, pages 139--161, 2013
The complex inter-relationships between genetics and linguistics encompass all four scales highlighted by the contributions to this book and, together with cultural transmission, the genetics of language holds the promise to offer a unitary understanding of this fascinating ...MORE ⇓
The complex inter-relationships between genetics and linguistics encompass all four scales highlighted by the contributions to this book and, together with cultural transmission, the genetics of language holds the promise to offer a unitary understanding of this fascinating phenomenon. There are inter-individual differences in genetic makeup which contribute to the obvious fact that we are not identical in the way we understand and use language and, by studying them, we will be able to both better treat and enhance ourselves. There are correlations between the genetic configuration of human groups and their languages, reflecting the historical processes shaping them, and there also seem to exist genes which can influence some characteristics of language, biasing it towards or against certain states by altering the way language is transmitted across generations. Besides the joys of pure knowledge, the understanding of these three aspects of genetics relevant to language will potentially trigger advances in medicine, linguistics, psychology or the understanding of our own past and, last but not least, a profound change in the way we regard one of the emblems of being human: our capacity for language.
Self-organization: complex dynamical systems in the evolution of speech
The Language Phenomenon, pages 191-216, 2013
Human vocalization systems are characterized by complex structural properties. They are combinatorial, based on the systematic reuse of phonemes, and the set of repertoires in human languages is characterized by both strong statistical regularities—universals—and a great ...MORE ⇓
Human vocalization systems are characterized by complex structural properties. They are combinatorial, based on the systematic reuse of phonemes, and the set of repertoires in human languages is characterized by both strong statistical regularities—universals—and a great diversity. Besides, they are conventional codes culturally shared in each community of speakers. What are the origins of the forms of speech? What are the mechanisms that permitted their evolution in the course of phylogenesis and cultural evolution? How can a shared speech code be formed in a community of individuals? This chapter focuses on the way the concept of self-organization, and its interaction with natural selection, can throw light on these three questions. In particular, a computational model is presented which shows that a basic neural equipment for adaptive holistic vocal imitation, coupling directly motor and perceptual representations in the brain, can generate spontaneously shared combinatorial systems of vocalizations in a society of babbling individuals. Furthermore, we show how morphological and physiological innate constraints can interact with these self-organized mechanisms to account for both the formation of statistical regularities and diversity in vocalization systems.
Environment: Language Ecology and Language Death
The Language Phenomenon, pages 217--234, 2013
Global linguistic diversity is rapidly declining. As the world becomes less linguistically diverse, it is becoming culturally less diverse as well as the world’s tribes and languages are dying out or being assimilated into modern civilization because their habitats are being ...MORE ⇓
Global linguistic diversity is rapidly declining. As the world becomes less linguistically diverse, it is becoming culturally less diverse as well as the world’s tribes and languages are dying out or being assimilated into modern civilization because their habitats are being destroyed. At the same time the world is experiencing a substantial decline in biodiversity. The extinction of languages is part of the larger picture of near total collapse of the worldwide ecosystem, and languages are vital parts of complex local ecologies that must be supported if global biodiversity is to be maintained.