Language Evolution and Computation Bibliography

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2012 :: PROCEEDINGS
Privacy, Security, Risk and Trust (PASSAT)
Privacy, Security, Risk and Trust (PASSAT), pages 508--513, 2012
We study the dynamics of the Naming Game as an opinion formation model on social networks. This agent-based model captures the essential features of the agreement dynamics by means of a memory-based negotiation process. Our study focuses on the impact of dominance of certain ...MORE ⇓
We study the dynamics of the Naming Game as an opinion formation model on social networks. This agent-based model captures the essential features of the agreement dynamics by means of a memory-based negotiation process. Our study focuses on the impact of dominance of certain opinions over others in pursuit of faster agreement on social networks. We propose two models to incorporate dominance of the opinions. We observe that both these models lead to faster agreement among the agents on an opinion as compared to the base case reported in the literature. We perform extensive simulations on computer-generated networks as well as on a real online social network (Facebook) and in both cases the dominance based models converge significantly faster than the base case.
2012 AAAI Fall Symposium Series: Social Networks and Social Contagion
The Evolution of Heterogeneous Naming ConventionsPDF
2012 AAAI Fall Symposium Series: Social Networks and Social Contagion, pages 17--23, 2012
In the real world we observe a proliferation of regional dialects and jargons. Most of the research on naming conventions focuses on how to explain the process that allows a single naming convention to establish itself. This paper presents a different approach that aims to ...MORE ⇓
In the real world we observe a proliferation of regional dialects and jargons. Most of the research on naming conventions focuses on how to explain the process that allows a single naming convention to establish itself. This paper presents a different approach that aims to investigate why different conventions may emerge and co-exist for a certain amount of time. The naming game is an abstraction of lexical acquisition dynamics, in which n agents try to find an agreement on the names to give to objects. To understand how different heterogeneous conventions emerge, I discuss a naming game model that takes into account experimental data on human and animal learning.
Evolutionary Computation (CEC)
Evolutionary Computation (CEC), pages 1--8, 2012
Based on three evolutionary computational models that respectively simulate lexical, categorical and syntactic evolutions, we explore the effect of power-law distributed social popularity on language origin and change. Simulation results reveal a critical scaling degree (λ ≈ 1.0) ...MORE ⇓
Based on three evolutionary computational models that respectively simulate lexical, categorical and syntactic evolutions, we explore the effect of power-law distributed social popularity on language origin and change. Simulation results reveal a critical scaling degree (λ ≈ 1.0) in power-law distributions that helps accelerate the diffusion of linguistic conventions and preserve high linguistic understandability in population. Other scaling degrees (λ = 0.0 or λ >; 1.0), however, tend to delay such diffusion process and affect linguistic understandability. Apart from the conventionalization nature of language communications in these models, increase in population size could also contribute to select the critical scaling degree, since this scaling degree can accommodate the influence of population size on linguistic understandability and many power-laws in real-world systems have their scaling degrees around this critical value.
2012 :: JOURNAL
Science
Response to Comments on Phonemic Diversity Supports a Serial Founder Effect Model of Language Expansion from AfricaPDF
Science 335(6069):657--657, 2012
Abstract Concerns have been raised about my proposal that global phonemic diversity was shaped by a serial founder effect during the human expansion from Africa. I welcome this discussion of new data and alternative interpretations. Although this work highlights ...
Science 337(6097):957--960, 2012
There are two competing hypotheses for the origin of the Indo-European language family. The conventional view places the homeland in the Pontic steppes about 6000 years ago. An alternative hypothesis claims that the languages spread from Anatolia with the expansion of farming ...MORE ⇓
There are two competing hypotheses for the origin of the Indo-European language family. The conventional view places the homeland in the Pontic steppes about 6000 years ago. An alternative hypothesis claims that the languages spread from Anatolia with the expansion of farming 8000 to 9500 years ago. We used Bayesian phylogeographic approaches, together with basic vocabulary data from 103 ancient and contemporary Indo-European languages, to explicitly model the expansion of the family and test these hypotheses. We found decisive support for an Anatolian origin over a steppe origin. Both the inferred timing and root location of the Indo-European language trees fit with an agricultural expansion from Anatolia beginning 8000 to 9500 years ago. These results highlight the critical role that phylogeographic inference can play in resolving debates about human prehistory.
Science 336(6084):998, 2012
One of the most astonishing features of human language is its capacity to convey information efficiently in context. Many theories provide informal accounts of communicative inference, yet there have been few successes in making precise, quantitative predictions about pragmatic ...MORE ⇓
One of the most astonishing features of human language is its capacity to convey information efficiently in context. Many theories provide informal accounts of communicative inference, yet there have been few successes in making precise, quantitative predictions about pragmatic reasoning. We examined judgments about simple referential communication games, modeling behavior in these games by assuming that speakers attempt to be informative and that listeners use Bayesian inference to recover speakers intended referents. Our model provides a close, parameter-free fit to human judgments, suggesting that the use of information-theoretic tools to predict pragmatic reasoning may lead to more effective formal models of communication.
Science 336(6084):1049-1054, 2012
Languages vary in their systems of kinship categories, but the scope of possible variation appears to be constrained. Previous accounts of kin classification have often emphasized constraints that are specific to the domain of kinship and are not derived from general principles. ...MORE ⇓
Languages vary in their systems of kinship categories, but the scope of possible variation appears to be constrained. Previous accounts of kin classification have often emphasized constraints that are specific to the domain of kinship and are not derived from general principles. Here, we propose an account that is founded on two domain-general principles: Good systems of categories are simple, and they enable informative communication. We show computationally that kin classification systems in the world's languages achieve a near-optimal trade-off between these two competing principles. We also show that our account explains several specific constraints on kin classification proposed previously. Because the principles of simplicity and informativeness are also relevant to other semantic domains, the trade-off between them may provide a domain-general foundation for variation in category systems across languages.
Science 336(6080):408-411, 2012
Recently, researchers studying the origins of language have gone into the field to study how songbirds learn to sing and into nurseries to observe the vocalizations and gestures of children for hints of how language may have emerged. Now researchers are testing their hypotheses ...MORE ⇓
Recently, researchers studying the origins of language have gone into the field to study how songbirds learn to sing and into nurseries to observe the vocalizations and gestures of children for hints of how language may have emerged. Now researchers are testing their hypotheses under experimental conditions. The experiments, observations, and even some theorizing were on the agenda at the Evolang9 conference in Kyoto and a follow-up forum in Tokyo last month. By design, these meetings bring diverse views together to unravel questions not likely to be answered by work within one discipline.
Neuron
Neuron 75(4):601--617, 2012
Understanding human-specific patterns of brain gene expression and regulation can provide key insights into human brain evolution and speciation. Here, we use next-generation sequencing, and Illumina and Affymetrix microarray platforms, to compare the ...
PNAS
PNAS 109(44):17897-17902, 2012
Languages of the world display many structural similarities. We test the hypothesis that some of these structural properties may arise from biases operating during language acquisition that shape languages over time. Specifically, we investigate whether language learners are ...MORE ⇓
Languages of the world display many structural similarities. We test the hypothesis that some of these structural properties may arise from biases operating during language acquisition that shape languages over time. Specifically, we investigate whether language learners are biased toward linguistic systems that strike an efficient balance between robust information transfer, on the one hand, and effort or resource demands, on the other hand, thereby increasing the communicative utility of the acquired language. In two experiments, we expose learners to miniature artificial languages designed in such a way that they do not use their formal devices (case marking) efficiently to facilitate robust information transfer. We find that learners restructure such languages in ways that facilitate efficient information transfer compared with the input language. These systematic changes introduced by the learners follow typologically frequent patterns, supporting the hypothesis that some of the structural similarities found in natural languages are shaped by biases toward communicatively efficient linguistic systems.
PNAS 109(18):6819--6824, 2012
Abstract One of the fundamental problems in cognitive science is how humans categorize the visible color spectrum. The empirical evidence of the existence of universal or recurrent patterns in color naming across cultures is paralleled by the observation that color names ...
PNAS 109(Supplement 1):10709--10716, 2012
Abstract The rise of comparative genomics and related technologies has added important new dimensions to the study of human evolution. Our knowledge of the genes that underwent expression changes or were targets of positive selection in human evolution is ...
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Trends in cognitive sciences, 2012
Computational methods have revolutionized evolutionary biology. In this paper we explore the impact these methods are now having on our understanding of the forces that both affect the diversification of human languages and shape human cognition. We show how these ...
Trends in Cognitive Sciences 16(2):114--121, 2012
Cognition materializes in an interpersonal space. The emergence of complex behaviors requires the coordination of actions among individuals according to a shared set of rules. Despite the central role of other individuals in shaping one's mind, most cognitive studies focus on ...MORE ⇓
Cognition materializes in an interpersonal space. The emergence of complex behaviors requires the coordination of actions among individuals according to a shared set of rules. Despite the central role of other individuals in shaping one's mind, most cognitive studies focus on processes that occur within a single individual. We call for a shift from a single-brain to a multi-brain frame of reference. We argue that in many cases the neural processes in one brain are coupled to the neural processes in another brain via the transmission of a signal through the environment. Brain-to-brain coupling constrains and shapes the actions of each individual in a social network, leading to complex joint behaviors that could not have emerged in isolation.
Journal of Theoretical Biology
Journal of theoretical biology 294:19-28, 2012
We used individual-based stochastic models to examine how social structure influences the diversity of socially learned behaviour within a non-human population. For continuous behavioural variables we modelled three forms of dyadic social learning, averaging the behavioural value ...MORE ⇓
We used individual-based stochastic models to examine how social structure influences the diversity of socially learned behaviour within a non-human population. For continuous behavioural variables we modelled three forms of dyadic social learning, averaging the behavioural value of the two individuals, random transfer of information from one individual to the other, and directional transfer from the individual with highest behavioural value to the other. Learning had potential error. We also examined the transfer of categorical behaviour between individuals with random directionality and two forms of error, the adoption of a randomly chosen existing behavioural category or the innovation of a new type of behaviour. In populations without social structuring the diversity of culturally transmitted behaviour increased with learning error and population size. When the populations were structured socially either by making individuals members of permanent social units or by giving them overlapping ranges, behavioural diversity increased with network modularity under all scenarios, although the proportional increase varied considerably between continuous and categorical behaviour, with transmission mechanism, and population size. Although functions of the form e(c)¹(m)⁻(c)² + (c)³(Log(N)) predicted the mean increase in diversity with modularity (m) and population size (N), behavioural diversity could be highly unpredictable both between simulations with the same set of parameters, and within runs. Errors in social learning and social structuring generally promote behavioural diversity. Consequently, social learning may be considered to produce culture in populations whose social structure is sufficiently modular.
Journal of Theoretical Biology 301:161--173, 2012
We study evolutionary game theory in a setting where individuals learn from each other. We extend the traditional approach by assuming that a population contains individuals with different learning abilities. In particular, we explore the situation where individuals have ...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1599):2091--2096, 2012
Humans are animals that specialize in thinking and knowing, and our extraordinary cognitive abilities have transformed every aspect of our lives. In contrast to our chimpanzee cousins and Stone Age ancestors, we are complex political, economic, scientific and artistic creatures, ...MORE ⇓
Humans are animals that specialize in thinking and knowing, and our extraordinary cognitive abilities have transformed every aspect of our lives. In contrast to our chimpanzee cousins and Stone Age ancestors, we are complex political, economic, scientific and artistic creatures, living in a vast range of habitats, many of which are our own creation. Research on the evolution of human cognition asks what types of thinking make us such peculiar animals, and how they have been generated by evolutionary processes. New research in this field looks deeper into the evolutionary history of human cognition, and adopts a more multi-disciplinary approach than earlier ‘Evolutionary Psychology’. It is informed by comparisons between humans and a range of primate and non-primate species, and integrates findings from anthropology, archaeology, economics, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, philosophy and psychology. Using these methods, recent research reveals profound commonalities, as well striking differences, between human and non-human minds, and suggests that the evolution of human cognition has been much more gradual and incremental than previously assumed. It accords crucial roles to cultural evolution, techno-social co-evolution and gene–culture co-evolution. These have produced domain-general developmental processes with extraordinary power—power that makes human cognition, and human lives, unique.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1585):88--102, 2012
Abstract Scientists seek to use fossil and archaeological evidence to constrain models of the coevolution of human language and tool use. We focus on Neanderthals, for whom indirect evidence from tool use and ancient DNA appears consistent with an adaptation to ...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1598):1933--1955, 2012
Abstract Formal language theory (FLT), part of the broader mathematical theory of computation, provides a systematic terminology and set of conventions for describing rules and the structures they generate, along with a rich body of discoveries and theorems ...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1597):1785--1801, 2012
Abstract The 'social complexity hypothesis' for communication posits that groups with complex social systems require more complex communicative systems to regulate interactions and relations among group members. Complex social systems, compared ...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1599):2152--2159, 2012
Abstract We argue that language evolution started like the evolution of reading and writing, through cultural evolutionary processes. Genuinely new behavioural patterns emerged from collective exploratory processes that individuals could learn because of their brain ...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1597):1879--1891, 2012
Abstract The Paridae family (chickadees, tits and titmice) is an interesting avian group in that species vary in important aspects of their social structure and many species have large and complex vocal repertoires. For this reason, parids represent an important set of species ...MORE ⇓
Abstract The Paridae family (chickadees, tits and titmice) is an interesting avian group in that species vary in important aspects of their social structure and many species have large and complex vocal repertoires. For this reason, parids represent an important set of species for ...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1585):118--128, 2012
Abstract The increasing body of research into human and non-human primates' gestural communication reflects the interest in a comparative approach to human communication, particularly possible scenarios of language evolution. One of the central challenges of this ...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1598):2055--2064, 2012
Abstract Although recursion has been hypothesized to be a necessary capacity for the evolution of language, the multiplicity of definitions being used has undermined the broader interpretation of empirical results. I propose that only a definition focused on ...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1597):1829--1836, 2012
Abstract The complexity of different components of the grammars of human languages can be quantified. For example, languages vary greatly in the size of their phonological inventories, and in the degree to which they make use of inflectional morphology. Recent ...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1585):129--143, 2012
The movements we make with our hands both reflect our mental processes and help to shape them. Our actions and gestures can affect our mental representations of actions and objects. In this paper, we explore the relationship between action, gesture and thought in both humans and ...MORE ⇓
The movements we make with our hands both reflect our mental processes and help to shape them. Our actions and gestures can affect our mental representations of actions and objects. In this paper, we explore the relationship between action, gesture and thought in both humans and non-human primates and discuss its role in the evolution of language. Human gesture (specifically representational gesture) may provide a unique link between action and mental representation. It is kinaesthetically close to action and is, at the same time, symbolic. Non-human primates use gesture frequently to communicate, and do so flexibly. However, their gestures mainly resemble incomplete actions and lack the representational elements that characterize much of human gesture. Differences in the mirror neuron system provide a potential explanation for non-human primates' lack of representational gestures; the monkey mirror system does not respond to representational gestures, while the human system does. In humans, gesture grounds mental representation in action, but there is no evidence for this link in other primates. We argue that gesture played an important role in the transition to symbolic thought and language in human evolution, following a cognitive leap that allowed gesture to incorporate representational elements.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1598):1971--1983, 2012
Abstract The human capacity to acquire language is an outstanding scientific challenge to understand. Somehow our language capacities arise from the way the human brain processes, develops and learns in interaction with its environment. To set the stage, we ...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1598):2077--2088, 2012
Abstract Songbirds have become impressive neurobiological models for aspects of human verbal communication because they learn to sequence their song elements, analogous, in some ways, to how humans learn to produce spoken sequences with syntactic structure. ...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1585):144--160, 2012
Abstract Hypotheses about the emergence of human cognitive abilities postulate strong evolutionary links between language and praxis, including the possibility that language was originally gestural. The present review considers functional and neuroanatomical links ...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1599):2130--2140, 2012
Abstract As only limited insight into behaviour is available from the archaeological record, much of our understanding of historical changes in human cognition is restricted to identifying changes in brain size and architecture. Using both absolute and residual brain ...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1599):2141--2151, 2012
Abstract This paper defends a gestural origins hypothesis about the evolution of enhanced communication and language in the hominin lineage. The paper shows that we can develop an incremental model of language evolution on that hypothesis, but not if we suppose that ...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1585):75--87, 2012
Abstract Long-standing speculations and more recent hypotheses propose a variety of possible evolutionary connections between language, gesture and tool use. These arguments have received important new support from neuroscientific research on praxis, ...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1598):1984--1994, 2012
Abstract The domain of syntax is seen as the core of the language faculty and as the most critical difference between animal vocalizations and language. We review evidence from spontaneously produced vocalizations as well as from perceptual experiments using ...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1599):2119--2129, 2012
Abstract Hominin evolution took a remarkable pathway, as the foraging strategy extended to large mammalian prey already hunted by a guild of specialist carnivores. How was this possible for a moderately sized ape lacking the formidable anatomical adaptations of ...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1598):1995--2006, 2012
Artificial grammar learning (AGL) provides a useful tool for exploring rule learning strategies linked to general purpose pattern perception. To be able to directly compare performance of humans with other species with different memory capacities, we developed an AGL task in the ...MORE ⇓
Artificial grammar learning (AGL) provides a useful tool for exploring rule learning strategies linked to general purpose pattern perception. To be able to directly compare performance of humans with other species with different memory capacities, we developed an AGL task in the visual domain. Presenting entire visual patterns simultaneously instead of sequentially minimizes the amount of required working memory. This approach allowed us to evaluate performance levels of two bird species, kea (Nestor notabilis) and pigeons (Columba livia), in direct comparison to human participants. After being trained to discriminate between two types of visual patterns generated by rules at different levels of computational complexity and presented on a computer screen, birds and humans received further training with a series of novel stimuli that followed the same rules, but differed in various visual features from the training stimuli. Most avian and all human subjects continued to perform well above chance during this initial generalization phase, suggesting that they were able to generalize learned rules to novel stimuli. However, detailed testing with stimuli that violated the intended rules regarding the exact number of stimulus elements indicates that neither bird species was able to successfully acquire the intended pattern rule. Our data suggest that, in contrast to humans, these birds were unable to master a simple rule above the finite-state level, even with simultaneous item presentation and despite intensive training.
Physics of Life Reviews
Physics of life reviews, 2012
This review concentrates on two different language dimensions: lexical/semantic and grammatical. This distinction between a lexical/semantic system and a grammatical system is well known in linguistics, but in cognitive neurosciences it has been obscured by the ...
Physics of Life Reviews 9(1):5-8, 2012
This is a reply to commentaries on a target article in this volume reviewing models for the cultural evolution of language. Many commentaries amplify positions taken in this article but they also cover novel issues in social evolution and biological evolution, which are briefly ...MORE ⇓
This is a reply to commentaries on a target article in this volume reviewing models for the cultural evolution of language. Many commentaries amplify positions taken in this article but they also cover novel issues in social evolution and biological evolution, which are briefly ...
Biolinguistics
Cortical Motor Organization, Mirror Neurons, and Embodied Language: An Evolutionary Perspective
BIOLINGUISTICS 6(3-4):308--337, 2012
The recent conceptual achievement that the cortical motor system plays a crucial role not only in motor control but also in higher cognitive functions has given a new perspective also on the involvement of motor cortex in language perception and production. In particular, there ...MORE ⇓
The recent conceptual achievement that the cortical motor system plays a crucial role not only in motor control but also in higher cognitive functions has given a new perspective also on the involvement of motor cortex in language perception and production. In particular, there is evidence that the matching mechanism based on mirror neurons can be involved in both pho-nological recognition and retrieval of meaning, especially for action word categories, thus suggesting a contribution of an action–perception mechanism to the automatic comprehension of semantics. Furthermore, a compari-son of the anatomo-functional properties of the frontal motor cortex among different primates and their communicative modalities indicates that the combination of the voluntary control of the gestural communication systems and of the vocal apparatus has been the critical factor in the transition from a gestural-based communication into a predominantly speech-based system. Finally, considering that the monkey and human premotor-parietal motor system, plus the prefrontal cortex, are involved in the sequential motor organization of actions and in the hierarchical combination of motor elements, we propose that elements of such motor organization have been exploited in other domains, including some aspects of the syntactic structure of language.
Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports 2(943), 2012
We analyze the occurrence frequencies of over 15 million words recorded in millions of books published during the past two centuries in seven different languages. For all languages and chronological subsets of the data we confirm that two scaling regimes characterize the word ...MORE ⇓
We analyze the occurrence frequencies of over 15 million words recorded in millions of books published during the past two centuries in seven different languages. For all languages and chronological subsets of the data we confirm that two scaling regimes characterize the word frequency distributions, with only the more common words obeying the classic Zipf law. Using corpora of unprecedented size, we test the allometric scaling relation between the corpus size and the vocabulary size of growing languages to demonstrate a decreasing marginal need for new words, a feature that is likely related to the underlying correlations between words. We calculate the annual growth fluctuations of word use which has a decreasing trend as the corpus size increases, indicating a slowdown in linguistic evolution following language expansion. This cooling pattern forms the basis of a third statistical regularity, which unlike the Zipf and the Heaps law, is dynamical in nature.
Scientific Reports 2(313), 2012
We analyze the dynamic properties of 10,000,000 words recorded in English, Spanish and Hebrew over the period 1800-2008 in order to gain insight into the coevolution of language and culture. We report language independent patterns useful as benchmarks for theoretical models of ...MORE ⇓
We analyze the dynamic properties of 10,000,000 words recorded in English, Spanish and Hebrew over the period 1800-2008 in order to gain insight into the coevolution of language and culture. We report language independent patterns useful as benchmarks for theoretical models of language evolution. A significantly decreasing (increasing) trend in the birth (death) rate of words indicates a recent shift in the selection laws governing word use. For new words, we observe a peak in the growth-rate fluctuations around 40 years after introduction, consistent with the typical entry time into standard dictionaries and the human generational timescale. Pronounced changes in the dynamics of language during periods of war shows that word correlations, occurring across time and between words, are largely influenced by coevolutionary social, technological, and political factors. We quantify cultural memory by analyzing the long-term correlations in the use of individual words using detrended fluctuation analysis.
PLoS ONE
PLoS ONE 7(10):e48029, 2012
In contrast with animal communication systems, diversity is characteristic of almost every aspect of human language. Languages variously employ tones, clicks, or manual signs to signal differences in meaning; some languages lack the noun-verb distinction (e.g., Straits Salish), ...MORE ⇓
In contrast with animal communication systems, diversity is characteristic of almost every aspect of human language. Languages variously employ tones, clicks, or manual signs to signal differences in meaning; some languages lack the noun-verb distinction (e.g., Straits Salish), whereas others have a proliferation of fine-grained syntactic categories (e.g., Tzeltal); and some languages do without morphology (e.g., Mandarin), while others pack a whole sentence into a single word (e.g., Cayuga). A challenge for evolutionary biology is to reconcile the diversity of languages with the high degree of biological uniformity of their speakers. Here, we model processes of language change and geographical dispersion and find a consistent pressure for flexible learning, irrespective of the language being spoken. This pressure arises because flexible learners can best cope with the observed high rates of linguistic change associated with divergent cultural evolution following human migration. Thus, rather than genetic adaptations for specific aspects of language, such as recursion, the coevolution of genes and fast-changing linguistic structure provides the biological basis for linguistic diversity. Only biological adaptations for flexible learning combined with cultural evolution can explain how each child has the potential to learn any human language.
PLoS ONE 7(8):e43807, 2012
Previous studies have shown that iconic graphical signs can evolve into symbols through repeated usage within dyads and interacting communities. Here we investigate the evolution of graphical signs over chains of participants. In these chains (or “replacement ...
PLoS ONE 7(9):e45198, 2012
Language is the best example of a cultural evolutionary system, able to retain a phylogenetic signal over many thousands of years. The temporal stability (conservatism) of basic vocabulary is relatively well understood, but the stability of the structural properties of language ...MORE ⇓
Language is the best example of a cultural evolutionary system, able to retain a phylogenetic signal over many thousands of years. The temporal stability (conservatism) of basic vocabulary is relatively well understood, but the stability of the structural properties of language (phonology, morphology, syntax) is still unclear. Here we report an extensive Bayesian phylogenetic investigation of the structural stability of numerous features across many language families and we introduce a novel method for analyzing the relationships between the stability profiles of language families. We found that there is a strong universal component across language families, suggesting the existence of universal linguistic, cognitive and genetic constraints. Against this background, however, each language family has a distinct stability profile, and these profiles cluster by geographic area and likely deep genealogical relationships. These stability profiles seem to show, for example, the ancient historical relationships between the Siberian and American language families, presumed to be separated by at least 12,000 years, and possible connections between the Eurasian families. We also found preliminary support for the punctuated evolution of structural features of language across families, types of features and geographic areas. Thus, such higher-level properties of language seen as an evolutionary system might allow the investigation of ancient connections between languages and shed light on the peopling of the world.
PLoS ONE 7(3):e33171, 2012
Language change takes place primarily via diffusion of linguistic variants in a population of individuals. Identifying selective pressures on this process is important not only to construe and predict changes, but also to inform theories of evolutionary dynamics of socio-cultural ...MORE ⇓
Language change takes place primarily via diffusion of linguistic variants in a population of individuals. Identifying selective pressures on this process is important not only to construe and predict changes, but also to inform theories of evolutionary dynamics of socio-cultural factors. In this paper, we advocate the Price equation from evolutionary biology and the Polya-urn dynamics from contagion studies as efficient ways to discover selective pressures. Using the Price equation to process the simulation results of a computer model that follows the Polya-urn dynamics, we analyze theoretically a variety of factors that could affect language change, including variant prestige, transmission error, individual influence and preference, and social structure. Among these factors, variant prestige is identified as the sole selective pressure, whereas others help modulate the degree of diffusion only if variant prestige is involved. This multidisciplinary study discerns the primary and complementary roles of linguistic, individual learning, and socio-cultural factors in language change, and offers insight into empirical studies of language change.
PLoS ONE 7(12):e52064, 2012
The warp ikat method of making decorated textiles is one of the most geographically widespread in southeast Asia, being used by Austronesian peoples in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, and Daic peoples on the Asian mainland. In this study a dataset consisting of the ...MORE ⇓
The warp ikat method of making decorated textiles is one of the most geographically widespread in southeast Asia, being used by Austronesian peoples in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, and Daic peoples on the Asian mainland. In this study a dataset consisting of the decorative characters of 36 of these warp ikat weaving traditions is investigated using Bayesian and Neighbornet techniques, and the results are used to construct a phylogenetic tree and taxonomy for warp ikat weaving in southeast Asia. The results and analysis show that these diverse traditions have a common ancestor amongst neolithic cultures the Asian mainland, and parallels exist between the patterns of textile weaving descent and linguistic phylogeny for the Austronesian group. Ancestral state analysis is used to reconstruct some of the features of the ancestral weaving tradition. The widely held theory that weaving motifs originated in the late Bronze Age Dong-Son culture is shown to be inconsistent with the data.
PLoS ONE 7(6):e38236, 2012
The advent of humanoid robots has enabled a new approach to investigating the acquisition of language, and we report on the development of robots able to acquire rudimentary linguistic skills. Our work focuses on early stages analogous to some characteristics of a human child of ...MORE ⇓
The advent of humanoid robots has enabled a new approach to investigating the acquisition of language, and we report on the development of robots able to acquire rudimentary linguistic skills. Our work focuses on early stages analogous to some characteristics of a human child of about 6 to 14 months, the transition from babbling to first word forms. We investigate one mechanism among many that may contribute to this process, a key factor being the sensitivity of learners to the statistical distribution of linguistic elements. As well as being necessary for learning word meanings, the acquisition of anchor word forms facilitates the segmentation of an acoustic stream through other mechanisms. In our experiments some salient one-syllable word forms are learnt by a humanoid robot in real-time interactions with naive participants. Words emerge from random syllabic babble through a learning process based on a dialogue between the robot and the human participant, whose speech is perceived by the robot as a stream of phonemes. Numerous ways of representing the speech as syllabic segments are possible. Furthermore, the pronunciation of many words in spontaneous speech is variable. However, in line with research elsewhere, we observe that salient content words are more likely than function words to have consistent canonical representations; thus their relative frequency increases, as does their influence on the learner. Variable pronunciation may contribute to early word form acquisition. The importance of contingent interaction in real-time between teacher and learner is reflected by a reinforcement process, with variable success. The examination of individual cases may be more informative than group results. Nevertheless, word forms are usually produced by the robot after a few minutes of dialogue, employing a simple, real-time, frequency dependent mechanism. This work shows the potential of human-robot interaction systems in studies of the dynamics of early language acquisition.
PLoS ONE 7(7):e40137, 2012
Many patterns displayed by the distribution of human linguistic groups are similar to the ecological organization described for biological species. It remains a challenge to identify simple and meaningful processes that describe these patterns. The population size distribution of ...MORE ⇓
Many patterns displayed by the distribution of human linguistic groups are similar to the ecological organization described for biological species. It remains a challenge to identify simple and meaningful processes that describe these patterns. The population size distribution of human linguistic groups, for example, is well fitted by a log-normal distribution that may arise from stochastic demographic processes. As we show in this contribution, the distribution of the area size of home ranges of those groups also agrees with a log-normal function. Further, size and area are significantly correlated: the number of speakers and the area spanned by linguistic groups follow the allometric relation , with an exponent varying accross different world regions. The empirical evidence presented leads to the hypothesis that the distributions of and , and their mutual dependence, rely on demographic dynamics and on the result of conflicts over territory due to group growth. To substantiate this point, we introduce a two-variable stochastic multiplicative model whose analytical solution recovers the empirical observations. Applied to different world regions, the model reveals that the retreat in home range is sublinear with respect to the decrease in population size, and that the population-area exponent grows with the typical strength of conflicts. While the shape of the population size and area distributions, and their allometric relation, seem unavoidable outcomes of demography and inter-group contact, the precise value of could give insight on the cultural organization of those human groups in the last thousand years.
PLoS ONE 7(4):e35289, 2012
Language is a key adaptation of our species, yet we do not know when it evolved. Here, we use data on language phonemic diversity to estimate a minimum date for the origin of language. We take advantage of the fact that phonemic diversity evolves slowly and use it as a clock to ...MORE ⇓
Language is a key adaptation of our species, yet we do not know when it evolved. Here, we use data on language phonemic diversity to estimate a minimum date for the origin of language. We take advantage of the fact that phonemic diversity evolves slowly and use it as a clock to calculate how long the oldest African languages would have to have been around in order to accumulate the number of phonemes they possess today. We use a natural experiment, the colonization of Southeast Asia and Andaman Islands, to estimate the rate at which phonemic diversity increases through time. Using this rate, we estimate that present-day languages date back to the Middle Stone Age in Africa. Our analysis is consistent with the archaeological evidence suggesting that complex human behavior evolved during the Middle Stone Age in Africa, and does not support the view that language is a recent adaptation that has sparked the dispersal of humans out of Africa. While some of our assumptions require testing and our results rely at present on a single case-study, our analysis constitutes the first estimate of when language evolved that is directly based on linguistic data.
Naming a Structured World: A Cultural Route to Duality of PatterningPDF
PLoS ONE 7(6):e37744, 2012
The lexicons of human languages organize their units at two distinct levels. At a first combinatorial level, meaningless forms (typically referred to as phonemes) are combined into meaningful units (typically referred to as morphemes). Thanks to this, many ...
PLoS ONE 7(4):e35025, 2012

Background

Recent advances in automated assessment of basic vocabulary lists allow the construction of linguistic phylogenies useful for tracing dynamics of human population expansions, reconstructing ancestral cultures, and modeling transition rates of cultural traits ...MORE ⇓

Background

Recent advances in automated assessment of basic vocabulary lists allow the construction of linguistic phylogenies useful for tracing dynamics of human population expansions, reconstructing ancestral cultures, and modeling transition rates of cultural traits over time.

Methods

Here we investigate the Tupi expansion, a widely-dispersed language family in lowland South America, with a distance-based phylogeny based on 40-word vocabulary lists from 48 languages. We coded 11 cultural traits across the diverse Tupi family including traditional warfare patterns, post-marital residence, corporate structure, community size, paternity beliefs, sibling terminology, presence of canoes, tattooing, shamanism, men's houses, and lip plugs.

Results/Discussion

The linguistic phylogeny supports a Tupi homeland in west-central Brazil with subsequent major expansions across much of lowland South America. Consistently, ancestral reconstructions of cultural traits over the linguistic phylogeny suggest that social complexity has tended to decline through time, most notably in the independent emergence of several nomadic hunter-gatherer societies. Estimated rates of cultural change across the Tupi expansion are on the order of only a few changes per 10,000 years, in accord with previous cultural phylogenetic results in other language families around the world, and indicate a conservative nature to much of human culture.
Artificial Life
Artificial Life 18(3):311--323, 2012
Abstract We examine a naming game on an adaptive weighted network. A weight of connection for a given pair of agents depends on their communication success rate and determines the probability with which the agents communicate. In some cases, depending ...
Artificial Life 18(1):107--121, 2012
This article adopts the category game model, which simulates the origins and evolution of linguistic categories in a group of artificial agents, to evaluate the effect of social structure on linguistic categorization. Based on the simulation results in a number of typical ...MORE ⇓
This article adopts the category game model, which simulates the origins and evolution of linguistic categories in a group of artificial agents, to evaluate the effect of social structure on linguistic categorization. Based on the simulation results in a number of typical networks, we examine the isolating and collective effects of some structural features, including average degree, shortcuts, and level of centrality, on the categorization process. This study extends the previous simulations mainly on lexical evolution, and illustrates a general framework to systematically explore the effect of social structure on language evolution.
Adaptive Behavior
Adaptive Behavior 20(2):104--116, 2012
Abstract To facilitate further research in emergent turn-taking, we propose a metric for evaluating the extent to which agents take turns using a shared resource. Our measure reports a turn-taking value for a particular time and a particular timescale, or “resolution,” ...
Adaptive Behavior 20(5):360--387, 2012
Abstract For robots to use language effectively, they need to refer to combinations of existing concepts, as well as concepts that have been directly experienced. In this paper, we introduce the term generative grounding to refer to the establishment of shared meaning ...
Journal of Quantitative Linguistics
Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 19(2):95--120, 2012
Abstract We apply to the task of linguistic phylogenetic inference a successful cognate identification learning model based on point accepted mutation (PAM)-like matrices. We train our system and we employ the learned parameters for measuring the lexical distance ...
Language Grounding in Robots:
Emergent action language on real robotsPDF
Language Grounding in Robots:, pages 255--276, 2012
Almost all languages in the world have a way to formulate commands. Commands specify actions that the body should undertake (such as “stand up”), possibly involving other objects in the scene (such as “pick up the red block”). Action language involves various ...
A perceptual system for language game experimentsPDF
Language Grounding in Robots:, pages 89--110, 2012
This chapter describes key aspects of a visual perception system as a key component for language game experiments on physical robots. The vision system is responsible for segmenting the continuous flow of incoming visual stimuli into segments and computing a ...
Open-ended procedural semanticsPDF
Language Grounding in Robots:, pages 153--172, 2012
This chapter introduces the computational infrastructure that is used to bridge the gap between results from sensorimotor processing and language. It consists of a system called Incremental Recruitment Language (IRL) that is able to configure a network of cognitive ...
ArXiv Preprint
Mapping the geographical diffusion of new wordsPDF
ArXiv Preprint, pages 1210.5268, 2012
Language in social media is rich with linguistic innovations, most strikingly in the new words and spellings that constantly enter the lexicon. Despite assertions about the power of social media to connect people across the world, we find that many of these neologisms are ...MORE ⇓
Language in social media is rich with linguistic innovations, most strikingly in the new words and spellings that constantly enter the lexicon. Despite assertions about the power of social media to connect people across the world, we find that many of these neologisms are restricted to geographically compact areas. Even for words that become ubiquituous, their growth in popularity is often geographical, spreading from city to city. Thus, social media text offers a unique opportunity to study the diffusion of lexical change. In this paper, we show how an autoregressive model of word frequencies in social media can be used to induce a network of linguistic influence between American cities. By comparing the induced network with the geographical and demographic characteristics of each city, we can measure the factors that drive the spread of lexical innovation.
Average word length dynamics as indicator of cultural changes in societyPDF
ArXiv Preprint, pages 1208.6109, 2012
Dynamics of average length of words in Russian and English is analysed in the article. Words belonging to the diachronic text corpus Google Books Ngram and dated back to the last two centuries are studied. It was found out that average word length slightly increased in the 19th ...MORE ⇓
Dynamics of average length of words in Russian and English is analysed in the article. Words belonging to the diachronic text corpus Google Books Ngram and dated back to the last two centuries are studied. It was found out that average word length slightly increased in the 19th century, and then it was growing rapidly most of the 20th century and started decreasing over the period from the end of the 20th - to the beginning of the 21th century. Words which contributed mostly to increase or decrease of word average length were identified. At that, content words and functional words are analysed separately. Long content words contribute mostly to word average length of word. As it was shown, these words reflect the main tendencies of social development and thus, are used frequently. Change of frequency of personal pronouns also contributes significantly to change of average word length. The other parameters connected with average length of word were also analysed.
Animal Cognition
Animal Cognition 15(4):647-656, 2012
Complex acoustic signals in many animal species are characterized by a syntax that governs how different notes are combined, but the importance of syntax to the communicative function of signals is not well understood. Mated pairs of yellow-naped amazons, Amazona auropalliata, ...MORE ⇓
Complex acoustic signals in many animal species are characterized by a syntax that governs how different notes are combined, but the importance of syntax to the communicative function of signals is not well understood. Mated pairs of yellow-naped amazons, Amazona auropalliata, produce coordinated vocal duets that are used for territory maintenance and defense. These duets follow rules that specify the ordering of notes within duets, such as a strict alternation of sex-specific notes and a defined progression of note types through each duet. These syntactical rules may function to define sex-specific roles, improve coordination, and allow individuals to combine calls into meaningful sequences. As a first step toward understanding the functional significance of syntax, we conducted two separate audio playback experiments in which we presented nesting pairs with normal duets and duets with broken syntax (i.e., one of the syntactic rules was broken). In Experiment One, we reversed the order of female and male notes within note pairs while retaining the typical progression of note types through a duet. In Experiment Two we reversed the order of note types across a whole duet while retaining the typical female–male ordering within note pairs. We hypothesized that duets with broken syntax would be less-effective signals than duets with normal syntax and predicted that pairs would respond less to broken syntax than to normal duets. Contrary to predictions, we did not observe differences in response between treatments for any variables except latency to approach the speaker. After we combined data across experiments post hoc, we observed longer latencies to approach the speakers after playbacks of broken syntax duets, suggesting that pairs could differentiate between playbacks. These responses suggest that breaking one rule of duet syntax at a time does not result in detectable loss of signal efficacy in the context of territorial intrusions.
Animal cognition 15(2):223--238, 2012
Abstract Now more than ever animal studies have the potential to test hypotheses regarding how cognition evolves. Comparative psychologists have developed new techniques to probe the cognitive mechanisms underlying animal behavior, and they have become ...
Cognitive Science
Cognitive Science, 2012
Cross-situational learning has recently gained attention as a plausible candidate for the mechanism that underlies the learning of word-meaning mappings. In a recent study, Blythe and colleagues have studied how many trials are theoretically required to learn a human-sized ...MORE ⇓
Cross-situational learning has recently gained attention as a plausible candidate for the mechanism that underlies the learning of word-meaning mappings. In a recent study, Blythe and colleagues have studied how many trials are theoretically required to learn a human-sized lexicon using cross-situational learning. They show that the level of referential uncertainty exposed to learners could be relatively large. However, one of the assumptions they made in designing their mathematical model is questionable. Although they rightfully assumed that words are distributed according to Zipf's law, they applied a uniform distribution of meanings. In this article, Zipf's law is also applied to the distribution of meanings, and it is shown that under this condition, cross-situational learning can only be plausible when referential uncertainty is sufficiently small. It is concluded that cross-situational learning is a plausible learning mechanism but needs to be guided by heuristics that aid word learners with reducing referential uncertainty.
Cognitive Science 36(8):1468-1498, 2012
In this article, we develop a hierarchical Bayesian model of learning in a general type of artificial language-learning experiment in which learners are exposed to a mixture of grammars representing the variation present in real learners’ input, particularly at times of language ...MORE ⇓
In this article, we develop a hierarchical Bayesian model of learning in a general type of artificial language-learning experiment in which learners are exposed to a mixture of grammars representing the variation present in real learners’ input, particularly at times of language change. The modeling goal is to formalize and quantify hypothesized learning biases. The test case is an experiment (Culbertson, Smolensky, & Legendre, 2012) targeting the learning of word-order patterns in the nominal domain. The model identifies internal biases of the experimental participants, providing evidence that learners impose (possibly arbitrary) properties on the grammars they learn, potentially resulting in the cross-linguistic regularities known as typological universals. Learners exposed to mixtures of artificial grammars tended to shift those mixtures in certain ways rather than others; the model reveals how learners’ inferences are systematically affected by specific prior biases. These biases are in line with a typological generalization—Greenberg's Universal 18—which bans a particular word-order pattern relating nouns, adjectives, and numerals.
Cognitive science, 2012
Abstract Collaborators generally coordinate their activities through communication, during which they readily negotiate a shared lexicon for activity-related objects. This social-pragmatic activity both recruits and affects cognitive and social-cognitive processes ...
Physical Review E
Opinion formation in time-varying social networks: The case of the naming gamePDF
Physical Review E 86(3):036110, 2012
Social networks are inherently dynamic. Social interactions and human activities are intermittent, the neighborhood of individuals moving over a geographic space evolves over time, links appear and disappear in the World Wide Web. The essence of social network ...
Physical Review E 85(1):016113, 2012
Autonomous mobile and communicating agents provide extremely efficient solutions to a wide range of technological problems by guaranteeing robustness, flexibility, and dynamic adaptability [1]. A typical case is that of a population of robots that have to explore an ...
Physical Review E 86(2):026107, 2012
The study of the evolution of languages and their structures has generated a very rich debate spanning different disciplines and approaches. The ideas developed in the linguistic community, which introduced the thesis of considering some linguistic structures as innate ...
Fast fixation with a generic network structure
Physical Review E 86(3):031142, 2012
We investigate the dynamics of a broad class of stochastic copying processes on a network that includes examples from population genetics (spatially structured Wright-Fisher models), ecology (Hubbell-type models), linguistics (the utterance selection model), and opinion dynamics ...MORE ⇓
We investigate the dynamics of a broad class of stochastic copying processes on a network that includes examples from population genetics (spatially structured Wright-Fisher models), ecology (Hubbell-type models), linguistics (the utterance selection model), and opinion dynamics (the voter model) as special cases. These models all have absorbing states of fixation where all the nodes are in the same state. Earlier studies of these models showed that the mean time when this occurs can be made to grow as different powers of the network size by varying the degree distribution of the network. Here we demonstrate that this effect can also arise if one varies the asymmetry of the copying dynamics while holding the degree distribution constant. In particular, we show that the mean time to fixation can be accelerated even on homogeneous networks when certain nodes are very much more likely to be copied from than copied to. We further show that there is a complex interplay between degree distribution and asymmetry when they may covary, and that the results are robust to correlations in the network or the initial condition.
Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience
Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience 4, 2012
Abstract This article discusses the possible homologies between the human language networks and comparable auditory projection systems in the macaque brain, in an attempt to reconcile two existing views on language evolution: one that emphasizes hand control ...
Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience 4, 2012
Abstract Vocal learners such as humans and songbirds can learn to produce elaborate patterns of structurally organized vocalizations, whereas many other vertebrates such as non-human primates and most other bird groups either cannot or do so to a very limited ...
Applied Mathematics and Computation
Applied Mathematics and Computation 218(17):8825–8841, 2012
For 20 years many authors have attempted to model language competition. Some models involve two different languages, others include also a bilingual population. The issues are to understand one language extinction or to determine in which parameter range coexistence is possible. ...MORE ⇓
For 20 years many authors have attempted to model language competition. Some models involve two different languages, others include also a bilingual population. The issues are to understand one language extinction or to determine in which parameter range coexistence is possible. A key parameter is the prestige of one language compare to the other. If this parameter remains constant, coexistence is not sustainable. However, prestige may vary with time. In this article, thanks to the viability theory concepts and tools, we study a set of prestige variations which would allow language coexistence in presence of a bilingual population. Among this set, we emphasise slow viable evolutions with the lowest prestige variations that guarantee coexistence.
Journal of Economic Growth
The roots of ethnic diversity
Journal of Economic Growth, pages 1--32, 2012
Abstract The level of ethnic diversity is believed to have significant consequences for economic and political development within countries. In this article, we provide a theoretical and empirical analysis of the determinants of ethnolinguistic diversity in the world. We ...
Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications
The spatial distribution of clusters and the formation of mixed languages in bilingual competition
Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2012
We use cellular automata simulation methods to study the competition between two languages (language A and B). We assume each of the two languages consists of F independent features and define an individual as two F-length “identity level” integer ...
Modeling language evolution: Aromanian, an endangered language in Greece
Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2012
Time evolution of the relative density of speakers of an endangered language, Aromanian, which is spoken by a bilingual community in North-Western Greece, is approached theoretically by means of a two-state model and a three-state model. The same prestige ...
Chinese lexical networks: The structure, function and formation
Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2012
In this paper Chinese phrases are modeled using complex networks theory. We analyze statistical properties of the networks and find that phrase networks display some important features: not only small world and the power-law distribution, but also hierarchical ...
Advances in Complex Systems
Advances in Complex Systems 15(03n04):1203002, 2012
Thirty authors of different disciplines, ranging from cognitive science and linguistics to mathematics and physics, address the topic of language origin and evolution. Language dynamics is investigated through an interdisciplinary effort, involving field and synthetic ...MORE ⇓
Thirty authors of different disciplines, ranging from cognitive science and linguistics to mathematics and physics, address the topic of language origin and evolution. Language dynamics is investigated through an interdisciplinary effort, involving field and synthetic experiments, modelling and comparison of the theoretical predictions with empirical data. The result consists in new insights that significantly contribute to the ongoing debate on the origin and the evolution of language. In this Topical Issue the state of the art of this novel and fertile approach is reported by major experts of the field.
Advances in Complex Systems 15(03n04):1250031, 2012
The problem of how young learners acquire the meaning of words is fundamental to language development and cognition. A host of computational models exist which demonstrate various mechanisms in which words and their meanings can be transferred between a teacher and learner. ...MORE ⇓
The problem of how young learners acquire the meaning of words is fundamental to language development and cognition. A host of computational models exist which demonstrate various mechanisms in which words and their meanings can be transferred between a teacher and learner. However these models often assume that the learner can easily distinguish between the referents of words, and do not show if the learning mechanisms still function when there is perceptual ambiguity about the referent of a word. This paper presents two models that acquire meaning-word mappings in a continuous semantic space. The first model is a cross-situational learning model in which the learner induces word-meaning mappings through statistical learning from repeated exposures. The second model is a social model, in which the learner and teacher engage in a dyadic learning interaction to transfer word-meaning mappings. We show how cross-situational learning, despite there being no information to the learner as to the exact referent of a word during learning, still can learn successfully. However, social learning outperforms cross-situational strategies both in speed of acquisition and performance. The results suggest that cross-situational learning is efficient for situations where referential ambiguity is limited, but in more complex situations social learning is the more optimal strategy.
Advances in Complex Systems 15(03n04):1150015, 2012
We review the task of aligning simple models for language dynamics with relevant empirical data, motivated by the fact that this is rarely attempted in practice despite an abundance of abstract models. We propose that one way to meet this challenge is through the careful ...MORE ⇓
We review the task of aligning simple models for language dynamics with relevant empirical data, motivated by the fact that this is rarely attempted in practice despite an abundance of abstract models. We propose that one way to meet this challenge is through the careful construction of null models. We argue in particular that rejection of a null model must have important consequences for theories about language dynamics if modeling is truly to be worthwhile. Our main claim is that the stochastic process of neutral evolution (also known as genetic drift or random copying) is a viable null model for language dynamics. We survey empirical evidence in favor and against neutral evolution as a mechanism behind historical language changes, highlighting the theoretical implications in each case.
Advances in Complex Systems 15(03n04):1150017, 2012
Human language is unparalleled in both its expressive capacity and its diversity. What accounts for the enormous diversity of human languages [13]? Recent evidence suggests that the structure of languages may be shaped by the social and demographic environment in which the ...MORE ⇓
Human language is unparalleled in both its expressive capacity and its diversity. What accounts for the enormous diversity of human languages [13]? Recent evidence suggests that the structure of languages may be shaped by the social and demographic environment in which the languages are learned and used. In an analysis of over 2000 languages Lupyan and Dale [25] demonstrated that socio-demographic variables, such as population size, significantly predicted the complexity of inflectional morphology. Languages spoken by smaller populations tend to employ more complex inflectional systems. Languages spoken by larger populations tend to avoid complex morphological paradigms, employing lexical constructions instead. This relationship may exist because of how language learning takes place in these different social contexts [44, 45]. In a smaller population, a tightly-knit social group combined with exclusive or almost exclusive language acquisition by infants permits accumulation of complex inflectional forms. In larger populations, adult language learning and more extensive cross-group interactions produce pressures that lead to morphological simplification. In the current paper, we explore this learning-based hypothesis in two ways. First, we develop an agent-based simulation that serves as a simple existence proof: As adult interaction increases, languages lose inflections. Second, we carry out a correlational study showing that English-speaking adults who had more interaction with non-native speakers as children showed a relative preference for over-regularized (i.e. morphologically simpler) forms. The results of the simulation and experiment lend support to the linguistic niche hypothesis: Languages may vary in the ways they do in part due to different social environments in which they are learned and used. In short, languages adapt to the learning constraints and biases of their learners.
Advances in Complex Systems 15(03n04):1150021, 2012
This paper reviews how the structure of form and meaning spaces influences the nature and the dynamics of the form-meaning mappings in language. In general, in a structured form or meaning space, not all forms and meanings are equivalent: some forms and some meanings are more ...MORE ⇓
This paper reviews how the structure of form and meaning spaces influences the nature and the dynamics of the form-meaning mappings in language. In general, in a structured form or meaning space, not all forms and meanings are equivalent: some forms and some meanings are more easily confused with each other than with other forms or meanings. We first give a formalization of this idea, and explore how it influences robust form-meaning mappings. It is shown that some fundamental properties of human language, such as discreteness and combinatorial structure as well as universals of sound systems of human languages follow from optimal communication in structured form and meaning spaces. We also argue that some properties of human language follow less from these fundamental issues, and more from cognitive constraints.

We then show that it is possible to experimentally investigate the relative contribution of functional constraints and of cognitive constraints. We illustrate this with an example of one of our own experiments, in which experimental participants have to learn a set of complex form-meaning mappings that have been produced by a previous generation of participants. Theoretically predicted properties appear in the sets of signals that emerge in this iterated learning experiment.

Advances in Complex Systems 15(03n04):1150026, 2012
The recent growth of Experimental Semiotics (ES) offers us a new option to investigate human communication. We briefly introduce ES, presenting results from three themes of research which emerged within it. Then we illustrate the contribution ES can make to the investigation of ...MORE ⇓
The recent growth of Experimental Semiotics (ES) offers us a new option to investigate human communication. We briefly introduce ES, presenting results from three themes of research which emerged within it. Then we illustrate the contribution ES can make to the investigation of human communication systems, particularly in comparison with the other existing options. This comparison highlights how ES can provide an engine of discovery for understanding human communication. In fact, in complementing the other options, ES offers us unique opportunities to test assumptions about communicative behavior, both through the experimenters' planned manipulations and through the unexpected behaviors humans exhibit in experimental settings. We provide three examples of such opportunities, one from each of the three research themes we present.
Advances in Complex Systems 15(03n04):1250054, 2012
We investigate the directed and weighted complex network of free word associations in which players write a word in response to another word given as input. We analyze in details two large datasets resulting from two very different experiments: On the one hand the massive ...MORE ⇓
We investigate the directed and weighted complex network of free word associations in which players write a word in response to another word given as input. We analyze in details two large datasets resulting from two very different experiments: On the one hand the massive multiplayer web-based Word Association Game known as Human Brain Cloud, and on the other hand the South Florida Free Association Norms experiment. In both cases, the networks of associations exhibit quite robust properties like the small world property, a slight assortativity and a strong asymmetry between in-degree and out-degree distributions. A particularly interesting result concerns the existence of a characteristic scale for the word association process, arguably related to specific conceptual contexts for each word. After mapping, the Human Brain Cloud network onto the WordNet semantics network, we point out the basic cognitive mechanisms underlying word associations when they are represented as paths in an underlying semantic network. We derive in particular an expression describing the growth of the HBC graph and we highlight the existence of a characteristic scale for the word association process.
Advances in Complex Systems 15(03n04):1150019, 2012
The paper investigates the quantitative distribution of language types across languages of the world. The studies are based on three large-scale typological data bases: The World Color Survey, the Automated Similarity Judgment Project data base, and the World Atlas of Language ...MORE ⇓
The paper investigates the quantitative distribution of language types across languages of the world. The studies are based on three large-scale typological data bases: The World Color Survey, the Automated Similarity Judgment Project data base, and the World Atlas of Language Structures. The main finding is that a surprisingly large and varied collection of linguistic typologies show power law behavior. The bulk of the paper deals with the statistical validation of these findings.
Advances in Complex Systems 15(03n04):1150016, 2012
It is widely known that color names across the world's languages tend to be organized into a neat hierarchy with a small set of 'basic names' featuring in a comparatively fixed order across linguistic societies. However, to date, the basic names have only been defined through a ...MORE ⇓
It is widely known that color names across the world's languages tend to be organized into a neat hierarchy with a small set of 'basic names' featuring in a comparatively fixed order across linguistic societies. However, to date, the basic names have only been defined through a set of linguistic principles. There is no statistical definition that quantitatively separates the basic names from the rest of the color words across languages. Here we present a rigorous statistical analysis of the World Color Survey database hosting color word information from 110 non-industrialized languages. The central result is that those names for which a population of individuals show a larger overall agreement across languages turn out to be the basic ones exactly reproducing the color name hierarchy and, thereby, providing, for the first time, an empirical definition of the basic color names.
Advances in Complex Systems 15(03n04):1150022, 2012
Linguistic meaning is a convention. This article investigates how such conventions can arise for color categories in populations of simulated 'agents'. The method uses concepts from evolutionary game theory: A language game where agents assign names to color patches and is played ...MORE ⇓
Linguistic meaning is a convention. This article investigates how such conventions can arise for color categories in populations of simulated 'agents'. The method uses concepts from evolutionary game theory: A language game where agents assign names to color patches and is played repeatedly by members of a population. The evolutionary dynamics employed make minimal assumptions about agents' perceptions and learning processes. Through various simulations it is shown that under different kinds of reasonable conditions involving outcomes of individual games, the evolutionary dynamics push populations to stationary equilibria, which can be interpreted as achieving shared population meaning systems. Optimal population agreement for meaning is characterized through a mathematical formula, and the simulations presented reveal that for a wide variety of situations, optimality is achieved.
Advances in Complex Systems 15(03n04):1250051, 2012
In this position paper we discuss how language influences the mind by comparing robots that have language with robots that do not have language. Robots with language respond more adaptively to objects belonging to different categories and requiring different behaviors compared to ...MORE ⇓
In this position paper we discuss how language influences the mind by comparing robots that have language with robots that do not have language. Robots with language respond more adaptively to objects belonging to different categories and requiring different behaviors compared to robots without language, and it is possible to show that categories of objects are represented differently in the neural network which controls the behavior of the two types of robots. By exposing the robots to sounds which co-vary systematically with specific aspects of their experience, the robots can distinguish nouns from verbs and can respond appropriately to simple noun-verb sentences. Robots can also be used to show that, while all animals develop a mental (neural) model of their environment which incorporates the co-variations among different aspects of their experiences, human beings develop a more analytical and modular model because specific sounds co-vary with different aspects of their experiences and this may explain why human beings have a more articulated and creative behavioral repertoire.
Advances in Complex Systems 15(03n04):1250048, 2012
During the last decade, much attention has been paid to language competition in the complex systems community, that is, how the fractions of speakers of several competing languages evolve in time. In this paper, we review recent advances in this direction and focus on three ...MORE ⇓
During the last decade, much attention has been paid to language competition in the complex systems community, that is, how the fractions of speakers of several competing languages evolve in time. In this paper, we review recent advances in this direction and focus on three aspects. First, we consider the shift from two-state models to three-state models that include the possibility of bilingual individuals. The understanding of the role played by bilingualism is essential in sociolinguistics. In particular, the question addressed is whether bilingualism facilitates the coexistence of languages. Second, we will analyze the effect of social interaction networks and physical barriers. Finally, we will show how to analyze the issue of bilingualism from a game theoretical perspective.
Advances in Complex Systems 15(03n04):1150018, 2012
Evolutionary game theory is used to form a finite partition of a continuous hue circle in which perceptually similar hues are each represented by an icon chip and the circle by a finite but game dynamically determined number of icon chips. On the basis of such icon chip ...MORE ⇓
Evolutionary game theory is used to form a finite partition of a continuous hue circle in which perceptually similar hues are each represented by an icon chip and the circle by a finite but game dynamically determined number of icon chips. On the basis of such icon chip structures, a color categorization for both an individual learner and a population of learners is then evolved. These results remove limitations of some particular previous color categorization simulation work which assumed a fixed number of color stimuli and a maximal number of predefined color categories. These simulations are extended to demonstrate that learners need neither to share the same icon chip structures, nor do these structures have to be fully developed for a population of learners to produce a stable color categorization system. Additionally, when a naive learner is introduced into a population with a stable color categorization, the game dynamics result in the learner's adopting the existing categorization. All results are shown to hold while the underlying icon chip structures evolve continuously in response to novel stimuli. The usefulness of the approach as well as some of the potential implications of the results for human learning of color categories are discussed.
Advances in Complex Systems 15(01n02), 2012
Humans divide themselves up into groups based on a shared cultural identity and common descent. Culturally inherited differences in dress, language, and institutions are often used as symbolic markers of the boundaries of these ethnic groups. Relatively little is known ...
Advances in Complex Systems 15(03n04):1150020, 2012
configure a pattern on a board to communicate with each other. Distinct from related studies, players in this game have no explicit game scores or tasks to optimize. Any dynamics occurring in this game are therefore ad-hoc and on-going processes. There were three major findings ...MORE ⇓
configure a pattern on a board to communicate with each other. Distinct from related studies, players in this game have no explicit game scores or tasks to optimize. Any dynamics occurring in this game are therefore ad-hoc and on-going processes. There were three major findings in this paper. (i) The subjects mainly interacted in two modes: a dynamic mode where players proceed through the game without assigning any meanings to the pattern, and a metaphoric mode, where players process with narrative reflection. (ii) Subjects spontaneously switch between the two modes, but this switching is suppressed when playing alone. (iii) A transition diagram of the board pattern can be used to label the two modes, e.g. linearity of the diagram is correlated with the metaphoric mode. One of the main features of grammar is to display subjects' intentionality in a systematic way. We argue that the switching between the two modes observed in our experiment can be taken as a grammatical aspect that emerged in the process. These modes express the speaker's perspective in the same manner as grammatical elements do in natural language. The switching behavior should be seen as a process that embodies a player's intention using the medium (in this case, the patterns in the wall game), and a player's exploration of the medium is a necessary step before generating a grammar structure.
Advances in Complex Systems 15(03n04):1250039, 2012
The question how a shared vocabulary can arise in a multi-agent population despite the fact that each agent autonomously invents and acquires words has been solved. The solution is based on alignment: Agents score all associations between words and meanings in their lexicons and ...MORE ⇓
The question how a shared vocabulary can arise in a multi-agent population despite the fact that each agent autonomously invents and acquires words has been solved. The solution is based on alignment: Agents score all associations between words and meanings in their lexicons and update these preference scores based on communicative success. A positive feedback loop between success and use thus arises which causes the spontaneous self-organization of a shared lexicon. The same approach has been proposed for explaining how a population can arrive at a shared grammar, in which we get the same problem of variation because each agent invents and acquires their own grammatical constructions. However, a problem arises if constructions reuse parts that can also exist on their own. This happens particularly when frequent usage patterns, which are based on compositional rules, are stored as such. The problem is how to maintain systematicity. This paper identifies this problem and proposes a solution in the form of multilevel alignment. Multilevel alignment means that the updating of preference scores is not restricted to the constructions that were used in the utterance but also downward and upward in the subsumption hierarchy.
Neuroreport
Neuroreport 23(3):139, 2012
Abstract There are remarkable behavioral, neural, and genetic similarities between song learning in songbirds and speech acquisition in human infants. Previously, we have argued that this parallel cannot be extended to the level of sentence syntax. Although birdsong ...
Natural Computing
Natural Computing, pages 1--9, 2012
Abstract This paper is placed in a formal framework in which the interdisciplinary study of natural language is conducted by integrating linguistics, computer science and biology. It provides an overview of the field of research, conveying the main biological ideas that ...
Language
S-curves and the mechanisms of propagation in language change
Language 88(2):269--304, 2012
Abstract A variety of mechanisms have been proposed in sociolinguistics for the propagation of an innovation through the speech community. The complexity of social systems makes it difficult to evaluate the different mechanisms empirically. We use the four-way typology of ...
Natural Language \& Linguistic Theory
When does a system become phonological? Handshape production in gesturers, signers, and homesigners
Natural Language \& Linguistic Theory 30(1):1--31, 2012
Abstract Sign languages display remarkable crosslinguistic consistencies in the use of handshapes. In particular, handshapes used in classifier predicates display a consistent pattern in finger complexity: classifier handshapes representing objects display more ...
PLoS Computational Biology
PLoS Computational Biology 8(6):e1002510, 2012
We introduce a theory of sequential causal inference in which learners in a chain estimate a structural model from their upstream “teacher” and then pass samples from the model to their downstream “student”. It extends the population dynamics of genetic drift, recasting Kimura's ...MORE ⇓
We introduce a theory of sequential causal inference in which learners in a chain estimate a structural model from their upstream “teacher” and then pass samples from the model to their downstream “student”. It extends the population dynamics of genetic drift, recasting Kimura's selectively neutral theory as a special case of a generalized drift process using structured populations with memory. We examine the diffusion and fixation properties of several drift processes and propose applications to learning, inference, and evolution. We also demonstrate how the organization of drift process space controls fidelity, facilitates innovations, and leads to information loss in sequential learning with and without memory.
The Oxford Hand Book of Comparative Evolutionary Psychology
Socio-cognitive specializations in nonhuman primates: evidence from gestural communicationPDF
The Oxford hand book of comparative evolutionary psychology, pages 1--25, 2012
Abstract This chapter reviews primate cognitive abilities in physical, social, and communicative realms and asks (1) whether primates exhibit abilities that differ from those of other animals, and (2) what selective pressures primates face that may have led to the ...
Evolutionary Biology
Evolutionary Biology, pages 1--13, 2012
Abstract Modes of cultural transmission are, by analogy with modes of genetic transmission, ways in which cultural information is transmitted between individuals. Despite its importance across the behavioral sciences and for theories of cultural evolution, no attempts have ...
Evolutionary Biology, pages 1--25, 2012
Abstract A tension has long existed between those biologists who emphasize the importance of adaptation by natural selection and those who highlight the role of phylogenetic and developmental constraints on organismal form and function. This ...
Journal of Development Economics
The political economy of linguistic cleavagesPDF
Journal of development Economics 97(2):322--338, 2012
This paper uses a linguistic tree, describing the genealogical relationship between all 6912 world languages, to compute measures of diversity at different levels of linguistic aggregation. By doing so, we let the data inform us on which linguistic cleavages are most ...
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2012
Abstract It is generally assumed that hierarchical phrase structure plays a central role in human language. However, considerations of simplicity and evolutionary continuity suggest that hierarchical structure should not be invoked too hastily. Indeed, recent ...
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 279(1747):4643-4651, 2012
Joint attention (JA) is important to many social, communicative activities, including language, and humans exhibit a considerably high level of JA compared with non-human primates. We propose a coevolutionary hypothesis to explain this degree-difference in JA: once JA started to ...MORE ⇓
Joint attention (JA) is important to many social, communicative activities, including language, and humans exhibit a considerably high level of JA compared with non-human primates. We propose a coevolutionary hypothesis to explain this degree-difference in JA: once JA started to aid linguistic comprehension, along with language evolution, communicative success (CS) during cultural transmission could enhance the levels of JA among language users. We illustrate this hypothesis via a multi-agent computational model, where JA boils down to a genetically transmitted ability to obtain non-linguistic cues aiding comprehension. The simulation results and statistical analysis show that: (i) the level of JA is correlated with the understandability of the emergent language; and (ii) CS can boost an initially low level of JA and ratchet it up to a stable high level. This coevolutionary perspective helps explain the degree-difference in many language-related competences between humans and non-human primates, and reflects the importance of biological evolution, individual learning and cultural transmission to language evolution.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 279(1735):1943--1949, 2012
Communication involves a pair of behaviours—a signal and a response—that are functionally interdependent. Consequently, the emergence of communication involves a chicken-and-egg problem: if signals and responses are dependent on one another, then how does such a relationship ...MORE ⇓
Communication involves a pair of behaviours—a signal and a response—that are functionally interdependent. Consequently, the emergence of communication involves a chicken-and-egg problem: if signals and responses are dependent on one another, then how does such a relationship emerge in the first place? The empirical literature suggests two solutions to this problem: ritualization and sensory manipulation; and instances of ritualization appear to be more common. However, it is not clear from a theoretical perspective why this should be the case, nor if there are any other routes to communication. Here, we develop an analytical model to examine how communication can emerge. We show that: (i) a state of non-interaction is evolutionarily stable, and so communication will not necessarily emerge even when it is in both parties' interest; (ii) the conditions for sensory manipulation are more stringent than for ritualization, and hence ritualization is likely to be more common; and (iii) communication can arise by a third route, when the intention to communicate can itself be communicated, but this may be limited to humans. More generally, our results demonstrate the utility of a functional approach to communication.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 279(1733):1606--1612, 2012
Abstract Human cultural traits, such as languages, musics, rituals and material objects, vary widely across cultures. However, the majority of comparative analyses of human cultural diversity focus on between-culture variation without consideration for within-culture ...
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 279(1741):3256--3263, 2012
The expansion of Bantu languages represents one of the most momentous events in the history of Africa. While it is well accepted that Bantu languages spread from their homeland (Cameroon/Nigeria) approximately 5000 years ago (ya), there is no consensus about the timing and ...MORE ⇓
The expansion of Bantu languages represents one of the most momentous events in the history of Africa. While it is well accepted that Bantu languages spread from their homeland (Cameroon/Nigeria) approximately 5000 years ago (ya), there is no consensus about the timing and geographical routes underlying this expansion. Two main models of Bantu expansion have been suggested: The ‘early-split’ model claims that the most recent ancestor of Eastern languages expanded north of the rainforest towards the Great Lakes region approximately 4000 ya, while the ‘late-split’ model proposes that Eastern languages diversified from Western languages south of the rainforest approximately 2000 ya. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the language dispersal was coupled with the movement of people, raising the question of language shift versus demic diffusion. We use a novel approach taking into account both the spatial and temporal predictions of the two models and formally test these predictions with linguistic and genetic data. Our results show evidence for a demic diffusion in the genetic data, which is confirmed by the correlations between genetic and linguistic distances. While there is little support for the early-split model, the late-split model shows a relatively good fit to the data. Our analyses demonstrate that subsequent contact among languages/populations strongly affected the signal of the initial migration via isolation by distance.
Psychological Science
Psychological Science 23(8):931--939, 2012
Sharing a public language facilitates particularly efficient forms of joint perception and action by giving interlocutors refined tools for directing attention and aligning conceptual models and action. We hypothesized that interlocutors who flexibly align their linguistic ...MORE ⇓
Sharing a public language facilitates particularly efficient forms of joint perception and action by giving interlocutors refined tools for directing attention and aligning conceptual models and action. We hypothesized that interlocutors who flexibly align their linguistic practices ...
Language and Linguistics Compass
Language and Linguistics Compass 6(8):477--493, 2012
Abstract In the last few years, researchers have begun to study novel human communication systems in the laboratory (Experimental Semiotics, ES). The first goal of this article is to provide a primer to ES, which we will do by reviewing the experimental paradigms ...
International Studies in the Philosophy of Science
Selectionist Approaches in Evolutionary Linguistics: An Epistemological Analysis
International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 26(1):67--95, 2012
Evolutionary linguistics is methodologically inspired by evolutionary psychology and the neo-Darwinian, selectionist approach. Language is claimed to have evolved by means of natural selection. The focus therefore lies not on how language evolved, but on finding out why ...
Language Sciences
The conjectured role of Polani et al.s relevant information, behavioral variation and recursive cognition in selection for a human language faculty
Language Sciences, pages 12--24, 2012
The speculative argument presented in this review is based on the assumption that Polani et al.'s formalization will limit communication to the minimal amount of information needed to employ adaptive behavior. Selection for some of the distinct features of human language ...
Topics in Cognitive Science
Topics in Cognitive Science, 2012
Abstract What was the role of music in the evolutionary history of human beings? We address this question from the point of view that musicality can be defined as a cognitive trait. Although it has been argued that we will never know how cognitive traits evolved ( ...
Evolution and Human Behavior
Opportunity to assimilate and pressure to discriminate can generate cultural divergence in the laboratoryPDF
Evolution and Human Behavior 33(6):759–770, 2012
Formal models of cultural evolution have illustrated circumstances under which behavioral traits that have no inherent advantage over others can undergo positive selection pressure. One situation in which this may occur is when the behavior functions as a social marker, and there ...MORE ⇓
Formal models of cultural evolution have illustrated circumstances under which behavioral traits that have no inherent advantage over others can undergo positive selection pressure. One situation in which this may occur is when the behavior functions as a social marker, and there is pressure to identify oneself as a member of a particular group. Our aim in the current study was to determine whether participants organized into subpopulations could effectively exploit variation in a completely novel behavior to advertise themselves as belonging to a particular subpopulation, such that discrimination between in-group and out-group members was possible and subpopulations exhibited increasing distinctiveness. Eighty participants took part, organized into four subpopulations, each composed of five four-member generations. They each completed a tower-building task, used in previous experimental studies of cultural evolution. An incentive payment structure was imposed with the aim of motivating participants to advertise themselves as belonging to a particular subpopulation and to distinguish in-group members from members of other subpopulations. The first generation were exposed to photographs of randomly assigned “seed” towers, and later generations were exposed to photographs of the towers built by the members of the previous generation of their own subpopulation. Participants were able to discriminate towers built by in-group members of the same generation, from towers built by out-group members. Over generations, tower designs evolved such that they were increasingly identifiable as belonging to a particular subpopulation. Arbitrary traits which had no prior advantage became associated with group membership, providing empirical support for theoretical models.
Philosophy of Linguistics
Linguistics from an evolutionary point of viewPDF
Philosophy of Linguistics, pages 477, 2012
Beginning Linguistics students are sometimes treated to an array of mock “theories” about the evolution of language, including the “Bow-wow” theory, the “Dingdong” theory and others with equally silly and dismissive names. The 1886 ban on the subject (along with ...
Psychological Research
Experimental study on co-evolution of categorical perception and communication systems in humans
Psychological research, pages 1--11, 2012
Abstract In this paper, we present an experiment that integrates a semiotic investigation with a dynamical perspective on embodied social interactions. The primary objective is to study the emergence of a communication system between two interacting individuals, where no ...
Language and Cognition
New perspectives on duality of patterning: Introduction to the special issuePDF
Language and Cognition 4(4):251-259, 2012
This special issue assembles a number of papers that present recent work on the nature and the emergence of duality of patterning. Duality of patterning (Hockett 1960) is the property of human language that enables combinatorial structure on two distinct levels: meaningless ...
The emergence of duality of patterning through iterated learning: Precursors to phonology in a visual lexiconPDF
Language and Cognition 4(4):381--418, 2012
Duality of Patterning, one of Hockett's (1960) proposed design features unique to human language, refers in part to the arrangements of a relatively small stock of distinguishable meaningless sounds which are combined to create a potentially infinite set of morphemes. Literature ...MORE ⇓
Duality of Patterning, one of Hockett's (1960) proposed design features unique to human language, refers in part to the arrangements of a relatively small stock of distinguishable meaningless sounds which are combined to create a potentially infinite set of morphemes. Literature regarding the emergence of this design feature is less abundant than that exploring other levels of structure as focus is more often given to the emergence of syntax. In an effort to explore where combinatorial structure of meaningless elements arises the results of two pilot experiments are presented within which we observe human participants modifying a small lexicon of visual symbols through a process of iterated learning. As this lexicon evolves there is evidence that it becomes simpler and more learnable, more easily transmitted. I argue that these features are a consequence of spontaneous emergence of combinatorial, sub-lexical structure in the lexicon, that the pattern of emergence is more complex than the most widely espoused explanation suggests, and I propose ways in which future work can build on what we learn from these pilot experiments to confirm this hypothesis.
The emergence of duality of patterning: Insights from the laboratory
Language and Cognition 4(4):297-318, 2012
The concept of duality of patterning (henceforth DP) has recently begun to undergo new scrutiny. In particular, the fact that Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL) does not appear to exhibit a layer of meaningless units (Sandler et al. 2011) casts doubt on the universality of DP ...MORE ⇓
The concept of duality of patterning (henceforth DP) has recently begun to undergo new scrutiny. In particular, the fact that Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL) does not appear to exhibit a layer of meaningless units (Sandler et al. 2011) casts doubt on the universality of DP as a defining feature of natural language. Why, then, do the vast majority of the world's languages exhibit DP? Two hypotheses have been suggested. The first is that DP is a necessary solution to the problem of conveying a large number of meanings; the second is that DP arises as a consequence of conventionalization. We tested these hypotheses in an experimental-semiotics study. Our results supported the hypothesis based on conventionalization but were inconclusive with regard to the hypothesis based on the number of meanings. At the same time, the task of measuring DP in an experimental-semiotics study presented interesting challenges, suggesting that the concept of DP may need some overhauling.
Brain and Language
Brain and Language 120(3):303–309, 2012
Syntax is widely considered the feature that most decisively sets human language apart from other natural communication systems. Animal vocalisations are generally considered to be holistic with few examples of utterances meaning something other than the sum of their parts. ...MORE ⇓
Syntax is widely considered the feature that most decisively sets human language apart from other natural communication systems. Animal vocalisations are generally considered to be holistic with few examples of utterances meaning something other than the sum of their parts. Previously, we have shown that male putty-nosed monkeys produce call series consisting of two call types in response to different events. They can also be combined into short sequences that convey a different message from those conveyed by either call type alone. Here, we investigate whether ‘pyow–hack’ sequences are compositional in that the individual calls contribute to their overall meaning. However, the monkeys behaved as if they perceived the sequence as an idiomatic expression rather than decoding the sequence. Nonetheless, while this communication system lacks the generative power of syntax it enables callers to increase the number of messages that can be conveyed by a small and innate call repertoire.
Transactions on Computational Collective Intelligence VII
Transactions on Computational Collective Intelligence VII, pages 164--197, 2012
Underlying the importance of communication in highly distributed and autonomous systems, ie, multi-agent systems, such communication should be autonomously managed by the system itself. As such, it should be managed on the individual level of each individual ...
New Ideas in Psychology
The structure and evolution of symbol
New Ideas in Psychology, 2012
Abstract The received opinion is that symbol is an evolutionary prerequisite for syntax. This paper shows two things: 1) symbol is not a monolithic phenomenon, and 2) symbol and syntax must have co-evolved. I argue that full-blown syntax requires only three building ...
Socio-cultural selection and the sculpting of the human genome: Cultures directional forces on evolution and development
New Ideas in Psychology, 2012
Abstract This paper argues for culture as a significant determinant of the modern human genome. As progress in the fields of genetics and evolutionary biology have gained greater insights into evolutionary process, aspects of classical proposals explaining how ...
The American Economic Review
The origins of ethnolinguistic diversityPDF
The American Economic Review 102(4):1508--1539, 2012
Abstract: This study explores the determinants of ethnolinguistic diversity within as well as across countries, shedding light on its geographic origins. The empirical analysis conducted across countries, virtual countries, and pairs of contiguous regions establishes that ...
Biological Reviews
Biological Reviews, 2012
ABSTRACT A major challenge in studying social behaviour stems from the need to disentangle the behaviour of each individual from the resulting collective. One way to overcome this problem is to construct a model of the behaviour of an individual, and ...
Journal of Comparative Psychology
Journal of Comparative Psychology 126(2):170, 2012
Abstract 1. There is much controversy over what is needed for culture to flourish and what has led human culture to be different from “cultural” characteristics of other animals. Here I argue that the emergence of childhood as a step in the life cycle was critical to the ...
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 6(310), 2012
When established communication systems cannot be used, people rapidly create novel systems to modify the mental state of another agent according to their intentions. However, there are dramatic inter-individual differences in the implementation of this human competence for ...MORE ⇓
When established communication systems cannot be used, people rapidly create novel systems to modify the mental state of another agent according to their intentions. However, there are dramatic inter-individual differences in the implementation of this human competence for communicative innovation. Here we characterize psychological sources of inter-individual variability in the ability to build a shared communication system from scratch. We consider two potential sources of variability in communicative skills. Cognitive traits of two individuals could independently influence their joint ability to establish a communication system. Another possibility is that the overlap between those individual traits influences the communicative performance of a dyad. We assess these possibilities by quantifying the relationship between cognitive traits and behavior of communicating dyads. Cognitive traits were assessed with psychometric scores quantifying cooperative attitudes and fluid intelligence. Competence for implementing successful communicative innovations was assessed by using a non-verbal communicative task. Individual capacities influence communicative success when communicative innovations are generated. Dyadic similarities and individual traits modulate the type of communicative strategy chosen. The ability to establish novel communicative actions was influenced by a combination of the communicator's ability to understand intentions and the addressee's ability to recognize patterns. Communicative pairs with comparable systemizing abilities or behavioral inhibition were more likely to explore the search space of possible communicative strategies by systematically adding new communicative behaviors to those already available. No individual psychometric measure seemed predominantly responsible for communicative success. These findings support the notion that the human ability for fast communicative innovations represents a special type of complex collaborative activity.
The Symbolic Species Evolved
The Evolution of Learning to Communicate: Avian Model for the Missing Link
The Symbolic Species Evolved, pages 117--130, 2012
Exclusively primate-centric models for the study of the evolution of communication, although reasonable considering the close phylogenetic relationships between present day human and nonhuman primates, overlook parallel or convergent evolution and the possibility that ...
Journal of The Royal Society Interface
Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 2012
Abstract By determining the most common English words and phrases since the beginning of the sixteenth century, we obtain a unique large-scale view of the evolution of written text. We find that the most common words and phrases in any given year had a much shorter ...
Musicae Scientiae
Cognitive function, origin, and evolution of musical emotions
Musicae Scientiae 16(2):185--199, 2012
Abstract Based on recent advancements in cognitive science and mathematical models of the mind, this paper proposes a hypothesis on a fundamental role of music in cognition, and in the evolution of the mind, consciousness, and cultures. The vocalizations of proto- ...
Journal of Neurolinguistics
Meaning and the brain: The neurosemantics of referential, interactive, and combinatorial knowledge
Journal of Neurolinguistics 25(5):423--459, 2012
Which types of nerve cell circuits enable humans to use and understand meaningful signs and words? Philosophers were the first to point out that the arbitrary links between signs and their meanings differ fundamentally between semantic word types. Neuroscience provided ...
Language and Cognition,
The origins of duality of patterning in artificial whistled languages
Language and Cognition, 4(4):357–380, 2012
In human speech, a finite set of basic sounds is combined into a (potentially) unlimited set of well-formed morphemes. Hockett (1960) placed this phenomenon under the term ‘duality of patterning’ and included it as one of the basic design features of human language. Of the ...MORE ⇓
In human speech, a finite set of basic sounds is combined into a (potentially) unlimited set of well-formed morphemes. Hockett (1960) placed this phenomenon under the term ‘duality of patterning’ and included it as one of the basic design features of human language. Of the thirteen basic design features Hockett proposed, duality of patterning is the least studied and it is still unclear how it evolved in language. Recent work shedding light on this is summarized in this paper and experimental data is presented. This data shows that combinatorial structure can emerge in an artificial whistled language through cultural transmission as an adaptation to human cognitive biases and learning. In this work the method of experimental iterated learning (Kirby et al. 2008) is used, in which a participant is trained on the reproductions of the utterances the previous participant learned. Participants learn and recall a system of sounds that are produced with a slide whistle. Transmission from participant to participant causes the whistle systems to change and become more learnable and more structured. These findings follow from qualitative observations, quantitative measures and a follow-up experiment that tests how well participants can learn the emerged whistled languages by generalizing from a few examples.
Evolution
Evolution 66(3):617-622, 2012
One of the major stumbling blocks to understanding evolution is the difficulty in reconciling the emergence of complexity with the apparently undirected forces that drive evolutionary processes. This difficulty was originally framed as the "Watch and Watchmaker" argument and more ...MORE ⇓
One of the major stumbling blocks to understanding evolution is the difficulty in reconciling the emergence of complexity with the apparently undirected forces that drive evolutionary processes. This difficulty was originally framed as the "Watch and Watchmaker" argument and more recently revived by proponents of "intelligent design." Undergraduates in particular often attribute purpose and forethought as the driving force behind biological phenomena, and have difficulty understanding evolutionary processes. To demonstrate that complexity can arise solely through mutations that fix in populations via natural selection or drift, we can use analogies where processes can be observed across short time frames and where the key data are accessible to those without specialized biological knowledge. The evolution of language provides such an example. Processes of natural selection, mutation, genetic drift, acquisition of new functions, punctuated equilibria, and lateral gene transfer can be illustrated using examples of changing spellings, neologism, and acquisition of words from other languages. The examples presented in this article are readily accessible, and demonstrate to students that languages have dynamically increased in complexity, simply driven by the usage patterns of their speakers.
Neurocomputing
Neurocomputing 75(1):106--114, 2012
In multi-agent systems, the study of language and communication is an active field of research. In this paper we present the application of evolutionary strategies to the self-emergence of a common lexicon in a population of agents. By modeling the vocabulary or lexicon of each ...MORE ⇓
In multi-agent systems, the study of language and communication is an active field of research. In this paper we present the application of evolutionary strategies to the self-emergence of a common lexicon in a population of agents. By modeling the vocabulary or lexicon of each agent as an association matrix or look-up table that maps the meanings (i.e. the objects encountered by the agents or the states of the environment itself) into symbols or signals we check whether it is possible for the population to converge in an autonomous, decentralized way to a common lexicon, so that the communication efficiency of the entire population is optimal. We have conducted several experiments aimed at testing whether it is possible to converge with evolutionary strategies to an optimal Saussurean communication system. We have organized our experiments alongside two main lines: first, we have investigated the effect of the population size on the convergence results. Second, and foremost, we have also investigated the effect of the lexicon size on the convergence results. To analyze the convergence of the population of agents we have defined the population's consensus when all the agents (i.e. 100% of the population) share the same association matrix or lexicon. As a general conclusion we have shown that evolutionary strategies are powerful enough optimizers to guarantee the convergence to lexicon consensus in a population of autonomous agents.
Neuroscience Letters
Neuroscience Letters, 2012
Mirror neurons for manipulation fire both when the animal manipulates an object in a specific way and when it sees another animal (or the experimenter) perform an action that is more or less similar. Such neurons were originally found in macaque monkeys, in the ventral premotor ...MORE ⇓
Mirror neurons for manipulation fire both when the animal manipulates an object in a specific way and when it sees another animal (or the experimenter) perform an action that is more or less similar. Such neurons were originally found in macaque monkeys, in the ventral premotor cortex, area F5 and later also in the inferior parietal lobule. Recent neuroimaging data indicate that the adult human brain is endowed with a “mirror neuron system,” putatively containing mirror neurons and other neurons, for matching the observation and execution of actions. Mirror neurons may serve action recognition in monkeys as well as humans, whereas their putative role in imitation and language may be realized in human but not in monkey. This article shows the important role of computational models in providing sufficient and causal explanations for the observed phenomena involving mirror systems and the learning processes which form them, and underlines the need for additional circuitry to lift up the monkey mirror neuron circuit to sustain the posited cognitive functions attributed to the human mirror neuron system.
Developmental Psychobiology
Developmental psychobiology, pages 659--669, 2012
Abstract Mirror neurons discharge during the execution of ecological goal-directed manual and oral actions, as well as during the observation of the same actions done by other individuals. These neurons were first identified in the ventral premotor cortex (PMv; area ...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 370(1958):176--197, 2012
Abstract The first decade of the century witnessed a proliferation of devices with sensing and communication capabilities in the possession of the average individual. Examples range from camera phones and wireless global positioning system units to sensor-equipped, ...
Language Grounding in Robots
Grounding Language through Evolutionary Language GamesPDF
Language Grounding in Robots, pages 1--22, 2012
This chapter introduces a new experimental paradigm for studying issues in the grounding of language and robots, and the integration of all aspects of intelligence into a single system. The paradigm is based on designing and implementing artificial agents so that they are ...
Neural Networks
Neural Networks, 2012
In this paper we present a neuro-robotic model that uses artificial neural networks for investigating the relations between the development of symbol manipulation capabilities and of sensorimotor knowledge in the humanoid robot iCub. We describe a cognitive ...
Memetic Computing
Memetic Computing, pages 1--13, 2012
Abstract An investigation into the evolution of protolanguages is described, exploring the tension between faithful reproduction of memes to ensure consistency and hence comprehensibility in a language and the need to generate new memes to encourage the ...
Cognition
Cognition, 2012
In this article we present a neural network model of sentence generation. The network has both technical and conceptual innovations. Its main technical novelty is in its semantic representations: the messages which form the input to the network are structured as ...
Psychology of Language and Communication
Social structure and language structure: The new nomothetic approach
Psychology of Language and Communication 16(2):89--112, 2012
Recent studies have taken advantage of newly available, large-scale, cross-linguistic data and new statistical techniques to look at the relationship between language structure and social structure. These ‘nomothetic’ approaches contrast with more traditional approaches and a ...MORE ⇓
Recent studies have taken advantage of newly available, large-scale, cross-linguistic data and new statistical techniques to look at the relationship between language structure and social structure. These ‘nomothetic’ approaches contrast with more traditional approaches and a tension is observed between proponents of each method. We review some nomothetic studies and point out some challenges that must be overcome. However, we argue that nomothetic approaches can contribute to our understanding of the links between social structure and language structure if they address these challenges and are taken as part of a body of mutually supporting evidence. Nomothetic studies are a powerful tool for generating hypotheses that can go on to be corroborated and tested with experimental and theoretical approaches. These studies are highlighting the effect of interaction on language.
Computing and Informatics
Mirror neurons, embodied cognitive agents and imitation learningPDF
Computing and Informatics 22(6):545--559, 2012
Abstract Mirror neurons are a relatively recent discovery; it has been conjectured that these neurons play an important role in imitation learning and other cognitive phenomena. We will study a possible place and role of mirror neurons in the neural architecture of embodied ...
Chinese Physics B
Word diversity can accelerate consensus in naming game
Chinese Physics B 21(3):030205, 2012
In this paper, we introduce word diversity that reflects the inhomogeneity of words in a communication into the naming game. Diversity is realized by assigning a weight factor to each word. The weight is determined by three different distributions (uniform, exponential, ...
Human Nature
Cultural Macroevolution on Neighbor Graphs
Human Nature 23(3):283-305, 2012
What are the driving forces of cultural macroevolution, the evolution of cultural traits that characterize societies or populations? This question has engaged anthropologists for more than a century, with little consensus regarding the answer. We develop and fit autologistic ...MORE ⇓
What are the driving forces of cultural macroevolution, the evolution of cultural traits that characterize societies or populations? This question has engaged anthropologists for more than a century, with little consensus regarding the answer. We develop and fit autologistic models, built upon both spatial and linguistic neighbor graphs, for 44 cultural traits of 172 societies in the Western North American Indian (WNAI) database. For each trait, we compare models including or excluding one or both neighbor graphs, and for the majority of traits we find strong evidence in favor of a model which uses both spatial and linguistic neighbors to predict a trait’s distribution. Our results run counter to the assertion that cultural trait distributions can be explained largely by the transmission of traits from parent to daughter populations and are thus best analyzed with phylogenies. In contrast, we show that vertical and horizontal transmission pathways can be incorporated in a single model, that both transmission modes may indeed operate on the same trait, and that for most traits in the WNAI database, accounting for only one mode of transmission would result in a loss of information.
Language Sciences,
From extended phenotype to extended affordance: distributed language at the intersection of Gibson and Dawkins
Language Sciences, 34(5):507-512, 2012
Language is a complex system, and those who study it often seek simpler models to explain linguistic features. Two such models are examined here, the extended phenotype proposed by Richard Dawkins and the affordance proposed by James J. Gibson. These models are placed in the ...MORE ⇓
Language is a complex system, and those who study it often seek simpler models to explain linguistic features. Two such models are examined here, the extended phenotype proposed by Richard Dawkins and the affordance proposed by James J. Gibson. These models are placed in the context of current research programs in language evolution and distributed cognition, and are related to one another through examples from parasitology and animal communication. The concept of an extended affordance is introduced as the environmental complement of the extended phenotype. In primate signaling systems, both phenotype and affordance are proposed to be not only extended but also distributed. The distributed phenotype and affordance are then related to the problem of body–world interaction in human language.
2012 :: EDIT BOOK
Experiments in Cultural Language Evolution
The Emergence of Internal Agreement SystemsPDF
Experiments in Cultural Language Evolution, pages 233 -- 256, 2012
Abstract Grammatical agreement means that two linguistic units share certain syntactic or semantic features such as gender, number or person. Agreement has a variety of grammatical functions. One of them, called internal agreement, is to signal which words ...
Language Strategies for Color
Experiments in Cultural Language Evolution, pages 61 -- 85, 2012
This chapter studies three strategies giving rise to color categories and descriptions for them: a strategy for basic hue terms (“yellow”,“blue”,“green”, etc.), for brightness terms (“shiny”,“dull”, etc.) and for graded membership terms (as in:“very blue” or “slightly blue”). ...MORE ⇓
This chapter studies three strategies giving rise to color categories and descriptions for them: a strategy for basic hue terms (“yellow”,“blue”,“green”, etc.), for brightness terms (“shiny”,“dull”, etc.) and for graded membership terms (as in:“very blue” or “slightly blue”). ...
A language strategy for aspect: Encoding Aktionsarten through morphologyPDF
Experiments in Cultural Language Evolution, pages 257 -- 276, 2012
Abstract This chapter explores a possible language strategy for verbalizing aspect: the encoding of Aktionsarten by means of morphological markers. The Russian tense-aspect system is used as a model. We first operationalize this system and reconstruct the learning ...
The emergence of quantifiersPDF
Experiments in Cultural Language Evolution, pages 277 -- 304, 2012
Human natural languages use quantifiers as ways to designate the number of objects of a set. They include numerals, such as “three”, or circumscriptions, such as “a few”. The latter are not only underdetermined but also context dependent. We provide a cultural-evolution ...
The co-evolution of basic spatial terms and categoriesPDF
Experiments in Cultural Language Evolution, pages 111 -- 141, 2012
This chapter studies how basic spatial categories such as left-right, front-back, far-near or north-south can emerge in a population of robotic agents in coevolution with terms that express these categories. It introduces various language strategies and tests them first in ...
Emergent Functional Grammar for SpacePDF
Experiments in Cultural Language Evolution, pages 207 -- 232, 2012
Abstract This chapter explores a semantics-oriented approach to the origins of syntactic structure. It reports on experiments whereby speakers introduce hierarchical constructions and grammatical markers to express which conceptualization strategy hearers are ...
Emergent mirror systems for body languagePDF
Experiments in Cultural Language Evolution, pages 87 -- 109, 2012
Abstract This chapter investigates how a vocabulary for talking about body actions can emerge in a population of grounded autonomous agents instantiated as humanoid robots. The agents play a Posture Game in which the speaker asks the hearer to take on a certain ...
Self-organization and Selection in Cultural Language EvolutionPDF
Experiments in Cultural Language Evolution, pages 1 -- 37, 2012
Abstract This chapter outlines the main challenges a theory for the cultural evolution of language should address and proposes a particular theory which is worked out and explored in greater detail in the remaining chapters of this book. The theory rests on two ...
The Grounded Naming GamePDF
Experiments in Cultural Language Evolution, pages 41 -- 59, 2012
Abstract This chapter shows a concrete example of a language game experiment for studying the cultural evolution of one of the most basic functions of language, namely to draw attention to an object in the context by naming a characteristic feature of the object. If ...
The Evolution of Case Systems for Marking Event StructurePDF
Experiments in Cultural Language Evolution, pages 169 -- 205, 2012
Case has fascinated linguists for centuries without however revealing its most important secrets. This paper offers operational explanations for case through language game experiments in which autonomous agents describe real-world events to each other. The ...
Multi-Dimensional Meanings in Lexicon Formation
Experiments in Cultural Language Evolution, pages 143 -- 166, 2012
This chapter introduces a language game experiment for studying the formation of a shared lexicon when word meanings are not restricted to a single domain, but instead consist of any combination of perceptual features from many different domains. The main difficulty for the ...
Applications of Evolutionary Computation:
Applications of Evolutionary Computation:, pages 529--538, 2012
Robotic swarms offer flexibility, robustness, and scalability. For successful operation they need appropriate communication strategies that should be dynamically adaptable to possibly changing environmental requirements. In this paper we try to achieve this through evolving ...MORE ⇓
Robotic swarms offer flexibility, robustness, and scalability. For successful operation they need appropriate communication strategies that should be dynamically adaptable to possibly changing environmental requirements. In this paper we try to achieve this through evolving communication on-the-fly. As a test case we use a scenario where robots need to cooperate to gather energy and the necessity to cooperate is scalable. We implement an evolutionary algorithm that works during the actual operation of the robots (on-line), where evolutionary operators are performed by the robots themselves (on-board) and robots exchange genomes with other robots for reproduction (distributed). We perform experiments with different cooperation pressures and observe that communication strategies can be successfully adapted to the particular demands of the environment.
Handbook of Laboratory Phonology
The Dynamic LexiconPDF
Handbook of Laboratory Phonology, pages 173-183, 2012
The lexicon is the central locus of association between form and meaning. The prior sections in this chapter focus on the lexicon as it figures in the cognitive systems of individuals. The lexicon can also be viewed at the level of language communities, as shared intellectual ...MORE ⇓
The lexicon is the central locus of association between form and meaning. The prior sections in this chapter focus on the lexicon as it figures in the cognitive systems of individuals. The lexicon can also be viewed at the level of language communities, as shared intellectual property that supports mech- anisms of information transmission amongst individuals. This viewpoint is foreshadowed by Hawkins (this volume), and sketched for linguistic systems in general in Hruschka et al. (2009). Here, I consider the relationship between the lexical systems of individuals and lexical systems at the community level. The dynamics of these systems over time, rooted in their relationship to each other, can inform our understanding of the lexicon, and of the entries and relationships that comprise it. Tackling problems in lexical dynamics, in the light of experimental findings and synchronic statistics, provides laboratory phonology both with fresh lines of empirical evidence and with fresh arenas for theoretical prediction.
2012 :: BOOK
The Science of Language: Interviews with James McGilvray
Cambridge University Press, 2012
Noam Chomsky is one of the most influential thinkers of our time, yet his views are often misunderstood. In this previously unpublished series of interviews, Chomsky discusses his iconoclastic and important ideas concerning language, human nature and politics. In ...
Wired for culture: origins of the human social mind
WW Norton, 2012
A fascinating, far-reaching study of how our species' innate capacity for culture altered the course of our social and evolutionary history. A unique trait of the human species is that our personalities, lifestyles, and worldviews are shaped by an accident of birth—namely, the ...MORE ⇓
A fascinating, far-reaching study of how our species' innate capacity for culture altered the course of our social and evolutionary history. A unique trait of the human species is that our personalities, lifestyles, and worldviews are shaped by an accident of birth—namely, the ...
Experiments in Cultural Language Evolution
John Benjamins, 2012
The fascinating question of the origins and evolution of language has been drawing a lot of attention recently, not only from linguists, but also from anthropologists, evolutionary biologists, and brain scientists. This groundbreaking book explores the cultural side of ...
Oxford University Press
How the brain got language: the mirror system hypothesis
Oxford University Press, 2012
This book explains how the human brain evolved to make language possible and how cultural evolution took over from biological evolution during the transition from basic forms of communication to fully fledged languages. Basing his argument on the latest research in ...
2012 :: PHD THESIS
University of Adelaide, School of Psychology
Representation, information theory and basic word order.
University of Adelaide, School of Psychology, 2012
Many of the world's languages display a preferred ordering of subject, object and verb, known as that language's basic word order. There are six logically possible basic word orders, and while each occurs in at least one known language, not all are found equally frequently. Some ...MORE ⇓
Many of the world's languages display a preferred ordering of subject, object and verb, known as that language's basic word order. There are six logically possible basic word orders, and while each occurs in at least one known language, not all are found equally frequently. Some are extremely rare, while others are used by almost half the world's languages. This highly non-uniform cross-linguistic distribution of basic orders is a fundamental explanatory target for linguistics. This thesis tackles this problem from a psychological perspective. It constitutes an advance over previously proposed explanations in that it is compatible not only with the distributions observed today, but with what is known of broad trends in the word order change which happen over hundreds of years. There are two largely independent components of the explanation given in this thesis, which is necessary to be compatible with both synchronic and diachronic evidence. The first component is focused on the structures which the human mind uses to represent the meanings of sentences. While mental representations of meaning are not inherently serial (hence ordered) like spoken language, we can think of the different components in these representations as being ordered in a different sense, based on some components being more accessible to cognitive processing than others. This thesis develops the idea that the word order used most often in the earliest human languages, which are taken to rely on a direct interface between mental representations and motor control systems, were determined by a "word order of the language of thought". The second component is focused on the functional adequacy of different word orders for high speed, reliable communication. The driving idea here is that human language represents a rational solution to the problem of communication. The mathematical formalism of information theory is used to determine the gold standard for solutions to this problem, and this is used to derive a ranking of word orders by functionality. This thesis develops a novel perspective on word order functionality in which cross-linguistic preferences are ultimately a reflection of statistical properties of the events which languages describe.
LMU Munchen: Faculty of Physics
Non-equilibrium relaxation: from language change to semiflexible polymer networks
LMU Munchen: Faculty of Physics, 2012
Language is one of the most prominent examples of complex systems. It is one of the basic tools of humanity, and yet many of its aspects still puzzle a broad range of scientists. The phenomena underlying the emergence and evolution of language, as well as cultural change, have ...MORE ⇓
Language is one of the most prominent examples of complex systems. It is one of the basic tools of humanity, and yet many of its aspects still puzzle a broad range of scientists. The phenomena underlying the emergence and evolution of language, as well as cultural change, have been subject to increased interest from the physics community over the past two decades. We begin this work by discussing a number of mathematical and computational models of language dynamics.