Language Evolution Can Be Shaped by the Structure of the World

Andrew Perfors · Danielle Navarro

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Language and cultural evolution Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation Categorization, perception, and language

Abstract

Human languages vary in many ways but also show striking cross-linguistic universals. Why do these universals exist? Recent theoretical results demonstrate that Bayesian learners transmitting language to each other through iterated learning will converge on a distribution of languages that depends only on their prior biases about language and the quantity of data transmitted at each point; the structure of the world being communicated about plays no role (Griffiths & Kalish, 2005, 2007). We revisit these findings and show that when certain assumptions about the relationship between language and the world are abandoned, learners will converge to languages that depend on the structure of the world as well as their prior biases. These theoretical results are supported with a series of experiments showing that when human learners acquire language through iterated learning, the ultimate structure of those languages is shaped by the structure of the meanings to be communicated.

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References

2002The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?1990Natural language and natural selection 1987The Discourse Basis of Ergativity 1988The importance of shape in early lexical learning 2008Language as shaped by the brain 2008Cumulative cultural evolution in the laboratory: An experimental approach to the origins of structure in human language 1990Papers in Laboratory Phonology 2010Language Structure Is Partly Determined by Social Structure

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2017Sequence Memory Constraints Give Rise to Language-Like Structure through Iterated Learning 2018Adult Learning and Language Simplification 2021Human biases limit cumulative innovation 2013Cultural Evolution of Language 2018When Extremists Win: Cultural Transmission Via Iterated Learning When Populations Are Heterogeneous 2019Compositional Hierarchical Structure Evolves through Cultural Transmission: An Experimental Study

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