Learning , Bottlenecks and Infinity : a working model of the evolution of syntactic communication

Human language is unique in having a learned, arbitrary mapp ing between meanings and signals that is compositional and recursive. This paper presents a new approach to underst anding its origins and evolution. Rather than turning to natural selection for an explanation, it is argued that gene ral properties of the transmission of learned behaviour are sufficient to explain the particular properties of language . A computational model of linguistic transmission is descr ibed in which complex structured languages spontaneously emerg e in populations of learners, even though the populations have no language initially, and are not subject to any equiva lent of biological change. These results are claimed to be general and are explained in terms of properties of mappin gs. Essentially, as mappings are passed down through generations of imitators, syntactic ones are intrinsicall y better at surviving through the learning “bottleneck”.

[1]  H. Andersen.  ABDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE CHANGE , 1973 .

[2]  Comrie Bernard.  Language Universals and Linguistic Typology , 1982 .

[3]  James R. Hurford,et al.  Language and Number: The Emergence of a Cognitive System , 1987 .

[4]  Frederick J. Newmeyer,et al.  Explaining language universals , 1990, Journal of Linguistics.

[5]  W. Bruce Croft.  Typology and Universals , 1990 .

[6]  S. Pinker,et al.  Natural language and natural selection , 1990, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[7]  Partha Niyogi,et al.  The Logical Problem of Language Change , 1995 .

[8]  James R. Hurford,et al.  Learning, Culture and Evolution in the Origin of Linguistic Constraints , 1997 .

[9]  Ted Briscoe,et al.  Co-Evolution of Language and of the Language Acquisition Device , 1997, ACL.

[10]  Michael Oliphant,et al.  Formal approaches to innate and learned communication : laying the foundation for language , 1998 .

[11]  F. Newmeyer.  Language Form And Language Function , 1998 .

[12]  Simon Kirby,et al.  Function, Selection, and Innateness: The Emergence of Language Universals , 1999 .

[13]  Simon Kirby,et al.  Syntax out of Learning: The Cultural Evolution of Structured Communication in a Population of Induction Algorithms , 1999, ECAL.

[14]  M. Studdert-Kennedy,et al.  Social Transmission Favours Linguistic Generalisation , 2000 .

[15]  Simon Kirby,et al.  The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Syntax Without Natural Selection: How Compositionality Emerges from Vocabulary in a Population of Learners , 2000 .

[16]  江連 和章.  書評 Frederick J. Newmeyer: Language Form and Language Function , 2000 .