Overextensions and the emergence of compositionality

This paper investigates the effect overextensions of words may have on the emergence of compositional structures in language. The study is done using a recently developed computer model that integrates the iterated learning model with the language game model. Experiments show that overextensions due to an incremental acquisition of meanings on the one hand attracts languages into compositional structures, but on the other hand introduces ambiguities that may act as an antagonising pressure.