Spontaneous Evolution of Linguistic Structure: an iterated learning model of the emergence of regularity and irregularity (0) [59 citations — 10 self]
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author = {Simon Kirby},
title = {Spontaneous Evolution of Linguistic Structure: an iterated learning model of the emergence of regularity and irregularity},
year = {}
}
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Abstract:
A computationally implemented model of the transmission of linguistic behaviour over time is presented. In this model (the iterated learning model, or ILM) there is no biological evolution, natural selection, nor any measurement of the success of the agents at communicating (except for results-gathering purposes). Nevertheless, counter to intuition, signi cant evolution of linguistic behaviour is observed. From an initially unstructured communication system (a protolanguage), a fully compositional, syntactic meaning-string mapping emerges. Furthermore, given a non-uniform frequency distribution over a meaning space, and a production mechanism that prefers short strings, a realistic distribution of string-lengths and patterns of stable irregularity emerges suggesting that the ILM is a good model for the evolution of some of the fundamental features of human language.
