Language evolution without natural selection: From vocabulary to syntax in a population of learners (1998) [19 citations — 0 self]
http://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.803/pdf/kirby.pdf
http://infidel.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~ysato/seminar/synt
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author = {Simon Kirby},
title = {Language evolution without natural selection: From vocabulary to syntax in a population of learners},
year = {1998}
}
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Abstract:
this paper I put forward a new approach to understanding the origins of some of the key ingredients in a syntactic system. I show using a computational model that compositional syntax is an inevitable outcome of the dynamics of observationally learned communication systems. In the model described, a population of simple learning mechanisms train each other to produce utterances. The "language" in the population develops from a simple idiosyncratic vocabulary with limited expressive power and little coordination among members of the population, to one with nouns and verbs, word order expressing meaning distinctions, full compositionality, all the meaning space covered and complete coordination. All this happens without any selection of learners --- indeed without any biological change --- or any notion of function being built into the system. This approach does not deny the possibility that much of our linguistic ability is genetically coded and may be explained in terms of natural selection, but it does highlight the fact that biological evolution is by no means the only powerful adaptive system at work in the origins of human language. In the following section, the biological approach to explanation is outlined, and reasons given for why we might wish to look for an, at least partial, alternative. Section 3 sets out the computational approach, showing how the recent flurry of activity in the simulation of populations and techniques for modelling learning can be combined to approach an adequate model of this kind of evolution. After presenting the results of this model, the paper suggests understanding the behaviour of the system in terms of the replicator dynamics of
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