Conceptual relations predict colexification across languages

Abstract

In natural language, multiple meanings often share a single word form, a phenomenon known as colexification. Some sets of meanings are more frequently colexified across languages than others, but the source of this variation is not well understood. We propose that cross-linguistic variation in colexification frequency is non-arbitrary and reflects a general principle of cognitive economy: More commonly colexified meanings across languages are those that require less cognitive effort to relate. To evaluate our proposal, we examine patterns of colexification of varying frequency from about 250 languages. We predict these colexification data based on independent measures of conceptual relatedness drawn from large-scale psychological and linguistic resources.Our results show that meanings that are more frequently colexified across these languages tend to be more strongly associated by speakers of English, suggesting that conceptual associativity provides an important constraint on the development of the lexicon. Our work extends research on polysemy and the evolution of word meanings by grounding cross-linguistic regularities in colexification in basic principles of human cognition.

When do languages use the same word for different meanings? The Goldilocks Principle in colexification

“…To sum up, we expect the communicative need to distinguish meanings to play a role in shaping lexicons across languages. Communicative need varies across language communities depending on factors such as environment and culture [36,8,9]. However, we predict that the pressure for informativeness will show a universal signature over and above such language-specific variation.…”

“…Since language contact -facilitated by geographic proximity-and common linguistic ancestry influence colexification [8,9], the models are also passed information about how often a pair of meanings colexifies in other languages. This information is weighted by the phylogenetic or geographic distance to 2 Notwithstanding, for explicitness' sake, linear versions of the models reported on in the main text are compared to their (possibly) non-linear counterparts in SI Section 3.2.…”

“…We build on recent work that suggests that related meanings, like finger and toe, tend to be expressed by the same word more than unrelated meanings [9,31]. This tendency has been attributed to the cognitive pressure for simplicity.…”

“…That is, unlike English, Spanish colexifies these two meanings, using a single word to express both. 1 Many colexifications are attested throughout the world [5,6,7,8,9]. For instance, the colexification of toe and finger is found in at least 135 languages [10], many of which phylogenetically unrelated and spoken in different parts of the globe.…”

“…The structure of lexicons as well as semantic memory may favor the colexification of meanings that are easy to relate to one another. This has been argued to assist vocabulary acquisition (with established word-meaning associations providing a scaffold for new meanings), as well as lexical retrieval and interpretation [6,32,9].…”