Let's talk (efficiently) about us: Person systems achieve near-optimal compression

Zaslavsky, Noga; Maldonado, Mora; Culbertson, Jennifer

doi:10.31234/osf.io/kcu27

Cited by 23 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…First, it would strengthen the case that the simplicity/informativeness trade‐off shapes both content and function word categories in language. In doing so, our work aligns with several concurrent studies exploring the simplicity/informativeness trade‐off in functional vocabulary (Mollica et al., 2021 ; Steinert‐Threlkeld, 2019 , 2021 ; Uegaki, 2022 ; Zaslavsky et al., 2021 ).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 75%

“…We find that natural languages optimize the simplicity/informativeness trade‐off in how they organize their indefinite pronoun systems. These results represent an extension of efficiency analyses to a system of function words, thus tying in with Steinert‐Threlkeld, 2019 , 2021 ; Mollica et al., 2021 ; Zaslavsky et al., 2021 ; Uegaki, 2022 in concluding that similar communication pressures are shaping both content and function word categories across languages.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 52%

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Indefinite Pronouns Optimize the Simplicity/Informativeness Trade‐Off

2022

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The vocabulary of human languages has been argued to support efficient communication by optimizing the trade-off between simplicity and informativeness. The argument has been originally based on cross-linguistic analyses of vocabulary in semantic domains of content words, such as kinship, color, and number terms. The present work applies this analysis to a category of function words: indefinite pronouns (e.g., someone, anyone, no one). We build on previous work to establish the meaning space and featural make-up for indefinite pronouns, and show that indefinite pronoun systems across languages optimize the simplicity/informativeness trade-off. This demonstrates that pressures for efficient communication shape both content and function word categories. In doing so, our work aligns with several concurrent studies exploring the simplicity/informativeness trade-off in functional vocabulary. Importantly, we further argue that the trade-off may explain some of the universal properties of indefinite pronouns, thus reducing the explanatory load for linguistic theories.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 52%

Indefinite Pronouns Optimize the Simplicity/Informativeness Trade‐Off

2022

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“…This trade-off between simplicity and expressivity (which in some papers is referred to as informativeness) has recently been shown to explain a diverse range of facts about human language [ 61 – 66 ]. The languages that we see in the world exist at the optimal frontier in a space of logically possible languages of varying complexity and informativeness.…”

Section: Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cumulative cultural evolution, population structure and the origin of combinatoriality in human language

Kirby

Tamariz

2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Language is the primary repository and mediator of human collective knowledge. A central question for evolutionary linguistics is the origin of the combinatorial structure of language (sometimes referred to as duality of patterning), one of language’s basic design features. Emerging sign languages provide a promising arena to study the emergence of language properties. Many, but not all such sign languages exhibit combinatoriality, which generates testable hypotheses about its source. We hypothesize that combinatoriality is the inevitable result of learning biases in cultural transmission, and that population structure explains differences across languages. We construct an agent-based model with population turnover. Bayesian learning agents with a prior preference for compressible languages (modelling a pressure for language learnability) communicate in pairs under pressure to reduce ambiguity. We include two transmission conditions: agents learn the language either from the oldest agent or from an agent in the middle of their lifespan. Results suggest that (1) combinatoriality emerges during iterated cultural transmission under concurrent pressures for simplicity and expressivity and (2) population dynamics affect the rate of evolution, which is faster when agents learn from other learners than when they learn from old individuals. This may explain its absence in some emerging sign languages. We discuss the consequences of this finding for cultural evolution, highlighting the interplay of population-level, functional and cognitive factors. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The emergence of collective knowledge and cumulative culture in animals, humans and machines’.

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“…Real language is argued to be in-between these two extreme configurations (Ferrer-i-Cancho & Díaz-Guilera, 2007). Such a trade-off between simplicity (Zipf's unification) and effective communication (Zipf's diversification) is also found in information theoretic models of communication based on the information bottleneck approach (see Zaslavsky et al (2021) and references there in).…”

Section: Ferrermentioning

confidence: 86%

The Advent and Fall of a Vocabulary Learning Bias from Communicative Efficiency

Carrera-Casado

Ferrer-i-Cancho²

2021

Biosemiotics

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Biosemiosis is a process of choice-making between simultaneously alternative options. It is well-known that, when sufficiently young children encounter a new word, they tend to interpret it as pointing to a meaning that does not have a word yet in their lexicon rather than to a meaning that already has a word attached. In previous research, the strategy was shown to be optimal from an information theoretic standpoint. In that framework, interpretation is hypothesized to be driven by the minimization of a cost function: the option of least communication cost is chosen. However, the information theoretic model employed in that research neither explains the weakening of that vocabulary learning bias in older children or polylinguals nor reproduces Zipf’s meaning-frequency law, namely the non-linear relationship between the number of meanings of a word and its frequency. Here we consider a generalization of the model that is channeled to reproduce that law. The analysis of the new model reveals regions of the phase space where the bias disappears consistently with the weakening or loss of the bias in older children or polylinguals. The model is abstract enough to support future research on other levels of life that are relevant to biosemiotics. In the deep learning era, the model is a transparent low-dimensional tool for future experimental research and illustrates the predictive power of a theoretical framework originally designed to shed light on the origins of Zipf’s rank-frequency law.

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Let's talk (efficiently) about us: Person systems achieve near-optimal compression

Cited by 23 publications

References 14 publications

Indefinite Pronouns Optimize the Simplicity/Informativeness Trade‐Off

Indefinite Pronouns Optimize the Simplicity/Informativeness Trade‐Off

Cumulative cultural evolution, population structure and the origin of combinatoriality in human language

The Advent and Fall of a Vocabulary Learning Bias from Communicative Efficiency

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