Models of language evolution and change

Smith, Andrew D. M.

doi:10.1002/wcs.1285

Cited by 21 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 131 publications

(183 reference statements)

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“…In the late 1990s, a number of researchers attempted to explain the origins of compositionality in a series of computer simulations in which cultural, rather than biological, evolution was the only mechanism (Kirby, Griffiths, & Smith, 2014 ; Smith, 2014 ). These models varied quite widely, employing very different types of learning, from connectionist approaches (Batali, 1998 ; Brace, Bullock, & Noble, 2015 ; Kirby & Hurford, 2002 ; Smith, Brighton, & Kirby, 2003 ), to models of exemplar learning (Batali, 2002 ), to highly symbolic approaches to grammar induction (Brighton, 2002 ; Brighton, Smith, & Kirby, 2005 ; Kirby, 2000 , 2002 ).…”

Section: Iterated Learning Models and The Emergence Of Compositionalimentioning

confidence: 99%

Culture and biology in the origins of linguistic structure

2017

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Language is systematically structured at all levels of description, arguably setting it apart from all other instances of communication in nature. In this article, I survey work over the last 20 years that emphasises the contributions of individual learning, cultural transmission, and biological evolution to explaining the structural design features of language. These 3 complex adaptive systems exist in a network of interactions: individual learning biases shape the dynamics of cultural evolution; universal features of linguistic structure arise from this cultural process and form the ultimate linguistic phenotype; the nature of this phenotype affects the fitness landscape for the biological evolution of the language faculty; and in turn this determines individuals’ learning bias. Using a combination of computational simulation, laboratory experiments, and comparison with real-world cases of language emergence, I show that linguistic structure emerges as a natural outcome of cultural evolution once certain minimal biological requirements are in place.

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Section: Iterated Learning Models and The Emergence Of Compositionalimentioning

confidence: 99%

Culture and biology in the origins of linguistic structure

2017

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“…In the late 1990s, a number of researchers began to model the ways in which languages evolve culturally in response to being transmitted through multiple generations of individuals, each of which learned the system through the observation of a subset of other individuals’ signalling behaviour (see Kirby et al 2014 ; Smith 2014 for reviews). That the learners only observe a subset of the signalling behaviour of the previous generation is key, as this creates a bottleneck on the transmission process.…”

Section: The Cultural Evolution Of Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

Self domestication and the evolution of language

2018

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We set out an account of how self-domestication plays a crucial role in the evolution of language. In doing so, we focus on the growing body of work that treats language structure as emerging from the process of cultural transmission. We argue that a full recognition of the importance of cultural transmission fundamentally changes the kind of questions we should be asking regarding the biological basis of language structure. If we think of language structure as reflecting an accumulated set of changes in our genome, then we might ask something like, “What are the genetic bases of language structure and why were they selected?” However, if cultural evolution can account for language structure, then this question no longer applies. Instead, we face the task of accounting for the origin of the traits that enabled that process of structure-creating cultural evolution to get started in the first place. In light of work on cultural evolution, then, the new question for biological evolution becomes, “How did those precursor traits evolve?” We identify two key precursor traits: (1) the transmission of the communication system through learning; and (2) the ability to infer the communicative intent associated with a signal or action. We then describe two comparative case studies—the Bengalese finch and the domestic dog—in which parallel traits can be seen emerging following domestication. Finally, we turn to the role of domestication in human evolution. We argue that the cultural evolution of language structure has its origin in an earlier process of self-domestication.

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“…The main goal of computational models of language evolution is to show how aspects of language may develop as a result of more general principles (for recent overviews, see e.g. Smith 2014, Gong & Shuai 2013, Jäger et al 2009, Cangelosi & Parisi 2001. Note that this can only be used as a proof of concept: a positive result does not mean that this is the way things must have gone, it only shows the feasibility of certain phenomena to emerge from the assumptions implemented in the model.…”

Section: Case Marking In Artificial Languagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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2017

Linguistic Discovery

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Models of language evolution and change

Abstract: The author has declared no conflicts of interest for this article.

Cited by 21 publications

References 131 publications

Culture and biology in the origins of linguistic structure

Culture and biology in the origins of linguistic structure

Self domestication and the evolution of language

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