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Cathcart CA. Multiple evolutionary pressures shape identical consonant avoidance in the world's languages. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2316677121. [PMID: 38917001 PMCID: PMC11228491 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2316677121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/26/2023] [Accepted: 05/15/2024] [Indexed: 06/27/2024] Open
Abstract
Languages disfavor word forms containing sequences of similar or identical consonants, due to the biomechanical and cognitive difficulties posed by patterns of this sort. However, the specific evolutionary processes responsible for this phenomenon are not fully understood. Words containing sequences of identical consonants may be more likely to arise than those without; processes of word form mutation may be more likely to remove than create sequences of identical consonants in word forms; finally, words containing identical consonants may die out more frequently than those without. Phylogenetic analyses of the evolution of homologous word forms indicate that words with identical consonants arise less frequently than those without. However, words with identical consonants do not die out more frequently than those without. Further analyses reveal that forms with identical consonants are replaced in basic meaning functions more frequently than words without. Taken together, results suggest that the underrepresentation of sequences of identical consonants is overwhelmingly a by-product of constraints on word form coinage, though processes related to word usage also serve to ensure that such patterns are infrequent in more salient vocabulary items. These findings clarify aspects of processes of lexical evolution and competition that take place during language change, optimizing communicative systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chundra A Cathcart
- Department of Comparative Language Science, University of Zurich, Zürich CH-8050, Switzerland
- Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution, University of Zurich, Zürich CH-8050, Switzerland
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Center "Words, Bones, Genes, Tools", University of Tübingen, Tübingen 72074, Germany
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2
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Fedorenko E, Piantadosi ST, Gibson EAF. Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought. Nature 2024; 630:575-586. [PMID: 38898296 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07522-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/15/2023] [Accepted: 05/03/2024] [Indexed: 06/21/2024]
Abstract
Language is a defining characteristic of our species, but the function, or functions, that it serves has been debated for centuries. Here we bring recent evidence from neuroscience and allied disciplines to argue that in modern humans, language is a tool for communication, contrary to a prominent view that we use language for thinking. We begin by introducing the brain network that supports linguistic ability in humans. We then review evidence for a double dissociation between language and thought, and discuss several properties of language that suggest that it is optimized for communication. We conclude that although the emergence of language has unquestionably transformed human culture, language does not appear to be a prerequisite for complex thought, including symbolic thought. Instead, language is a powerful tool for the transmission of cultural knowledge; it plausibly co-evolved with our thinking and reasoning capacities, and only reflects, rather than gives rise to, the signature sophistication of human cognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Evelina Fedorenko
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
- Speech and Hearing in Bioscience and Technology Program at Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA.
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3
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Twomey CR, Brainard DH, Plotkin JB. History constrains the evolution of efficient color naming, enabling historical inference. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2313603121. [PMID: 38416682 PMCID: PMC10927505 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2313603121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/07/2023] [Accepted: 12/16/2023] [Indexed: 03/01/2024] Open
Abstract
Color naming in natural languages is not arbitrary: It reflects efficient partitions of perceptual color space [T. Regier, P. Kay, N. Khetarpal, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 104, 1436-1441 (2007)] modulated by the relative needs to communicate about different colors [C. Twomey, G. Roberts, D. Brainard, J. Plotkin, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 118, e2109237118 (2021)]. These psychophysical and communicative constraints help explain why languages around the world have remarkably similar, but not identical, mappings of colors to color terms. Languages converge on a small set of efficient representations.But languages also evolve, and the number of terms in a color vocabulary may change over time. Here we show that history, i.e. the existence of an antecedent color vocabulary, acts as a nonadaptive constraint that biases the choice of efficient solution as a language transitions from a vocabulary of size [Formula: see text] to [Formula: see text] terms. Moreover, as efficient vocabularies evolve to include more terms they explore a smaller fraction of all possible efficient vocabularies compared to equally sized vocabularies constructed de novo. This path dependence of the cultural evolution of color naming presents an opportunity. Historical constraints can be used to reconstruct ancestral color vocabularies, allowing us to answer long-standing questions about the evolutionary sequences of color words, and enabling us to draw inferences from phylogenetic patterns of language change.
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Affiliation(s)
- Colin R. Twomey
- Data Driven Discovery Initiative, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA19104
- Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA19104
| | - David H. Brainard
- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA19104
| | - Joshua B. Plotkin
- Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA19104
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4
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Denić M, Szymanik J. Recursive Numeral Systems Optimize the Trade-off Between Lexicon Size and Average Morphosyntactic Complexity. Cogn Sci 2024; 48:e13424. [PMID: 38497509 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13424] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/24/2023] [Revised: 02/12/2024] [Accepted: 02/21/2024] [Indexed: 03/19/2024]
Abstract
Human languages vary in terms of which meanings they lexicalize, but this variation is constrained. It has been argued that languages are under two competing pressures: the pressure to be simple (e.g., to have a small lexicon) and to allow for informative (i.e., precise) communication, and that which meanings get lexicalized may be explained by languages finding a good way to trade off between these two pressures. However, in certain semantic domains, languages can reach very high levels of informativeness even if they lexicalize very few meanings in that domain. This is due to productive morphosyntax and compositional semantics, which may allow for construction of meanings which are not lexicalized. Consider the semantic domain of natural numbers: many languages lexicalize few natural number meanings as monomorphemic expressions, but can precisely convey very many natural number meanings using morphosyntactically complex numerals. In such semantic domains, lexicon size is not in direct competition with informativeness. What explains which meanings are lexicalized in such semantic domains? We will propose that in such cases, languages need to solve a different kind of trade-off problem: the trade-off between the pressure to lexicalize as few meanings as possible (i.e, to minimize lexicon size) and the pressure to produce as morphosyntactically simple utterances as possible (i.e, to minimize average morphosyntactic complexity of utterances). To support this claim, we will present a case study of 128 natural languages' numeral systems, and show computationally that they achieve a near-optimal trade-off between lexicon size and average morphosyntactic complexity of numerals. This study in conjunction with previous work on communicative efficiency suggests that languages' lexicons are shaped by a trade-off between not two but three pressures: be simple, be informative, and minimize average morphosyntactic complexity of utterances.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Jakub Szymanik
- Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, University of Trento
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5
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Holt S, Fan JE, Barner D. Creating ad hoc graphical representations of number. Cognition 2024; 242:105665. [PMID: 37992512 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105665] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/04/2023] [Revised: 11/09/2023] [Accepted: 11/11/2023] [Indexed: 11/24/2023]
Abstract
The ability to communicate about exact number is critical to many modern human practices spanning science, industry, and politics. Although some early numeral systems used 1-to-1 correspondence (e.g., 'IIII' to represent 4), most systems provide compact representations via more arbitrary conventions (e.g., '7' and 'VII'). When people are unable to rely on conventional numerals, however, what strategies do they initially use to communicate number? Across three experiments, participants used pictures to communicate about visual arrays of objects containing 1-16 items, either by producing freehand drawings or combining sets of visual tokens. We analyzed how the pictures they produced varied as a function of communicative need (Experiment 1), spatial regularities in the arrays (Experiment 2), and visual properties of tokens (Experiment 3). In Experiment 1, we found that participants often expressed number in the form of 1-to-1 representations, but sometimes also exploited the configuration of sets. In Experiment 2, this strategy of using configural cues was exaggerated when sets were especially large, and when the cues were predictably correlated with number. Finally, in Experiment 3, participants readily adopted salient numerical features of objects (e.g., four-leaf clover) and generally combined them in a cumulative-additive manner. Taken together, these findings corroborate historical evidence that humans exploit correlates of number in the external environment - such as shape, configural cues, or 1-to-1 correspondence - as the basis for innovating more abstract number representations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sebastian Holt
- Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
| | - Judith E Fan
- Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA; Department of Psychology, Stanford University, 450 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
| | - David Barner
- Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA; Department of Linguistics, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
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6
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Chen S, Futrell R, Mahowald K. An information-theoretic approach to the typology of spatial demonstratives. Cognition 2023; 240:105505. [PMID: 37598582 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105505] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2022] [Revised: 05/26/2023] [Accepted: 05/28/2023] [Indexed: 08/22/2023]
Abstract
We explore systems of spatial deictic words (such as 'here' and 'there') from the perspective of communicative efficiency using typological data from over 200 languages Nintemann et al. (2020). We argue from an information-theoretic perspective that spatial deictic systems balance informativity and complexity in the sense of the Information Bottleneck (Zaslavsky et al., (2018). We find that under an appropriate choice of cost function and need probability over meanings, among all the 21,146 theoretically possible spatial deictic systems, those adopted by real languages lie near an efficient frontier of informativity and complexity. Moreover, we find that the conditions that the need probability and the cost function need to satisfy for this result are consistent with the cognitive science literature on spatial cognition, especially regarding the source-goal asymmetry. We further show that the typological data are better explained by introducing a notion of consistency into the Information Bottleneck framework, which is jointly optimized along with informativity and complexity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sihan Chen
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, United States of America.
| | - Richard Futrell
- Department of Language Science, University of California, Irvine, United States of America
| | - Kyle Mahowald
- Department of Linguistics, The University of Texas at Austin, United States of America
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Brochhagen T, Boleda G, Gualdoni E, Xu Y. From language development to language evolution: A unified view of human lexical creativity. Science 2023; 381:431-436. [PMID: 37499016 DOI: 10.1126/science.ade7981] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2022] [Accepted: 06/01/2023] [Indexed: 07/29/2023]
Abstract
A defining property of human language is the creative use of words to express multiple meanings through word meaning extension. Such lexical creativity is manifested at different timescales, ranging from language development in children to the evolution of word meanings over history. We explored whether different manifestations of lexical creativity build on a common foundation. Using computational models, we show that a parsimonious set of semantic knowledge types characterize developmental data as well as evolutionary products of meaning extension spanning over 1400 languages. Models for evolutionary data account very well for developmental data, and vice versa. These findings suggest a unified foundation for human lexical creativity underlying both the fleeting products of individual ontogeny and the evolutionary products of phylogeny across languages.
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Affiliation(s)
- Thomas Brochhagen
- Department of Translation and Language Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Gemma Boleda
- Department of Translation and Language Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
- Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain
| | - Eleonora Gualdoni
- Department of Translation and Language Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Yang Xu
- Department of Computer Science, Cognitive Science Program, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
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8
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Liu TL, Merrill SC, O'Keefe A, Clark EM, Langle-Chimal OD, Trinity L, Shrum TR, Koliba C, Zia A, Sellnow TL, Sellnow DD, Smith JM. Effects of message delivery on cross-cultural biosecurity compliance: Insights from experimental simulations. Front Vet Sci 2022; 9:984945. [DOI: 10.3389/fvets.2022.984945] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/02/2022] [Accepted: 10/10/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
BackgroundEffective biosecurity communication of transmission risks and associated protective behaviors can reduce the impacts of infectious diseases in US animal agriculture. Yet, more than 1/5 of animal production workers speak a language other than English at home, and more than 40 percent are less than fluent in English. Communicating with these workers often involves translating into their primary languages. However, communication strategies targeting different cultural groups are not well-understood.AimsTo identify cross-linguistic risk communication strategies to facilitate compliance, we hypothesized that uncertainty avoidance cultures associated with the languages might affect biosecurity compliance contingent upon two additional covariates: (1) the risk of acquiring an infection and (2) the delivery method of the infection risk.MethodsWe designed an experimental game simulating a line of separation (LOS) biosecurity tactic in a swine production facility, where participants were tasked with completing tasks inside and outside of the facility. Data were collected using games in the two most spoken languages in the US: English (EN) and Spanish (SP). Participants made binary decisions about whether to use the LOS biosecurity tactic based on the risk information provided. Mixed-effect logistic models were used to test the effects of covariates on using the LOS tactic by different language groups.ResultsWe found that biosecurity compliance rates of participants who took the experiments in the language associated with high and low uncertainty cultures showed no significant differences. However, there are substantial differences in how risk information is perceived between the two language groups under different infection risks. Specifically, and counterintuitively, SP participants were more risk-averse in gain scenarios but more risk-taking in loss scenarios. These differences are most pronounced in numeric risk messaging, indicating that numbers may not be the best way to communicate risk information regarding biosecurity cross-culturally.ConclusionsWhen confronted with situational biosecurity decisions, risk perception and preferences vary by language group. Effective biosecurity communication needs to account for these differences and not assume that direct translation of risk messages will result in comparable compliance.
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Gyevnar B, Dagan G, Haley C, Guo S, Mollica F. Communicative Efficiency or Iconic Learning: Do Acquisition and Communicative Pressures Interact to Shape Colour- Naming Systems? ENTROPY (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2022; 24:1542. [PMID: 36359632 PMCID: PMC9689105 DOI: 10.3390/e24111542] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/10/2022] [Revised: 10/19/2022] [Accepted: 10/21/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
Language evolution is driven by pressures for simplicity and informativity; however, the timescale on which these pressures operate is debated. Over several generations, learners' biases for simple and informative systems can guide language evolution. Over repeated instances of dyadic communication, the principle of least effort dictates that speakers should bias systems towards simplicity and listeners towards informativity, similarly guiding language evolution. At the same time, it has been argued that learners only provide a bias for simplicity and, thus, language users must provide a bias for informativity. To what extent do languages evolve during acquisition versus use? We address this question by formally defining and investigating the communicative efficiency of acquisition trajectories. We illustrate our approach using colour-naming systems, replicating the communicative efficiency model of Zaslavsky, Kemp, Regier & Tishby (2018, PNAS) and the acquisition model of Beekhuizen & Stevenson (2018, Cogn. Sci.). We find that to the extent that language is iconic, learning alone is sufficient to shape language evolution. Regarding colour-naming systems specifically, we find that incorporating learning biases into communicative efficiency accounts might explain how speakers and listeners trade off communicative effort.
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10
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Brochhagen T, Boleda G. When do languages use the same word for different meanings? The Goldilocks principle in colexification. Cognition 2022; 226:105179. [PMID: 35700657 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105179] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2022] [Revised: 04/13/2022] [Accepted: 05/19/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Lexical ambiguity is pervasive in language, and often systematic. For instance, the Spanish word dedo can refer to a toe or a finger, that is, these two meanings colexify in Spanish; and they do so as well in over one hundred other languages. Previous work shows that related meanings are more likely to colexify. This is attributed to cognitive pressure towards simplicity in language, as it makes lexicons easier to learn and use. The present study examines the interplay between this pressure and the competing pressure for languages to support accurate information transfer. We hypothesize that colexification follows a Goldilocks principle that balances the two pressures: meanings are more likely to attach to the same word when they are related to an optimal degree-neither too much, nor too little. We find support for this principle in data from over 1200 languages and 1400 meanings. Our results thus suggest that universal forces shape the lexicons of natural languages. More broadly, they contribute to the growing body of evidence suggesting that languages evolve to strike a balance between competing functional and cognitive pressures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Thomas Brochhagen
- Department of Translation and Language Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Roc Boronat, 138, 08018 Barcelona, Spain.
| | - Gemma Boleda
- Department of Translation and Language Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Roc Boronat, 138, 08018 Barcelona, Spain; Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Passeig Lluís Companys, 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain
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11
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Denić M, Steinert-Threlkeld S, Szymanik J. Indefinite Pronouns Optimize the Simplicity/Informativeness Trade-Off. Cogn Sci 2022; 46:e13142. [PMID: 35579878 PMCID: PMC9285766 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13142] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/17/2021] [Revised: 02/17/2022] [Accepted: 04/08/2022] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
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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Affiliation(s)
- Milica Denić
- Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam
| | | | - Jakub Szymanik
- Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam
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12
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Goldberg AE, Ferreira F. Good-enough language production. Trends Cogn Sci 2022; 26:300-311. [PMID: 35241380 PMCID: PMC8956348 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2022.01.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/22/2021] [Revised: 01/10/2022] [Accepted: 01/18/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Our ability to comprehend and produce language is one of humans' most impressive skills, but it is not flawless. We must convey and interpret messages via a noisy channel in ever-changing contexts and we sometimes fail to access an optimal combination of words and grammatical constructions. Here, we extend the notion of good-enough (GN) comprehension to GN production, which allows us to unify a wide range of phenomena including overly vague word choices, agreement errors, resumptive pronouns, transfer effects, and children's overextensions and regularizations. We suggest these all involve the accessing and production of a 'GN' option when a more-optimal option is inaccessible. The role of accessibility highlights the need to relate memory encoding and retrieval processes to language comprehension and production.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adele E Goldberg
- Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
| | - Fernanda Ferreira
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
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13
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The forms and meanings of grammatical markers support efficient communication. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2021; 118:2025993118. [PMID: 34873051 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2025993118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 10/18/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Functionalist accounts of language suggest that forms are paired with meanings in ways that support efficient communication. Previous work on grammatical marking suggests that word forms have lengths that enable efficient production, and work on the semantic typology of the lexicon suggests that word meanings represent efficient partitions of semantic space. Here we establish a theoretical link between these two lines of work and present an information-theoretic analysis that captures how communicative pressures influence both form and meaning. We apply our approach to the grammatical features of number, tense, and evidentiality and show that the approach explains both which systems of feature values are attested across languages and the relative lengths of the forms for those feature values. Our approach shows that general information-theoretic principles can capture variation in both form and meaning across languages.
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14
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Steinert-Threlkeld S. Quantifiers in Natural Language: Efficient Communication and Degrees of Semantic Universals. ENTROPY 2021; 23:e23101335. [PMID: 34682059 PMCID: PMC8570335 DOI: 10.3390/e23101335] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/06/2021] [Revised: 09/29/2021] [Accepted: 10/09/2021] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
While the languages of the world vary greatly, they exhibit systematic patterns, as well. Semantic universals are restrictions on the variation in meaning exhibit cross-linguistically (e.g., that, in all languages, expressions of a certain type can only denote meanings with a certain special property). This paper pursues an efficient communication analysis to explain the presence of semantic universals in a domain of function words: quantifiers. Two experiments measure how well languages do in optimally trading off between competing pressures of simplicity and informativeness. First, we show that artificial languages which more closely resemble natural languages are more optimal. Then, we introduce information-theoretic measures of degrees of semantic universals and show that these are not correlated with optimality in a random sample of artificial languages. These results suggest both that efficient communication shapes semantic typology in both content and function word domains, as well as that semantic universals may not stand in need of independent explanation.
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Karjus A, Blythe RA, Kirby S, Wang T, Smith K. Conceptual Similarity and Communicative Need Shape Colexification: An Experimental Study. Cogn Sci 2021; 45:e13035. [PMID: 34491584 PMCID: PMC9285023 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13035] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/25/2021] [Revised: 06/18/2021] [Accepted: 07/19/2021] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Colexification refers to the phenomenon of multiple meanings sharing one word in a language. Cross‐linguistic lexification patterns have been shown to be largely predictable, as similar concepts are often colexified. We test a recent claim that, beyond this general tendency, communicative needs play an important role in shaping colexification patterns. We approach this question by means of a series of human experiments, using an artificial language communication game paradigm. Our results across four experiments match the previous cross‐linguistic findings: all other things being equal, speakers do prefer to colexify similar concepts. However, we also find evidence supporting the communicative need hypothesis: when faced with a frequent need to distinguish similar pairs of meanings, speakadjust their colexification preferences to maintain communicative efficiency and avoid colexifying those similar meanings which need to be distinguished in communication. This research provides further evidence to support the argument that languages are shaped by the needs and preferences of their speakers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andres Karjus
- ERA Chair for Cultural Data Analytics, Tallinn University.,School of Humanities, Tallinn University.,Centre for Language Evolution, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh
| | - Richard A Blythe
- Centre for Language Evolution, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh.,School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh
| | - Simon Kirby
- Centre for Language Evolution, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh
| | | | - Kenny Smith
- Centre for Language Evolution, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh
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