This paper proposes a coevolutionary scenario on the origins of compositionality and word order regularity in human language, and illustrates it using a multi-agent, behavioral model. The model traces a `bottom-up' process of syntactic development; artificial agents, by iterating local orders among lexical items, gradually build up basic constituent word order(s) in sentences. These results show that structural features of language (e.g. syntactic categories and word orders) could have coevolved with lexical items, as a consequence of general learning mechanisms (e.g. (...) pattern extraction and sequential learning) initially not language-specific. Keywords: Computer simulation; language origin; coevolution; compositionality; word order regularity. (shrink)

The majority of the extant languages have one of three dominant basic word orders: SVO, SOV or VSO. Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain this word order bias, including the existence of a universal grammar, the learnability imposed by cognitive constraints, the descent of modern languages from an ancestral protolanguage, and the constraints from functional principles. We run simulations using a multi-agent computational model to study this bias. Following a local order approach, the model simulates individual language processing mechanisms (...) in production and comprehension. The simulation results demonstrate that the semantic structures that a language encodes can constrain the global syntax, and that local syntax can help trigger bias towards the global order SOV/SVO. (shrink)

The majority of the extant languages have one of three dominant basic word orders: SVO, SOV or VSO. Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain this word order bias, including the existence of a universal grammar, the learnability imposed by cognitive constraints, the descent of modern languages from an ancestral protolanguage, and the constraints from functional principles. We run simulations using a multi-agent computational model to study this bias. Following a local order approach, the model simulates individual language processing mechanisms (...) in production and comprehension. The simulation results demonstrate that the semantic structures that a language encodes can constrain the global syntax, and that local syntax can help trigger bias towards the global order SOV/SVO. (shrink)

Following Smaldino's definition, we claim that language is also an emergent group-level trait, and propose two facets to verify this statement, both of which also provide a general framework to address the future work about group-level traits.

This paper proposes a coevolutionary scenario on the origins of compositionality and word order regularity in human language, and illustrates it using a multi-agent, behavioral model. The model traces a ‘bottom-up’ process of syntactic development; artificial agents, by iterating local orders among lexical items, gradually build up basic constituent word order in sentences. These results show that structural features of language could have coevolved with lexical items, as a consequence of general learning mechanisms initially not language-specific. Keywords: Computer simulation; language (...) origin; coevolution; compositionality; word order regularity. (shrink)

The language game approach has recently been adopted to explore the conventionalization of linguistic knowledge in a social environment. Most contemporary studies focus on the dynamics of language games in random or predefined social networks, but neglect the reverse roles of communicative constraints in language evolution and social structures. This article, based on two forms of language games , examines whether a simple, distance-based communicative constraint can affect the conventionalization of linguistic knowledge. The study bridges the gap between random networks (...) and complex social structures, and illustrates that the internal properties of language games can influence the effects of communicative constraints and social structures. (shrink)

By comparing mechanisms in nativism, empiricism, and culturalism, the target article by Steels & Belpaeme (S&B) emphasizes the influence of communicational constraint on sharing color categories. Our commentary suggests deeper considerations of some of their claims, and discusses some modifications that may help in the study of communicational constraints in both humans and robots.

Speech sounds are an essential vehicle of information exchange and meaning expression in approximately 7,000 spoken languages in the world. What functional constraints and evolutionary mechanisms lie behind linguistic diversity of sound systems is under ongoing debate; in particular, it remains conflicting whether there exists any universal relationship between these constraints despite of diverse sounds systems cross-linguistically. Here, we conducted cross-linguistic typological and phylogenetic analyses to address the characteristics of constraints on linguistic diversity of vowel systems. First, the typological analysis (...) revealed a power-law based dependence between the global structural dispersion and the local focalization of vowel systems and validated that such dependence was independent of geographic region, language family, and linguistic affiliation. Second, the phylogenetic analysis further illustrated that the observed dependence resulted from correlated evolutions of these two structural properties, which proceeded in an adaptive process. These results provide empirical evidence that self-organization mechanisms helped shape vowel systems and common functional constraints took effect on the evolution of vowel systems in the world’s languages. (shrink)