Models of Language Evolution Vertical Transmission Session 11: - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Roland Mühlenbernd Overview Biological VS Cultural Constraints Horizontal VS Vertical Transmission

Models of Language Evolution

Session 11: Students Presentations Part III Roland Mühlenbernd 2015/01/21

Roland Mühlenbernd Overview Biological VS Cultural Constraints Horizontal VS Vertical Transmission

Overview

date speaker literature / project topic 7.1 Kameliya Hristova

Culture: Copying, Compression, and Conventionality (Tamariz, Kirby 2014)

Franziska Koesling

Talking to Neighbors: The Evolution of Regional Meaning (Zollman 2005)

14.1 Carina Rüdinger

Social Language Learning (Steels 2003)

Patrick Zahn

Modelling the Cultural Evolution of Language (Steels 2011)

Vanessa Nadler

Signalling Games: Evolutionary Convergence on Optimality (Lentz, Blutner 2009)

21.1 Larissa Meier

Language Structure: Psychological and Social Constraints (Jäger, van Roiij 2007)

Clara Baumgärtner

Integrating the Horizontal & Vertical Cultural Transmission of Novel Communication Systems (Theisen-White, Kirby, Oberlander 2014)

Marcel Binz project topic: signaling & the game of life (Mühlenbernd, Schulz 2014) 28.1 Sabrina Selck project topic: evolution of the lexicon (Steels 1995) Daniel Schuhmacher project topic: communication & changing interaction structure Pink Powerangers project topic: evolution of recursive compositionality 4.2 Vivian Fresen project topic: evolution of human vowel systems (de Boer 2002) Team 1 project topic: evolution of compositionality in signaling games Team Nash project topic: evolution of semantic variation (Zollman 2005)

Roland Mühlenbernd Overview Biological VS Cultural Constraints Horizontal VS Vertical Transmission

Three Adaptive Systems of Language Evolution

3 adaptive systems in language evolution (Kirby & Hurford 2002)

Two important contrapositions:

• 1. biological vs cultural constraints

(biolinguists vs evolutionary linguists)

• 2. horizontal vs vertical transmission

(population vs learning dynamics)

Roland Mühlenbernd Overview Biological VS Cultural Constraints Horizontal VS Vertical Transmission

Biological VS Cultural Constraints

The nature of human (non-)linguistic color categories (research field for more than 50 years)

◮ do color terminologies evolve naturally to an optimum point for

communicative and descriptive purposes? (cultural constraints)

◮ are color terminologies determined by perceptive and cognitive

constraints? (biological constraints)

◮ how are linguistic usage/representation and cognitive/perceptive

sensation of colors interrelated?

Roland Mühlenbernd Overview Biological VS Cultural Constraints Horizontal VS Vertical Transmission

Basic Color Term Evolution

Properties of human languages

◮ the number of basic color terms is between 2 and 11(12). ◮ if a language has 11 basic color terms, then the encoded

categories are:

WHITE, BLACK, RED, GREEN, YELLOW, BLUE, BROWN, ORANGE, PINK, PURPLE, and GREY

◮ languages with 11 (12) basic color terms: Arabic

(Lebanese), Bulgarian, English, German, Hebrew, Hungarian (12!), Japanese, Korean, Russian (12!), Spanish, Zuni, ...

◮ if a language has fewer than 11 basic color terms, then

there are strict limitations on which categories it may encode:

◮ only 22 different color vocabularies ◮ can be described by 7 implicative universals ◮ form almost always a partition of the whole space

Roland Mühlenbernd Overview Biological VS Cultural Constraints Horizontal VS Vertical Transmission

Example: Basic Color Term Evolution

From: Color Appearance and the Emergence and Evolution of Basic Color Lexicons (Kay, Maffi 1999)

Popular partitions emerge from three basic rules

• 1. Distinguish Black and White
• 2. Distinguish warm (red & yellow) from cold primaries (green & blue)
• 3. Distinguish red

Roland Mühlenbernd Overview Biological VS Cultural Constraints Horizontal VS Vertical Transmission

Horizontal VS Vertical Transmission

• 1. Horizontal transmission: language evolves by

exchange/communication in one population (generation)

• 2. Vertical transmission: language evolves by

teaching/learning from one generation to the next one In what way differ and resemble types of linguistic change caused by horizontal and vertical transmission?

From: Scott-Phillips and Kirby: Language Evolution in the Lab (2010)

Roland Mühlenbernd Overview Biological VS Cultural Constraints Horizontal VS Vertical Transmission

Studies of Today

• 1. Larissa Meier

◮ Topic: Language Structure: Psychological & Social Constraints

(Jäger, van Roiij 2007)

◮ Background: Evolution of Basic Color Lexicon ◮ Category: computational study of evolutionary dynamics

• 2. Clara Baumgärtner

◮ Topics: Cultural emergence of combinatorial structure in an

artificial whistled language (Verhoef, Kirby, Padden 2014) & Integrating the Horizontal & Vertical Cultural Transmis. of Novel

• Communic. Systems (Theisen-White, Kirby, Oberlander 2014)

◮ Background: Language Evolution in the Laboratory ◮ Category: experimental studies of horizontal & vertical

transmission

• 3. Marcel Binz

◮ Topic: The Game of Life (Conway, 1970) ◮ Background: Conway’s Game of Life, Signaling, Neuronal

Networks

◮ Category: computational study of spatial/population dynamics