Effects of Compression on Language Evolution

2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracy K. Teal ◽  
Charles E. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Minimum Description Length ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Problem Space ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Look Up Table ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract For many adaptive complex systems information about the environment is not simply recorded in a look-up table, but is rather encoded in a theory, schema, or model, which compresses information. The grammar of a language can be viewed as such a schema or theory. In a prior study [Teal et al., 1999] we proposed several conjectures about the learning and evolution of language that should follow from these observations: (C1) compression aids in generalization; (C2) compression occurs more easily in a “smooth”, as opposed to a “rugged”, problem space; and (C3) constraints from compression make it likely that natural languages evolve towards smooth string spaces. This previous work found general, if not complete support for these three conjectures. Here we build on that study to clarify the relationship between Minimum Description Length (MDL) and error in our model and examine evolution of certain languages in more detail. Our results suggest a fourth conjecture: that all else being equal, (C4) more complex languages change more rapidly during evolution.

scholarly journals Animism and Language Evolution

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eldar T. Hasanov
Keyword(s):  
Communication Systems ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Early Humans ◽  
Language Communication ◽  
Ritual Speech ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Evolutionarily Stable ◽  
Do So

The exact mechanism of the evolution of language remains unknown. One of the central problems in this field is the issue of reliability and deceit that can be characterized in terms of honest signaling theory. Communication systems become vulnerable to dishonesty and deceit when there are conflicting interests between the signaler and receiver. The handicap principle explains how evolution can prevent animals from deceiving each other even if they have a strong incentive to do so. It suggests that the signals must be costly in order to provide accurate and reliable communication between animals. Language-like communication systems, being inherently vulnerable to deception, could only evolve and become evolutionarily stable if they had some mechanisms that can make the communication hard to fake and trustworthy. One of the theories that try to solve the problem of reliability and deception is the ritual/speech coevolution hypothesis. According to this theory, hard-to-fake rituals evolved concurrently with language - by reinforcing trust and solidarity among early humans and preventing deceitful and manipulative behavior within the group. One of the drawbacks of this hypothesis is that the relationship between ritual and speech is too indirect. Rituals could not have a real-time effect on every instance of speech and encompass all aspects of everyday language communication. Therefore they are not efficient enough to provide instant verification mechanisms to guarantee honest communication. It is more likely that the animistic nature of language itself, rather than ritual, was the handicap-like cost that helped to ensure the reliability of language during its origin. The belief in the parallel dimension of animistic spirits emerged concurrently with language as a hard-to-fake attestation mechanism that ensured inviolability of one's speech. The notion that animism emerged because of early behaviorally modern humans’ incoherent and flawed observations about the natural world is unlikely, because it implies a very improbable scenario, that there had been a more coherent and rational pre-animistic period which later degraded to animistic one.

scholarly journals Brains, genes, and language evolution: A new synthesis

2008 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 537-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten H. Christiansen ◽  
Nick Chater
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
New Synthesis ◽  
Target Article ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Close Fit

AbstractOur target article argued that a genetically specified Universal Grammar (UG), capturing arbitrary properties of languages, is not tenable on evolutionary grounds, and that the close fit between language and language learners arises because language is shaped by the brain, rather than the reverse. Few commentaries defend a genetically specified UG. Some commentators argue that we underestimate the importance of processes of cultural transmission; some propose additional cognitive and brain mechanisms that may constrain language and perhaps differentiate humans from nonhuman primates; and others argue that we overstate or understate the case against co-evolution of language genes. In engaging with these issues, we suggest that a new synthesis concerning the relationship between brains, genes, and language may be emerging.

scholarly journals On the complexity of assimilation in urban communities

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Renita Murimi
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Urban Communities ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Urban Systems ◽  
Sociological Perspective ◽  
Information Theoretic ◽  
Information Theoretic Measures ◽  
Urban Complex ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractCities are microcosms representing a diversity of human experience. The complexity of urban systems arises from this diversity, where the services that cities offer to their inhabitants have to be tailored for their unique requirements. This paper studies the complexity of urban environments in terms of the assimilation of its communities. We examine the urban assimilation complexity with respect to the foreignness between communities and formalize the level of complexity using information-theoretic measures. Our findings contribute to a sociological perspective of the relationship between urban complex systems and the diversity of communities that make up urban systems.

scholarly journals The Social Evolution of Language, and the Language of Social Evolution

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 147470490700500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas C. Scott-Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Social Evolution ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Reciprocal Altruism ◽  
Honest Signaling ◽  
Evolution Theory ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Capacity ◽  
Correct Application

Recent years have witnessed an increased interest in the evolution of the human capacity for language. Such a project is necessarily interdisciplinary. However, that interdisciplinarity brings with it a risk: terms with a technical meaning in their own field are used wrongly or too loosely by those from other backgrounds. Unfortunately, this risk has been realized in the case of language evolution, where many of the terms of social evolution theory (reciprocal altruism, honest signaling, etc.) are incorrectly used in a way that suggests that certain key fundamentals have been misunderstood. In particular the distinction between proximate and ultimate explanations is often lost, with the result that several claims made by those interested in language evolution are epistemically incoherent. However, the correct application of social evolution theory provides simple, clear explanations of why language most likely evolved and how the signals used in language — words — remain cheap yet arbitrary.

scholarly journals Inequities in the emergence, manifestations and consequences of COVID19

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabian Méndez Paz
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Vicious Circle ◽  
Social Inequity ◽  
Universal Vaccine ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
The Relationship

The Inequality Virus is the name given to SARS-COV2 by an OXFAM publication, highlighting that during the pandemic, the ten richest men on the planet have earned 540 billion dollars, a figure that would serve to finance a universal vaccine for COVID19. This fact is an exemplary demonstration of the inequities of the pandemic, analyzed below in three different dimensions: 1) The origins of the pandemic, in the context of inequitable socio-ecological systems where the relationship amongst humans and between humans and nature has been broken; 2) Its manifestations, in conditions of social inequity, with its patterns of occurrence and a painful trace of disease and death; and 3) The consequences, in a vicious circle with the complex systems that gave rise to it, causing a profound situation of inequity, in other words, the pandemic as a source of more unjust differences.

scholarly journals Language change and language evolution: Cousins, siblings, twins?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Hartmann
Keyword(s):  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Cross Fertilization

The relationship between “language change” and “language evolution” has recently become subject to some debate regarding the scope of both concepts. It has been claimed that while the latter used to refer to language origins in the first place, both terms can now, to a certain extent, be used synonymously. In this paper, I argue that this can partly be explained by parallel develop-ments both in historical linguistics and in the field of language evolution research that have led to a considerable amount of convergence between both fields. Both have adopted usage-based approaches and data-driven methods, which entails similar research questions and similar perspectives on the phenomena under investigation. This has ramifications for current models and theories of language change (or evolution). Two approaches in particular – the concept of com-plex adaptive systems and construction grammar – have been combined in integrated approaches that seek to explain both language emergence and language change over historical time. I discuss the potential and limitations of this integrated approach, and I argue that there is still some unex-plored potential for cross-fertilization.

scholarly journals Dynamic-and-Systemic Principles of Synergetics in Functional Linguistics.

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 24-33
Author(s):  
V. L. Malakhova
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Complex Dynamic ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Discursive Space ◽  
Concept System ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Promising Area ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
Universal Nature ◽  
Language Text

Th article describes the specifis, principles and methods of synergetics as a promising area of modern research. Synergetics is presented by the author as a holistic integral paradigm used in many sciences which confims its interdisciplinary and even universal nature. Th object of this paradigm is the interaction of complex systems, and since the mere concept ‘system’ is widely used in many scientifi filds, the relevance of synergetics is beyond doubt. Th author describes the main characteristics of the structure and functioning of a system. Th key concepts of synergetics and their explanation are also given. Further, the article discusses the branches of linguistics which use principles of synergetics – linguosynergetics and functional linguosynergetics as its variety. Since the study of text and discourse and their parameters as complex systems is of particular interest to many linguists, linguosynergetics has become one of the demanded scientifi paradigms in this area of research. Th author points out the objectives and tasks of linguistic synergetics, and functional linguosynergetics in particular, their basic concepts, principles and methods. Attention is also paid to the functioning of linguistic means, as well as the formation and interpretation of meaning depending on certain discursive space. Th author comes to the conclusion that thanks to synergetics language can be studied from specifi angles, and the application of its principles greatly contributes to the theory of the evolution of language. Linguosynergetics provides ample opportunities for describing language/text/discourse as a complex dynamic open system, and functional linguosynergetics, in turn, helps describe the features of its functioning and evolution.

Bimodal signaling in infancy

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Locke
Keyword(s):  
Mirror Neurons ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Integrated System ◽  
Vocal Behavior ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Wide Margin ◽  
Evolutionary Path ◽  
Vocal Signals ◽  
Communicative Context ◽  
The Relationship

It has long been asserted that the evolutionary path to spoken language was paved by manual–gestural behaviors, a claim that has been revitalized in response to recent research on mirror neurons. Renewed interest in the relationship between manual and vocal behavior draws attention to its development. Here, the pointing and vocalization of 16.5-month-old infants are reported as a function of the context in which they occurred. When infants operated in a referential mode, the frequency of simultaneous vocalization and pointing exceeded the frequency of vocalization-only and pointing-only responses by a wide margin. In a non-communicative context, combinatorial effects persisted, but in weaker form. Manual–vocal signals thus appear to express the operation of an integrated system, arguably adaptive in the young from evolutionary times to the present. It was speculated, based on reported evidence, that manual behavior increases the frequency and complexity of vocal behaviors in modern infants. There may be merit in the claim that manual behavior facilitated the evolution of language because it helped make available, early in development, behaviors that under selection pressures in later ontogenetic stages elaborated into speech.

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