Conceptual Complexity and the Evolution of the Lexicon
Natural languages are filled with regularities. Where do these regularities come from? A parsimonious explanation is that these regularities emerge as a consequence of pressures within the broader context in which language is used: Communication among many cognitive systems. In this dissertation, I consider one particular regularity as a case study in how the dynamics of language use might shape language structure. Specifically, I focus on a bias in natural language to map long words on to conceptually complex meanings and short words on to conceptually simple meanings, or a complexity bias. Across a series of experimental and corpus studies, I explore whether languages and their speakers have a complexity bias, what conceptual complexity is, and what pressures might have lead to this bias over the course of language evolution. In the final chapter, I consider a broader range of linguistic phenomena and examine how aspects of language use might influence these structures.