Language evolution seminar

Speaker: Olga Fehér

Topic: The effect of semantic cues on the regularisation of unpredictable variation

Abstract: Variation in natural language is constrained: languages tend to lose competing variants over time, and where variation persists its use is conditioned on linguistic or sociolinguistic context. When learners acquire languages that exhibit unpredictable variation (unnatural, unconditioned probabilistic variation), they often eliminate the variation by regularising to one of the competing variants or conditioning on context. We previously found that, in addition to individual learning and transmission, interaction can lead to regularisation through convergence and priming between interlocutors. In this experiment, we investigated the influence of semantic cues on regularisation and conditioning during interaction and transmission. We had adult participants learn and communicate with artificial languages which exhibited unconditioned variation in plural marking. The languages described images that belonged to one or two semantic categories. We found that interacting Dyads regularised in the one category condition by eliminating one of the markers. However, in the two category condition, Dyads maintained variation but without conditioning it on semantic categories. Semantic conditioning occurred only in Singles, gradually during episodes of transmission. The lack of conditioning in Dyads was probably due to strong priming between communicating partners that was present within and across semantic categories. This suggests that the pattern of restricted, conditioned variation in natural language reflects the combined influences of biases in learning, recall and interaction.

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Seminars are organised by the Centre for Language Evolution

Jon Carr

Centre for Language Evolution