Language evolution seminar

Speaker: Yasamin Motamedi-Mousavi (CLE, University of Edinburgh)

Title: Naturalness and systematicity in the emergence of linguistic structure

Abstract: Systematicity, where the same form can be used across different meanings or categories, is considered to be a hallmark of linguistic structure. In contrast, natural forms are thought to be rooted in domain-general, pre-linguistic processes, related to specific items rather than across a system. For example, sign language and silent gesture research has found a natural preference for constituent ordering, where the preference for different basic word orders is conditioned on the semantics of the event being communicated. However, cross-linguistically, the majority of languages demonstrate a systematic ordering preference, where the same order is used regardless of the type of event being communicated.

Here, I will present a set of online silent gesture experiments that explore the factors affecting preferences for naturalness and systematicity in two different structures. In the first half of the talk, I will present findings that further explore word order preferences, to understand how the previously reported natural preference is affected by both iconicity and conventionality of the lexicon used to communicate different events. In the second half of the talk, I present work that extends the experimental paradigm to look at preferences for expressing motion events either simultaneously, where manner and path of motion are articulated as part of the same gesture, or as a segmented and linearised form, where the manner and path components are articulated separately and consecutively. Previous research has shown that early cohorts of Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL), an emerging sign language, as well as adult hearing gesturers, tend to produce simultaneous signs and gestures that holistically and iconically represent motion events. However, later cohorts of NSL showed a shift towards a preference for segmented signs that are argued to be characteristic of linguistic structure. I will present findings from an iterated learning study which suggest that simultaneous structures represent a natural preference strongest in the absence of any existing conventions, while learning a set of conventions leads to a shift towards segmented structures. However, through both example cases, I will show that natural preferences are not simply eradicated once systematic structures start to emerge, but rather that a number of possible factors affect the extent to which either preference persists.

Contact

Seminars are organised by the Centre for Language Evolution

• Lauren Fletcher
• Centre for Language Evolution