Hostname: page-component-6b989bf9dc-md2j5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-14T13:48:20.442Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Linguistic structure emerges through the interaction of memory constraints and communicative pressures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2016

Molly L. Lewis  and
Michael C. Frank
Molly L. Lewis
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. mll@stanford.edumcfrank@stanford.eduhttp://web.stanford.edu/~mll/http://web.stanford.edu/~mcfrank/
Michael C. Frank
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. mll@stanford.edumcfrank@stanford.eduhttp://web.stanford.edu/~mll/http://web.stanford.edu/~mcfrank/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

If memory constraints were the only limitation on language processing, the best possible language would be one with only one word. But to explain the rich structure of language, we need to posit a second constraint: the pressure to communicate informatively. Many aspects of linguistic structure can be accounted for by appealing to equilibria that result from these two pressures.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 39 , 2016 , e82
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, P. W. (1972) More is different. Science 177:393–96.Google Scholar
Baddeley, R. & Attewell, D. (2009) The relationship between language and the environment: Information theory shows why we have only three lightness terms. Psychological Science 20:1100–107.Google Scholar
Baldwin, D. (1991) Infants' contribution to the achievement of joint reference. Child Development 62:874–90.Google Scholar
Baldwin, D. A. (1993) Infants' ability to consult the speaker for clues to word reference. Journal of Child Language 20:395–18.Google Scholar
Carstensen, A., Xu, J., Smith, C. & Regier, T. (2015) Language evolution in the lab tends toward informative communication. In: Proceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Austin, TX, July 2015, ed. Noelle, D. C., Dale, R., Warlaumont, A. S., Yoshimi, J., Matlock, T., Jennings, C. D. & Maglio, P. P., pp. 303–308. Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Clark, H. H. (1996) Using language. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Culbertson, J. & Newport, E. L. (2015) Harmonic biases in child learners: In support of language universals. Cognition 139:71–82.Google Scholar
Culbertson, J., Smolensky, P. & Legendre, G. (2012) Learning biases predict a word order universal. Cognition 122(3):306–29.Google Scholar
Fedzechkina, M., Jaeger, T. F. & Newport, E. L. (2012) Language learners restructure their input to facilitate efficient communication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109:17897–17902.Google Scholar
Frank, M. C. & Goodman, N. (2012) Predicting pragmatic reasoning in language games. Science 336:998–98.Google Scholar
Frank, M. C. & Goodman, N. D. (2014) Inferring word meanings by assuming that speakers are informative. Cognitive Psychology 75:90–96.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frank, M. C., Goodman, N. D. & Tenenbaum, J. B. (2009) Using speakers' referential intentions to model early cross-situational word learning. Psychological Science 20:579–85.Google Scholar
Goodman, N. D. & Stuhlmüller, A. (2013) Knowledge and implicature: Modeling language understanding as social cognition. Topics in Cognitive Science 5:173–84.Google Scholar
Grice, H. P. (1975) Logic and conversation. In: Syntax and Semantics, ed. Cole, P. & Morgan, J., pp. 41–58. Academic Press.Google Scholar
Horn, L. (1984) Toward a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference: Q-based and R-based implicature. In: Meaning, form, and use in context, ed. Schiffrin, D., pp. 11–42. Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Horn, L. R. (1972) On the semantic properties of logical operators in English. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, UCLA.Google Scholar
Kemp, C. & Regier, T. (2012) Kinship categories across languages reflect general communicative principles. Science 336:1049–54.Google Scholar
Kirby, S., Cornish, H. & Smith, K. (2008) Cumulative cultural evolution in the laboratory: An experimental approach to the origins of structure in human language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105:10681–85.Google Scholar
Kirby, S., Tamariz, M., Cornish, H. & Smith, K. (2015) Compression and communication drive the evolution of language. Cognition 141:87–102.Google Scholar
Lewis, M. & Frank, M. C. (2015) Conceptual complexity and the evolution of the lexicon. In: Proceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Austin, TX, July 2015, ed. Noelle, D. C., Dale, R., Warlaumont, A. S., Yoshimi, J., Matlock, T., Jennings, C. D. & Magli, P. P., pp. 1138–343. Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Lewis, M., Sugarman, E. & Frank, M. C. (2014) The structure of the lexicon reflects principles of communication. In: Proceedings of the 36th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Austin, TX, July 2014, pp. 845–50, Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Mahowald, K., Fedorenko, E., Piantadosi, S. & Gibson, E. (2012) Info/information theory: Speakers actively choose shorter words in predictable contexts. Cognition 126:313–18.Google Scholar
Piantadosi, S., Tily, H. & Gibson, E. (2011) Word lengths are optimized for efficient communication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108:3526–29.Google Scholar
Reali, F. & Griffiths, T. (2009) The evolution of frequency distributions: Relating regularization to inductive biases through iterated learning. Cognition 111:317–28.Google Scholar
Regier, T., Kay, P. & Khetarpal, N. (2007) Color naming reflects optimal partitions of color space. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104:1436–41.Google Scholar
Wilson, C. (2006) Learning phonology with substantive bias: An experimental and computational study of velar palatalization. Cognitive Science 30:945–82.Google Scholar
Zipf, G. (1936) The psychobiology of language. Routledge.Google Scholar
Zipf, G. K. (1949) Human behavior and the principle of least effort. Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar