| MoLE-package {MoLE} | R Documentation |
Modeling Language Evolution
Description
Model for simulating language evolution in terms of cultural evolution (Smith & Kirby (2008) <DOI:10.1098/rstb.2008.0145>; Deacon 1997). The focus is on the emergence of argument-marking systems (Dowty (1991) <DOI:10.1353/lan.1991.0021>, Van Valin 1999, Dryer 2002, Lestrade 2015a), i.e. noun marking (Aristar (1997) <DOI:10.1075/sl.21.2.04ari>, Lestrade (2010) <DOI:10.7282/T3ZG6R4S>), person indexing (Ariel 1999, Dahl (2000) <DOI:10.1075/fol.7.1.03dah>, Bhat 2004), and word order (Dryer 2013), but extensions are foreseen. Agents start out with a protolanguage (a language without grammar; Bickerton (1981) <DOI:10.17169/langsci.b91.109>, Jackendoff 2002, Arbib (2015) <DOI:10.1002/9781118346136.ch27>) and interact through language games (Steels 1997). Over time, grammatical constructions emerge that may or may not become obligatory (for which the tolerance principle is assumed; Yang 2016). Throughout the simulation, uniformitarianism of principles is assumed (Hopper (1987) <DOI:10.3765/bls.v13i0.1834>, Givon (1995) <DOI:10.1075/z.74>, Croft (2000), Saffran (2001) <DOI:10.1111/1467-8721.01243>, Heine & Kuteva 2007), in which maximal psychological validity is aimed at (Grice (1975) <DOI:10.1057/9780230005853_5>, Levelt 1989, Gaerdenfors 2000) and language representation is usage based (Tomasello 2003, Bybee 2010). In Lestrade (2015b) <DOI:10.15496/publikation-8640>, Lestrade (2015c) <DOI:10.1075/avt.32.08les>, and Lestrade (2016) <DOI:10.17617/2.2248195>), which reported on the results of preliminary versions, this package was announced as WDWTW (for who does what to whom), but for reasons of pronunciation and generalization the title was changed.
Details
The DESCRIPTION file:
| Package: | MoLE |
| Type: | Package |
| Title: | Modeling Language Evolution |
| Version: | 1.0.1 |
| Date: | 2017-10-23 |
| Author: | Sander Lestrade |
| Maintainer: | Sander Lestrade <samlestrade@protonmail.com> |
| Description: | Model for simulating language evolution in terms of cultural evolution (Smith & Kirby (2008) <DOI:10.1098/rstb.2008.0145>; Deacon 1997). The focus is on the emergence of argument-marking systems (Dowty (1991) <DOI:10.1353/lan.1991.0021>, Van Valin 1999, Dryer 2002, Lestrade 2015a), i.e. noun marking (Aristar (1997) <DOI:10.1075/sl.21.2.04ari>, Lestrade (2010) <DOI:10.7282/T3ZG6R4S>), person indexing (Ariel 1999, Dahl (2000) <DOI:10.1075/fol.7.1.03dah>, Bhat 2004), and word order (Dryer 2013), but extensions are foreseen. Agents start out with a protolanguage (a language without grammar; Bickerton (1981) <DOI:10.17169/langsci.b91.109>, Jackendoff 2002, Arbib (2015) <DOI:10.1002/9781118346136.ch27>) and interact through language games (Steels 1997). Over time, grammatical constructions emerge that may or may not become obligatory (for which the tolerance principle is assumed; Yang 2016). Throughout the simulation, uniformitarianism of principles is assumed (Hopper (1987) <DOI:10.3765/bls.v13i0.1834>, Givon (1995) <DOI:10.1075/z.74>, Croft (2000), Saffran (2001) <DOI:10.1111/1467-8721.01243>, Heine & Kuteva 2007), in which maximal psychological validity is aimed at (Grice (1975) <DOI:10.1057/9780230005853_5>, Levelt 1989, Gaerdenfors 2000) and language representation is usage based (Tomasello 2003, Bybee 2010). In Lestrade (2015b) <DOI:10.15496/publikation-8640>, Lestrade (2015c) <DOI:10.1075/avt.32.08les>, and Lestrade (2016) <DOI:10.17617/2.2248195>), which reported on the results of preliminary versions, this package was announced as WDWTW (for who does what to whom), but for reasons of pronunciation and generalization the title was changed. |
| Depends: | R (>= 3.0.0) |
| LazyData: | TRUE |
| License: | GPL-2 |
| RoxygenNote: | 6.0.1 |
Index of help topics:
ACTOR Determine actor role AGENTFIRST Actor argument first ALLNAS NA vector identification ANALYZE Determine sentence constituents CANDIDATESCORE Score candidate expressions CHECKSUCCESS Determine expected communicative success DECOMPOSE Decompose words into morphemes DIE Kill agents EROSION Word erosion FIRSTINFIRSTOUT Order constituents by activation FIRSTSPEAKER Create founding agent FMATCH Compare forms FORMS Generate forms FOUND Found population FREQUPDATE Update usage numbers FUSE Fuse words GENERALIZE Apply linguistic generalizations GROUP Group words into constituents INTERPRET Interpret utterance INTERPRET.INT Develop an interpretation MAX Find maximum value MoLE-package Modeling Language Evolution NOUNDESEMANTICIZATION Bleach word meaning NOUNMORPHOLOGY Interpret nominal morphology NOUNS Generate nominal lexicon PERSONUPDATE Adjust person value PREPARE Prepare a proposition for production PROCREATE Generate new generation of agents PRODUCE Produce utterance PROPOSITION Develop initial proposition PROTOINTERPRETATION Develop interpretation REDUCE Reduce length of expressions REFCHECK Check referential capacity RESCALE Rescale vector values RUN Run simulation SELECTACTOR Find actor expression SEMUPDATE Update lexicon SITUATION Create situational context SUCCESS Determine communicative success SUMMARY Summarize simulation results TALK Let agents talk TOPICCOPY Make anaphoric copy of topic TOPICFIRST Put topic in first position TURN Organize communicative turn TYPEMATCH Determine role qualification VERBFINAL Put verb final VERBMORPHOLOGY Interpret verbal morphology VERBS Generate verbal lexicon VMATCH Compare vectors WORDORDER Use word order for interpretation world Model parameters
Set the model parameters in world.
Found a new population (FOUND).
Run a simulation (RUN).
For language to change (and argument-marking grammar to develop), the simulation has to run for several hours.
Author(s)
Sander Lestrade
Maintainer: Sander Lestrade <samlestrade@protonmail.com>
References
Ariel, M. (1999), The development of person agreement markers: from pronouns to higher accessibility markers. In Barlow & Kemmer (Eds.), Usage based models of language (pp. 197-260), Stanford: CSLI.
Aristar, A.R. (1997), Marking and hierarchy. Types and the grammaticalization of case markers. Studies in Language, 21 (2), 313-368.
Arbib, M. A. (2015), Language evolution. An emergentist perspective. In MacWhinney and OGrady (eds), The Handbook of Language Emergence. West Sussex, UK: Wiley/Blackwell, pp. 600-623.
Bhat, D.N.S. (2004), Pronouns. Oxford [etc.]: Oxford University Press.
Bickerton, D. (1981), Roots of language. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Karoma.
Bybee, J. (2010), Language, usage, and cognition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Croft, W. (2000), Explaining language change: An evolutionary approach. Harlow etc.: Longman.
Dahl, O. (2000), Egophoricity in discourse and syntax. Functions of Language, 7 (1), 37-77.
Deacon, T. (1997), The symbolic species. London: Penquin.
Dowty, D. (1991), Thematic proto-roles and argument selection. Language 67 (3): 547-619.
Dryer, M. S. (2002), Case distinctions, rich verb agreement, and word order type. Theoretical Linguistics 28: 151-157.
Dryer, M. S. (2013), Order of subject, object and verb. In Dryer & Haspelmath (Eds.), The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Du Bois, J.W. (1987), The discourse basis of ergativity. Language 63 (4): 805-855
Gaerdenfors, P. (2000), Conceptual spaces: The geometry of thought. Cambridge, MA: MIT.
Givon, T. (1995), Functionalism and grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Grice, H. P. (1975), Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics: Speech acts (Vol. 3, pp. 41-58), New York: Academic Press.
Heine, B. & Kuteva, T. (2007), The genesis of grammar. A reconstruction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hopper, P. J. (1987), Emergent grammar. In Proceedings of BLS (Vol. 13, pp. 139-157),
Jackendoff, R. (2002), Foundations of language: Brain, meaning, grammar, evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Levelt, W.J.M. (1989), Speaking. From intention to articulation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Lestrade, S. (2010), The space of case. PhD thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen.
Lestrade, S. (2015a), The interaction of argument-marking strategies. In: S. Lestrade, P. de Swart, and L. Hogeweg (eds), Addenda. Artikelen voor Ad Foolen. Radboud University Nijmegen, 251-256.
Lestrade, S. (2015b), Simulating the development of bound person marking. In: H. Baayen, et al. (eds), Proceedings of the 6th Conference on Quantitative Investigations in Theoretical Linguistics. Tuebingen: University of Tuebingen.
Lestrade, S. (2015c), A case of cultural evolution: The emergence of morphological case. Linguistics in the Netherlands [AVT 32]: 105-115.
Lestrade, S. (2016), The emergence of argument marking. In: S.G. Roberts et al.(eds) The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Saffran, J.R. (2001), Statistical language learning: Mechanisms and constraints. Current Directions in Psychological Science 12(4): 110-114.
Smith, K. & Kirby, S. (2008), Cultural evolution: Implications for understanding the human language faculty and its evolution. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 363, 3591-3603.
Steels, L. (1997), Constructing and sharing perceptual distinctions. Machine Learning, ECML-97, 4-13.
Tomasello, M. (2003), Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Van Valin, R. (1999), Generalized semantic roles and the syntax-semantics interface. In F. Corblin, C. Dobrovie-Sorin, & J.-M. Marandin (Eds.), Empirical issues in formal syntax and semantics 2 (pp. 373-389), The Hague: Thesus.
Yang, Ch. (2016), The price of linguistic productivity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Examples
## Not run:
FOUND()
RUN(.00001)
(situation=SITUATION(1))
(proposition=PROPOSITION(1, situation))
(prep=PREPARE(1, proposition, situation))
(utterance=PRODUCE(1, prep))
(interpretation=INTERPRET(2, utterance, situation))
head(population[[1]]$nouns)
## End(Not run)