Experiments in Cultural Language Evolution
Editor
Luc Steels | ICREA, Institute for Evolutionary Biology (UPF-CSIC), Barcelona and Sony Computer Science Laboratory Paris
The fascinating question of the origins and evolution of language has been drawing a lot of attention recently, not only from linguists, but also from anthropologists, evolutionary biologists, and brain scientists. This groundbreaking book explores the cultural side of language evolution. It proposes a new overarching framework based on linguistic selection and self-organization and explores it in depth through sophisticated computer simulations and robotic experiments. Each case study investigates how a particular type of language system can emerge in a population of language game playing agents and how it can continue to evolve in order to cope with changes in ecological conditions. Case studies cover on the one hand the emergence of concepts and words for proper names, color terms, names for bodily actions, spatial terms and multi-dimensional words. The second set of experiments focuses on the emergence of grammar, specifically case grammar for expressing argument structure, functional grammar for expressing different uses of spatial relations, internal agreement systems for marking constituent structure, morphological expression of aspect, and quantifiers expressed as articles. The book is ideally suited as study material for an advanced course on language evolution and it will be of interest to anyone who wonders how human languages may have originated.
[Advances in Interaction Studies, 3] 2012. xii, 306 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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ForewordLuc Steels | pp. vii–xii
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Introduction. Self-organization and selection in cultural language evolutionLuc Steels | pp. 1–37
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Part I. Emergence of perceptually grounded vocabularies
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The Grounded Naming GameLuc Steels and Martin Loetzsch | pp. 41–59
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Language strategies for colorJoris Bleys | pp. 61–85
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Emergent mirror systems for body languageLuc Steels and Michael Spranger | pp. 87–109
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The co-evolution of basic spatial terms and categoriesMichael Spranger | pp. 111–141
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Multi-dimensional meanings in lexicon formationPieter Wellens and Martin Loetzsch | pp. 143–166
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Part II. Emergence of grammatical systems
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The evolution of case systems for marking event structureRemi van Trijp | pp. 169–205
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Emergent functional grammar for spaceMichael Spranger and Luc Steels | pp. 207–232
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The emergence of internal agreement systemsKatrien Beuls, Luc Steels and Sebastian Höfer | pp. 233–256
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A language strategy for aspect: Encoding Aktionsarten through morphologyKateryna Gerasymova, Michael Spranger and Katrien Beuls | pp. 257–276
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The emergence of quantifiersSimon Pauw and Joseph Hilferty | pp. 277–304
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Index | pp. 305–306
“[...] this volume should be of value to anyone interested in language evolution, in the application of natural languages to robotic agents, and in general linguistic theory.”
Nick Moore, Sheffield Hallam University, on Linguist List 24.98, dated 09/01/2013, http://linguistlist.org/issues/24/24-98.html
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[no author supplied]
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Subjects
Interaction Studies
Main BIC Subject
CFX: Computational linguistics
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General