This chapter outlines the main challenges a theory for the cultural evolution of language should address and
proposes a particular theory which is worked out and explored in greater detail in the remaining chapters of this book.
The theory rests on two biologically inspired mechanisms, namely selection and self-organization, mapped onto the
cultural, more specifically, linguistic domain. Selectionism is an alternative to rational
top-down design. It introduces a distinction between processes that generate possible
linguistic variants in a population (for example, different ways to express tense
and aspect) and processes that select some variants to survive and become dominant in a language,
based on criteria that translate into increased communicative success, such as expressive adequacy, minimal
cognitive effort, learnability and social conformity. Self-organization occurs when speakers and
hearers align their communication systems based on the outcome of each
interaction. It explains how convergence may arise without central coordination or direct telepathic meaning transfer.
This chapter explains these basic hypotheses in more detail and introduces a methodology for exploring them
based on the notion of a language game.
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[no author supplied]
2014. Notes on contributors. In Competing Motivations in Grammar and Usage, ► pp. viii ff.
[no author supplied]
2014. Copyright Page. In Competing Motivations in Grammar and Usage, ► pp. iv ff.
[no author supplied]
2014. Preface. In Competing Motivations in Grammar and Usage, ► pp. vii ff.
[no author supplied]
2014. List of figures and tables. In Competing Motivations in Grammar and Usage, ► pp. xiv ff.
[no author supplied]
2014. List of abbreviations. In Competing Motivations in Grammar and Usage, ► pp. xviii ff.
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