The majority of the extant languages have one of three dominant basic word orders: SVO, SOV or VSO. Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain this word order bias, including the existence of a universal grammar, the learnability imposed by cognitive constraints, the descent of modern languages from an ancestral protolanguage, and the constraints from functional principles. We run simulations using a multi-agent computational model to study this bias. Following a local order approach, the model simulates individual language processing mechanisms in production and comprehension. The simulation results demonstrate that the semantic structures that a language encodes can constrain the global syntax, and that local syntax can help trigger bias towards the global order SOV/SVO (or VOS/OVS).
2022. Influence of Online Learning Environment and Student Engagement on International Students’ Sustainable Chinese Learning. Sustainability 14:17 ► pp. 11106 ff.
Gong, Tao, Lan Shuai & Xiaolong Yang
2022. A simulation on coevolution between language and multiple cognitive abilities. Journal of Language Evolution 7:1 ► pp. 120 ff.
Arbib, Michael A.
2018. Biology Matters. Physics of Life Reviews 26-27 ► pp. 176 ff.
Gong, Tao, Lan Shuai & Yicheng Wu
2018. Rethinking foundations of language from a multidisciplinary perspective. Physics of Life Reviews 26-27 ► pp. 120 ff.
Steels, Luc & Eörs Szathmáry
2018. The evolutionary dynamics of language. Biosystems 164 ► pp. 128 ff.
Gong, Tao, Yau W. Lam & Lan Shuai
2016. Influence of Perceptual Saliency Hierarchy on Learning of Language Structures: An Artificial Language Learning Experiment. Frontiers in Psychology 7
Gong, Tao, Lan Shuai & Menghan Zhang
2014. Key issues for the prosperity of modelling research of language evolution. Physics of Life Reviews 11:2 ► pp. 324 ff.
Gong, Tao, Lan Shuai & Menghan Zhang
2014. Modelling language evolution: Examples and predictions. Physics of Life Reviews 11:2 ► pp. 280 ff.
Gong, Tao & Lan Shuai
2012. Modelling the coevolution of joint attention and language. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 279:1747 ► pp. 4643 ff.
Gong, Tao & Lan Shuai
2013. Computer simulation as a scientific approach in evolutionary linguistics. Language Sciences 40 ► pp. 12 ff.
Gong, Tao, Lan Shuai, Mónica Tamariz, Gerhard Jäger & Enrico Scalas
2012. Studying Language Change Using Price Equation and Pólya-urn Dynamics. PLoS ONE 7:3 ► pp. e33171 ff.
Gong, Tao
2011. Where could biolinguists and evolutionary linguists meet?. Physics of Life Reviews 8:4 ► pp. 373 ff.
Tao Gong
2010. Exploring the Roles of Horizontal, Vertical, and Oblique Transmissions in Language Evolution. Adaptive Behavior 18:3-4 ► pp. 356 ff.
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