Article published in:
Interaction and Iconicity in the Evolution of LanguageEdited by Stefan Hartmann, Michael Pleyer, James Winters and Jordan Zlatev
[Interaction Studies 18:3] 2017
► pp. 402–442
Conversation, cognition and cultural evolution
A model of the cultural evolution of word order through pressures imposed from turn taking in conversation
Seán G. Roberts | University of Bristol | University of Bristol | Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics | Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
Stephen C. Levinson | Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics | Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics | Radboud University | Radboud University
This paper outlines a first attempt to model the special constraints that arise in language processing in conversation, and to explore the implications such functional considerations may have on language typology and language change. In particular, we focus on processing pressures imposed by conversational turn-taking and their consequences for the cultural evolution of the structural properties of language. We present an agent-based model of cultural evolution where agents take turns at talk in conversation. When the start of planning for the next turn is constrained by the position of the verb, the stable distribution of dominant word orders across languages evolves to match the actual distribution reasonably well. We suggest that the interface of cognition and interaction should be a more central part of the story of language evolution.
Keywords: turn taking, pragmatics, typology, word order, cultural evolution
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1A cognitive pressure derived from turn taking
- 1.2Linking processing and pragmatics
- 2.Identifying the target phenomenon
- 3.A computational agent based model of turn taking
- 3.1Cultural evolution
- 3.2Sentence particles
- 3.3Summary of assumptions
- 4.Results
- 4.1Sentence final particles
- 5.Discussion
- 5.1Relationship with other theories and future work
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
Published online: 08 December 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/is.18.3.06rob
https://doi.org/10.1075/is.18.3.06rob
References
Altmann, G. T. M.
Austin, P.
Barthel, M., Sauppe, S., Levinson, S. C., & Meyer, A. S.
Bentz, C., & Christiansen, M. H.
Blasi, D. E., Wichmann, S., Hammarström, H., Stadler, P. F., & Christiansen, M. H.
Bögels, S., Kendrick, K. H., & Levinson, S. C.
Bögels, S., & Levinson, S. C.
Bögels, S., Magyari, L., & Levinson, S. C.
Christensen, P., Fusaroli, R., & Tylén, K.
Christiansen, M. H., & Chater, N.
Dingemanse, M., Roberts, S. G., Baranova, J., Blythe, J., Drew, P., Floyd, S., Gisladottir, R. S., Kendrick, K. H., Levinson, S. C., Manrique, E., Rossi, G., & Enfield, N. J.
Dryer, M. S.
(2013a) Order of subject, object and verb. In Matthew S. Dryer & M. Haspelmath (Eds.), The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Available online: http://wals.info/chapter/81, Accessed on 2017-01-11.
(2013b) Position of polar question particles. In Matthew S. Dryer & M. Haspelmath (Eds.), The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Available online: http://wals.info/chapter/92, Accessed on 2017-01-13.
Dunn, M., Greenhill, S. J., Levinson, S. C., & Gray, R. D.
Duranti, A.
Enfield, N. J.
Fedzechkina, M., Jaeger, T. F., & Newport, E. L.
Ferrer-i Cancho, R.
Ferrer-i-Cancho, R.
(2014) Why might SOV be initially preferred and then lost or recovered? A theoretical framework. In E. A. Cartmill, S. Roberts, H. Lyn, & H. Cornish (Eds.), The evolution of language – Proceedings of the 10th International Conference (EVOLANG10), Evolution of Language Conference (Evolang 2014) (pp. 66–73). Vienna, Austria, April 14–17.
(2016) Kauffman's adjacent possible in word order evolution. In S. G. Roberts, C. Cuskley, L. McCrohon, L. Barceló-Coblijn, O. Fehér, & T. Verhoef (Eds.),
The evolution of language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
. Available online: http://evolang.org/neworleans/papers/83.html.
Garrod, S., & Pickering, M. J.
Gell-Mann, M., & Ruhlen, M.
Gibson, E., Piantadosi, S. T., Brink, K., Bergen, L., Lim, E., & Saxe, R.
Gisladottir, R. S., Chwilla, D., & Levinson, S. C.
Givón, T.
Goldin-Meadow, S., So, W. C., Özyürek, A., & Mylander, C.
Hale, K.
Haspelmath, M., Dryer, M. S., Gil, D., & Comrie, B.
(2008) World Atlas of Language Structures. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library. Available online: http://wals.info. Accessed on 2013-04-18.
Hawkins, J.
Hick, W. E.
Horn, L.
Indefrey, P.
Jaeger, T. F.
Jaeger, T. F., & Levy, R. P.
Kamide, Y.
Kamide, Y., Altmann, G. T., & Haywood, S. L.
Kendrick, K. H.
(2012) Particles at the transition space. Talk presented at the
Interactional Foundations of Language Meeting
, Kreuth, Germany, 2012-11-01–2012-11-02.
Kendrick, K. H., & Torreira, F.
Kirby, S., Griffiths, T., & Smith, K.
Knoeferle, P., Crocker, M. W., Scheepers, C., & Pickering, M. J.
Langus, A., & Nespor, M.
Levelt, W. J., Roelofs, A., & Meyer, A. S.
Levinson, S.
Lupyan, G., & Christiansen, M. H.
(2002) Case, word order, and language learnability: Insights from connectionist modeling. In Proceedings of the
24th annual conference of the cognitive science society
(pp. 596–601). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Maurits, L., Perfors, A., & Navarro, D.
Mithun, M.
Nowak, I., & Baggio, G.
Ochs, E., Schegloff, E. A., & Thompson, S. A.
Piantadosi, S. T., Tily, H., & Gibson, E.
Reali, F., & Christiansen, M. H.
Roberts, F., Margutti, P., & Takano, S.
Roberts, S. G., Torreira, F., & Levinson, S. C.
Roberts, S., & Winters, J.
de Ruiter, J. P., Mitterer, H., & Enfield, N. J.
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G.
Sauppe, S.
Schegloff, E. A.
Schegloff, E. A., Jefferson, G., & Sacks, H.
Schouwstra, M., & de Swart, H.
Steels, L., & Belpaeme, T.
Stivers, T., Enfield, N. J., Brown, P., Englert, C., Hayashi, M., Heinemann, T., Hoymann, G., Rossano, F., De Ruiter, J. P., Yoon, K.-E., & Levinson, S. C.
Swartz, S.
Tanaka, H.
Thompson, S. A.
Van Valin, R. D., & LaPolla, R. J.
Verhoef, T., Roberts, S. G. & Dingemanse, M.
(2015) Emergence of systematic iconicity: transmission, interaction and analogy.
In Proceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
, 2481–2486. Cognitive Science Society. https://mindmodeling.org/cogsci2015/papers/0426/paper0426.pdf
Cited by
Cited by 7 other publications
Barthel, Mathias & Sebastian Sauppe
Dingemanse, Mark
Kempson, Ruth, Eleni Gregoromichelaki & Christine Howes
Motamedi, Yasamin, Kathryn Montemurro, Natasha Abner, Molly Flaherty, Simon Kirby & Susan Goldin-Meadow
Rühlemann, Christoph
Slonimska, Anita & Seán G. Roberts
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.