%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% % License % % % % The "document" referred to herein is the collection of bibtex citations presented % % in this collection. Specifically, this license covers ONLY this collection of % % bibtex citations. Referenced items themselves (the actual articles, books, etc.) % % may have their own licenses and copyrights, and are not covered by this license. % % % % Copyright (c) 2001-2008 by Jun Wang and Les Gasser. Permission is granted to % % copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU % % Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by % % the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover % % Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. % % % % A copy of the license can be found here: "http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html" % % GNU Free Documentation License. % % % %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% @article{abrams03languageDeath, author={Daniel M. Abrams and Steven H. Strogatz}, title={Modelling the dynamics of language death}, journal={Nature}, year={2003}, month={August}, volume={424}, pages={900}, doi={10.1038/424900a}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/abrams03languageDeath.html} } @inproceedings{ackley94altruismIn, author={D. H. Ackley and M. L. Littman}, title={Altruism in the evolution of communication}, year={1994}, pages={40-48}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={R. Brooks and P. Maes}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Artificial Life IV}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ackley94altruismIn.html}, abstract={Computer models of evolutionary phenomena often assume that the fitness of an individual can be evaluated in isolation, but effective communication requires that individuals interact. Existing models directly reward speakers for improved behavior on the part of the listeners so that, essentially, effective communication is fitness. We present new models in which, even though 'speaking truthfully' provides no tangible benefit to the speaker, effective communication nonetheless evolves. A large population is spatially distributed so that 'communication range' approximately correlates with 'breeding range,' so that most of the time 'you'll be talking to family,' allowing kin selection to encourage the emergence of communication. However, the emergence of altruistic communication also creates niches that can be exploited by 'information parasites.' The new models display complex and subtle long-term dynamics as the global implications of such social dilemmas are played out.} } @incollection{aerts05quantumEvolution, author={Diederik Aerts and Marek Czachor and Bart D'Hooghe}, title={Towards a quantum evolutionary scheme: violating Bell's inequalities in language}, year={2006}, editor={Gontier, Nathalie and van Bendegem, Jean Paul and Aerts, Diederik}, publisher={Dordrecht: Springer}, booktitle={Evolutionary Epistemology, Language and Culture - A non-adaptationist, systems theoretical approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/aerts05quantumEvolution.html}, keywords={quantum, evolution, language, Bell's inequalities, context}, abstract={We show the presence of genuine quantum structures in human language. The neo-Darwinian evolutionary scheme is founded on a probability structure that satisfies the Kolmogorovian axioms, and as a consequence cannot incorporate quantum-like evolutionary change. In earlier research we revealed quantum structures in processes taking place in conceptual space. We argue that the presence of quantum structures in language and the earlier detected quantum structures in conceptual change make the neo-Darwinian evolutionary scheme strictly too limited for Evolutionary Epistemology. We sketch how we believe that evolution in a more general way should be implemented in epistemology and conceptual change, but also in biology, and how this view would lead to another relation between both biology and epistemology.} } @inproceedings{agostini03advertisingGames, author={Alessandro Agostini and Paolo Avesani}, title={Advertising Games for Web Services}, year={2003}, pages={93-109}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems (CoopIS-03)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/agostini03advertisingGames.html}, keywords={Web information systems and services; semantic interoperability; negotiation protocols; peer-to-peer cooperation}, abstract={We advance and discuss a framework suitable to study theoretical implications and practical impact of language evolution and lexicon sharing in an open distributed multi-agent system. In our approach, the assumption of autonomy plays a key role to preserve the opportunity for the agents of local encoding of meanings. We consider the application scenario of Web services, where we conceive the problem of advertisement as a matter of sharing a denotational language. We provide a precise formulation of the agentsrsquo behavior within a game-theoretical setting. As an important consequence of our ``advertising games,'' we interpret the problem of knowledge interoperability and management in the light of evolutionary dynamics and learning in games. Our methodology is inspired by work in natural language semantics and ``language games.''} } @article{ahlswede05NowakInformationTheoryModel, author={Rudolf Ahlswede and Erdal Arikan and Lars Baumer and Christian Deppe}, title={Information theoretic models in language evolution}, journal={Electronic Notes in Discrete Mathematics}, year={2005}, month={August}, volume={21}, pages={97-100}, doi={10.1016/j.endm.2005.07.002}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ahlswede05NowakInformationTheoryModel.html}, abstract={We study a model for language evolution which was introduced by Nowak and Krakauer ([M.A. Nowak and D.C. Krakauer, The evolution of language, PNAS 96 (14) (1999) 8028-8033]). We analyze discrete distance spaces and prove a conjecture of Nowak for all metrics with a positive semidefinite associated matrix. This natural class of metrics includes all metrics studied by different authors in this connection. In particular it includes all ultra-metric spaces. Furthermore, the role of feedback is explored and multi-user scenarios are studied. In all models we give lower and upper bounds for the fitness.} } @book{aitchison00theSeeds, author={Jean Aitchison}, title={The Seeds of Speech: Language Origin and Evolution}, year={2000}, month={August}, publisher={Cambridge Univ Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/aitchison00theSeeds.html} } @incollection{aitchison98onDiscontinuing, author={J. Aitchison}, title={On discontinuing the continuity-discontinuity debate}, year={1998}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/aitchison98onDiscontinuing.html} } @inproceedings{akaishi03misperception, author={Jin Akaishi and Takaya Arita}, title={Misperception, Communication and Diversity}, year={2003}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Artificial Life VIII}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/akaishi03misperception.html}, abstract={It is commonly agreed upon that misperception is detrimental. However, misperception might have a beneficial effect from a collective viewpoint when individuals mispercept incoming information that promotes a specific kind of behavior, which leads to an increase in diversity. First, this paper proposes our hypothesis regarding adaptive property of misperception based on the argument of the relationship between misperception and behavioral diversity, and the effects of communication on diversity. Then, a simple computational model is constructed for a resource-searching problem by using the multi-agent modeling method. We investigate both direct misperception, that are caused when obtaining information directly from surrounding environment, and indirect misperception, that are caused when obtaining information indirectly through communication by conducting simulation experiments. The experimental results have shown that misperception could increase diversity in behavior of agents, thus could be adaptive, while accurate communication could decrease a diversity of agent behavior, which might decrease fitness. This paper also discusses a correlative relationship between direct misperception and indirect misperception. We believe that the study on adaptive property of misperception based on an innovative frame of reference and a powerful methodology in the field of complex system or artificial life would shed light on fundamental issues in cognitive science, memetics and engineering.} } @incollection{allen99theEmergence, author={J. Allen and M. S. Seidenberg}, title={The Emergence of Grammaticality in Connectionist Networks}, year={1999}, address={Hillsdale, NJ}, editor={B. MacWhinney}, publisher={Lawrence Earlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Emergence of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/allen99theEmergence.html} } @inproceedings{allen05learningToCommunicate, author={Martin Allen and Claudia V. Goldman and Shlomo Zilberstein}, title={Learning to Communicate in Decentralized Systems}, year={2005}, pages={1--8}, address={Pittsburgh, PA}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Workshop on Multiagent Learning, AAAI-05}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/allen05learningToCommunicate.html}, abstract={Learning to communicate is an emerging challenge in AI research. It is known that agents interacting in decentralized, stochastic environments can benefit from exchanging information. Multiagent planning generally assumes that agents share a common means of communication; however, in building robust distributed systems it is important to address potential mis-coordination resulting from misinterpretation of messages exchanged. This paper lays foundations for studying this problem, examining its properties analytically and empirically in a decision-theoretic context. Solving the problem optimally is often intractable, but our approach enables agents using different languages to converge upon coordination over time.} } @inproceedings{allexandre98emergenceOf, author={C. Allexandre and A. Popescu-Belis}, title={Emergence of Grammatical Conventions in an Agent Population Using a Simplified Tree Adjoining Grammar}, year={1998}, pages={383-384}, address={Paris}, booktitle={ICMAS98}, note={poster}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/allexandre98emergenceOf.html} } @book{allott01theNatural, author={Robin Allott}, title={The Natural Origin of Language}, year={2001}, publisher={}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/allott01theNatural.html} } @book{allott87motorTheory, author={Robin Allott}, title={The Motor Theory of Language Origin}, year={1987}, publisher={Lewes: Book Guild}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/allott87motorTheory.html}, abstract={The motor theory is not only a theory of language origin and development but also a theory of current language function. Language is constructed on the basis of a previously existing complex system, the neural motor system. The motor system has been built up from a limited number of primitive elements - units of motor action - which can be formed into more extended motor programs. The programs and procedures which evolved for the construction and execution of simple and sequential motor movements formed the basis of the programs and procedures going to form language. The development of the language capacity has resulted from the progressive establishment of new cross-modal or transfunctional neural linkages, cerebral reorganization in the sense that the interconnectedness of different brain regions concerned with what are usually considered distinct functions, has substantially increased. This extensive relation between language and the motor system is what one might reasonably expect, given the central role of the motor system in all behaviour and the essentially motor character of speech production, as the outcome of movements of the articulatory apparatus. The motor system is seen as the indispensable mediator between different modalities, and particularly between language and perception.} } @article{ambrose01science, author={Stanley H. Ambrose}, title={Paleolithic Technology and Human Evolution}, journal={Science}, year={2001}, volume={291}, number={5509}, pages={1748-1753}, doi={10.1126/science.1059487}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ambrose01science.html}, abstract={Human biological and cultural evolution are closely linked to technological innovations. Direct evidence for tool manufacture and use is absent before 2.5 million years ago (Ma), so reconstructions of australopithecine technology are based mainly on the behavior and anatomy of chimpanzees. Stone tool technology, robust australopithecines, and the genus Homo appeared almost simultaneously 2.5 Ma. Once this adaptive threshold was crossed, technological evolution was accompanied by increased brain size, population size, and geographical range. Aspects of behavior, economy, mental capacities, neurological functions, the origin of grammatical language, and social and symbolic systems have been inferred from the archaeological record of Paleolithic technology.} } @article{rubinstein2000bookreview, author={Luca Anderlini and Leonardo Felli and Adam Morton and Philip Mirowski}, title={Book Reviews: Economics and Language. Five Essays. By Ariel Rubinstein. 2000.}, journal={Economica}, year={2004}, month={February}, volume={71}, number={281}, pages={169-173}, doi={10.1111/j.0013-0427.2004.363_2.x}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/rubinstein2000bookreview.html} } @incollection{andersen92complexityAnd, author={Elaine S. Andersen}, title={Complexity and Language Acquisition: Influences on the Development of Morphological Systems in Children}, year={1992}, address={Reading, MA}, editor={Hawkins, John A. and Murray Gell-Mann}, publisher={Addison-Wesley}, booktitle={The Evolution of Human Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/andersen92complexityAnd.html} } @inproceedings{angeline94coevolvingHigh, author={Peter J. Angeline and Jordan B. Pollack}, title={Coevolving High-Level Representations}, year={1994}, pages={55-71}, address={Reading MA}, editor={C. Langton}, publisher={Addison-Wesley}, booktitle={Artificial Life III}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/angeline94coevolvingHigh.html} } @incollection{aoun92aBrief, author={Joseph Aoun}, title={A Brief Presentation of the Generative Enterprise}, year={1992}, address={Reading, MA}, editor={Hawkins, John A. and Murray Gell-Mann}, publisher={Addison-Wesley}, booktitle={The Evolution of Human Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/aoun92aBrief.html} } @book{arbib06mirrorSystemEditedBook, title={Action to Language via the Mirror Neuron System}, year={2006}, editor={Michael A. Arbib}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arbib06mirrorSystemEditedBook.html} } @article{arbib06speechAsAction, author={M. A. Arbib}, title={A sentence is to speech as what is to action?}, journal={Cortex}, year={2006}, month={May}, volume={42}, number={4}, pages={507-14}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arbib06speechAsAction.html}, abstract={This article offers a conceptual framework for integrated analysis of subprocesses in action and language, based on goal-directed action. Anatomical substrates are discussed in the companion paper (Arbib and Bota, 2003) which approaches ``Integrative Models of Broca's Area and the Ventral Premotor Cortex'' within the context of explaining why the evolution of the human brain yielded mechanisms which support language in a multi-modal vocal-manual-facial system rather than privileging the vocal mode. Arbib and Bota (2003) examine homologies between different cortical areas in macaque and human to revisit the Mirror System Hypothesis (MSH) of Rizzolatti and Arbib (1998)--the notion that the mirror system for grasping (which has its frontal outpost in premotor area F5 of the macaque) provides the substrate for the evolution of the language-ready brain which supports parity of communication. They also offer a critique and extension based on the work of Aboitiz and Garcí(1997; Aboitiz et al., 2006). Arbib and Bota (2003) also discussed the utility of neuroinformatics in relating information across diverse cortical atlases and evaluating degrees of homology for brain regions of interest in different species (for discussion, see Deacon, 2004; Arbib and Bota, 2004).} } @incollection{arbib05mirrorSystem, author={Michael A. Arbib}, title={The Mirror System Hypothesis: How did protolanguage evolve?}, year={2005}, chapter={2}, editor={Maggie Tallerman}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arbib05mirrorSystem.html} } @article{arbib04BBS-monkeylikeAction, author={M. A. Arbib}, title={From monkey-like action recognition to human language: An evolutionary framework for neurolinguistics}, journal={Behavioral and Brain Sciences}, year={2005}, month={April}, volume={28}, number={2}, pages={105-124}, note={discussion pages: 125-167}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arbib04BBSmonkeylikeAction.html}, keywords={gestures; hominids; language evolution; mirror system; neurolinguistics; primates; protolanguage; sign language; speech; vocalization}, abstract={The article analyzes the neural and functional grounding of language skills as well as their emergence in hominid evolution, hypothesizing stages leading from abilities known to exist in monkeys and apes and presumed to exist in our hominid ancestors right through to modern spoken and signed languages. The starting point is the observation that both premotor area F5 in monkeys and Broca's area in humans contain a 'mirror system' active for both execution and observation of manual actions, and that F5 and Broca’s area are homologous brain regions. This grounded the Mirror System Hypothesis of Rizzolatti & Arbib (1998) which offers the mirror system for grasping as a key neural 'missing link' between the abilities of our non-human ancestors of 20 million years ago and modern human language, with manual gestures rather than a system for vocal communication providing the initial seed for this evolutionary process. The present article, however, goes 'beyond the mirror' to offer hypotheses on evolutionary changes within and outside the mirror systems which may have occurred to equip Homo sapiens with a language-ready brain. Crucial to the early stages of this progression is the mirror system for grasping and its extension to permit imitation. Imitation is seen as evolving via a so-called 'simple' system such as that found in chimpanzees (which allows imitation of complex 'objectoriented' sequences but only as the result of extensive practice) to a so-called 'complex' system found in humans (which allows rapid imitation even of complex sequences, under appropriate conditions) which supports pantomime. This is hypothesized to provide the substrate for the development of protosign, a combinatorially open repertoire of manual gestures, which then provides the scaffolding for the emergence of protospeech (which thus owes little to non-human vocalizations), with protosign and protospeech then developing in an expanding spiral. It is argued that these stages involve biological evolution of both brain and body. By contrast, it is argued that the progression from protosign and protospeech to languages with full-blown syntax and compositional semantics was a historical phenomenon in the development of Homo sapiens, involving few if any further biological changes.} } @incollection{arbib04response, author={Michael A. Arbib}, title={How Far Is Language beyond Our Grasp? A Response to Hurford}, year={2004}, pages={315-322}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arbib04response.html} } @article{arbib03bookreview, author={Michael A. Arbib}, title={Review of ``Linguistic evolution through language acquisition: Formal and computational models'' by Ted Briscoe, 2002}, journal={Computational Linguistics}, year={2003}, volume={29}, number={3}, pages={503-506}, note={Special issue on web as corpus}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arbib03bookreview.html} } @incollection{arbib03theEvolving, author={M. A. Arbib}, title={The evolving mirror system: a neural basis for language readiness}, year={2003}, editor={M.H. Christiansen and S. Kirby}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Evolution: The States of the Art}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arbib03theEvolving.html} } @article{arbib03pt, author={Michael A. Arbib}, title={Rana computatrix to human language: towards a computational neuroethology of language evolution}, journal={Philosophical Transactions: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences}, year={2003}, volume={361}, number={1811}, pages={2345--2379}, doi={10.1098/rsta.2003.1248}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arbib03pt.html}, abstract={Walter's Machina speculatrix inspired the name Rana computatrix for a family of models of visuomotor coordination in the frog, which contributed to the development of computational neuroethology. We offer here an 'evolutionary' perspective on models in the same tradition for rat, monkey and human. For rat, we show how the frog-like taxon affordance model provides a basis for the spatial navigation mechanisms that involve the hippocampus and other brain regions. For monkey, we recall two models of neural mechanisms for visuomotor coordination. The first, for saccades, shows how interactions between the parietal and frontal cortex augment superior colliculus seen as the homologue of frog tectum. The second, for grasping, continues the theme of parieto-frontal interactions, linking parietal affordances to motor schemas in premotor cortex. It further emphasizes the mirror system for grasping, in which neurons are active both when the monkey executes a specific grasp and when it observes a similar grasp executed by others. The model of humanbrain mechanisms is based on the mirror-system hypothesis of the evolution of the language-ready brain, which sees the human Broca's area as an evolved extension of the mirror system for grasping.} } @incollection{arbib01theMirror, author={M. A. Arbib}, title={The Mirror System, Imitation, and the Evolution of Language}, year={2002}, editor={Kerstin Dautenhahn and Chrystopher Nehaniv}, publisher={The MIT Press}, booktitle={Imitation in Animals and Artifacts}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arbib01theMirror.html}, keywords={imitation; evolution of language; parsing; communication; behavior; chimpanzees}, abstract={This chapter argues that the ability to imitate is a key innovation in the evolutionary path leading to language in the human and relates this hypothesis to specific data on brain mechanisms. In this context, imitation involves more than simply observing someone else's movement and responding with movement that in its entirety is already in one's own repertoire, imitation involves 'parsing' a complex movement. What marks humans as distinct from their common ancestors with chimpanzees is that whereas the chimpanzee can imitate short novel sequences through repeated exposure, humans can acquire (longer) novel sequences in a single trial if the sequences are not too long and the components are relatively familiar. This chapter will take us through seven hypothesized stages of evolution: (1) grasping; (2) a mirror system for grasping; (3) a simple imitation system for grasping; (4) a complex imitation system for grasping; (5) a manual-based communication system; (6) speech, which I here characterize as being the open-ended production and perception of sequences of vocal gestures, without implying that these sequences constitute a language; and (7) language.} } @incollection{arbib01groundingThe, author={Michael A. Arbib}, title={Grounding the Mirror System Hypothesis for the Evolution of the Language-Ready Brain}, year={2002}, pages={229-254}, address={London}, chapter={11}, editor={Angelo Cangelosi and Domenico Parisi}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Simulating the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arbib01groundingThe.html} } @incollection{arbib01coEvolution, author={M. A. Arbib}, title={Co-Evolution of Human Consciousness and Language}, year={2001}, volume={929}, pages={195-220}, editor={Pedro C. Marijuan}, publisher={}, booktitle={Cajal and Consciousness: Scientific Approaches to Consciousness on the Centennial of Ramon y Cajal's Textura. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arbib01coEvolution.html}, abstract={This article recalls Cajal's brief mention of consciousness in the Textura as a function of the human brain quite distinct from reflex action, and discusses the view that human consciousness may share aspects of 'animal awareness' with other species, but has its unique form because humans possess language. Three ingredients of a theory of the evolution of human consciousness are offered: the view that a prés of intended activity is necessarily formed in the brain of a human that communicates in a human way; the notion that such a prés constitutes consciousness; and a new theory of the evolution of human language based on the mirror system of monkeys and the role of communication by means of hand gestures as a stepping-stone to speech.} } @inproceedings{arbib06mirrorSystemHypothesis, author={Michael A. Arbib and James Bonaiuto and Edina Rosta}, title={The mirror system hypothesis: From a macaque-like mirror system to imitation}, year={2006}, pages={3-10}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arbib06mirrorSystemHypothesis.html}, abstract={The Mirror System Hypothesis (MSH) of the evolution of brain mechanisms supporting language distinguishes a monkey-like mirror neuron system from a chimpanzee-like mirror system that supports simple imitation and a human-like mirror system that supports complex imitation and language. This paper briefly reviews the seven evolutionary stages posited by MSH and then focuses on the early stages which precede but are claimed to ground language. It introduces MNS2, a new model of action recognition learning by mirror neurons of the macaque brain to address data on audio-visual mirror neurons. In addition, the paper offers an explicit hypothesis on how to embed a macaque-like mirror system in a larger human-like circuit which has the capacity for imitation by both direct and indirect routes. Implications for the study of speech are briefly noted.} } @article{arbib03neunet, author={Michael A. Arbib and Mihail Bota}, title={Language evolution: neural homologies and neuroinformatics}, journal={Neural Networks}, year={2003}, volume={16}, number={9}, pages={1237-1260}, doi={10.1016/j.neunet.2003.08.002}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arbib03neunet.html}, keywords={Brain evolution; Broca's area;Cortical maps; Homologies; Neural; Language; Neural mechanisms; Mirror neurons; NeuroHomology Database; Neuroinformatics; Neurolinguistics; Wernicke's area}, abstract={This paper contributes to neurolinguistics by grounding an evolutionary account of the readiness of the human brain for language in the search for homologies between different cortical areas in macaque and human. We consider two hypotheses for this grounding, that of Aboitiz and Garcí[Brain Res. Rev. 25 (1997) 381] and the Mirror System Hypothesis of Rizzolatti and Arbib [Trends Neurosci. 21 (1998) 188] and note the promise of computational modeling of neural circuitry of the macaque and its linkage to analysis of human brain imaging data. In addition to the functional differences between the two hypotheses, problems arise because they are grounded in different cortical maps of the macaque brain. In order to address these divergences, we have developed several neuroinformatics tools included in an on-line knowledge management system, the NeuroHomology Database, which is equipped with inference engines both to relate and translate information across equivalent cortical maps and to evaluate degrees of homology for brain regions of interest in different species.} } @article{arbib05schizophrenia, author={Michael A. Arbib and T. Nathan Mundhenk}, title={Schizophrenia and the mirror system: an essay}, journal={Neuropsychologia}, year={2005}, volume={43}, number={2}, pages={268-280}, doi={10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2004.11.013}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arbib05schizophrenia.html}, keywords={FARS model; Grasping; Mirror system; Schizophrenia; Agency}, abstract={We analyze how data on the mirror system for grasping in macaque and human ground the mirror system hypothesis for the evolution of the language-ready human brain, and then focus on this putative relation between hand movements and speech to contribute to the understanding of how it may be that a schizophrenic patient generates an action (whether manual or verbal) but does not attribute the generation of that action to himself. We make a crucial discussion between self-monitoring and attribution of agency. We suggest that vebal hallucinations occur when an utterance progresses through verbal creation pathways and returns as a vocalization observed, only to be dismissed as external since no record of its being created has been kept. Schizophrenic patients on this theory then confabulate the agent.} } @article{arbib97neuralExpectations, author={M. A. Arbib and G. Rizzolatti}, title={Neural expectations: a possible evolutionary path from manual skills to language}, journal={Communication and Cognition}, year={1997}, volume={29}, pages={393-424}, note={Reprinted in Ph. Van Loocke (ed.) The nature, representation and evolution of concepts, London/New York: Routledge}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arbib97neuralExpectations.html} } @book{arita00artificialLife, author={Takaya Arita}, title={Artificial Life: A Constructive Approach to the Origin/Evolution of Life, Society, and Language}, year={2000}, publisher={}, note={Japanese edition copyright, The English edition is under preparations}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arita00artificialLife.html} } @inproceedings{arita98evolutionOf, author={T. Arita and Y. Koyama}, title={Evolution of Linguistic Diversity in a Simple Communication System}, year={1998}, pages={9-17}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={C. Adami and R. Belew and H. Kitano and C. Taylor}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Artificial Life VI}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arita98evolutionOf.html}, abstract={This paper reports on the current state of our efforts to shed light on the origin and evolution of linguistic diversity by using synthetic modeling and artificial life techniques. We construct a simple abstract model of a communication system that has been designed with regard to referential signaling in nonhuman animals. The evolutionary dynamics of vocabulary sharing is analyzed based on these experiments. The results show that mutation rates, population size, and resource restrictions define the classes of vocabulary sharing. We also see a dynamic equilibrium, where two states, a state with one dominant shared word and a state with several dominant shared words, take turns appearing. We incorporate the idea of the abstract model into a more concrete situation and present an agent-based model to verify the results of the abstract model and to examine the possibility of using linguistic diversity in the field of distributed AI and robotics. It has been shown that the evolution of linguistic diversity in vocabulary sharing will support cooperative behavior in a population of agents.} } @article{arita98linguisticDiversity, author={Takaya Arita and Yuhji Koyama}, title={Evolution of linguistic diversity in a simple communication system}, journal={Artificial Life}, year={1998}, month={Winter}, volume={4}, number={1}, pages={109-124}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arita98linguisticDiversity.html}, keywords={Evolution; Linguistic Diversity; Communication; Genetic Algorithms}, abstract={This article reports on the current state of our efforts to shed light on the origin and evolution of linguistic diversity using synthetic modeling and artificial life techniques. We construct a simple abstract model of a communication system that has been designed with regard to referential signaling in nonhuman animals. We analyze the evolutionary dynamics of vocabulary sharing based on these experiments. The results show that mutation rates, population size, and resource restrictions define the classes of vocabulary sharing. We also see a dynamic equilibrium, where two states, a state with one dominant shared word and a state with several dominant shared words, take turns appearing. We incorporate the idea of the abstract model into a more concrete situation and present an agent-based model to verify the results of the abstract model and to examine the possibility of using linguistic diversity in the field of distributed AI and robotics. It has been shown that the evolution of linguistic diversity in vocabulary sharing will support cooperative behavior in a population of agents.} } @inproceedings{arita96aSimple, author={Takaya Arita and C. E. Taylor}, title={A Simple Model for the Evolution of Communication}, year={1996}, pages={405-410}, editor={L.J. Fogel and P. J. Angeline, and T. Bäck}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={The Fifth Annual Conference On Evolutionary Programming}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arita96aSimple.html}, abstract={This paper investigates the evolution of communication among autonomous robots in the real world. A simple model has been constructed as a first step, in which a population of artificial organisms inhabits a lattice plane. Each organism communicates information with neighbors by uttering words. A common language typically evolves. We have analyzed evolutionary dynamics in this system, and have begun to implement it with a population of small mobile robots.} } @inproceedings{arita95aPrimitive, author={T. Arita and Kawaguchi Unno}, title={A Primitive Model for Language Generation by Evolution and Learning}, year={1995}, pages={163-170}, booktitle={International Workshop on Biologically Inspired Evolutionary Systems}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arita95aPrimitive.html}, abstract={Natural language, communication or related mental phenomena must surely be a prominent candidate for an evolutionary explanation. This paper discusses a primitive model of language generation by evolution and learning among a population of artificial organisms whose brains are realized by a model of associative memory with a neural network structure. The goal of our study is to acquire general knowledge of the theory that relates the mechanisms to the evolutionary process such as language generation, and to develop the evolutionary systems which have facilities for still more intelligent information processing.} } @article{arnold06primateCalls, author={Kate Arnold and Klaus Zuberbuhler}, title={Semantic combinations in primate calls}, journal={Nature}, year={2006}, month={May}, volume={441}, pages={303}, doi={10.1038/441303a}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arnold06primateCalls.html}, abstract={Syntax sets human language apart from other natural communication systems, although its evolutionary origins are obscure. Here we show that free-ranging putty-nosed monkeys combine two vocalizations into different call sequences that are linked to specific external events, such as the presence of a predator and the imminent movement of the group. Our findings indicate that non-human primates can combine calls into higher-order sequences that have a particular meaning.} } @incollection{aslin99statisticalLearning, author={R. N. Aslin and J. R. Saffran and E. L. Newport}, title={Statistical Learning in Linguistic and Nonlinguistic Domains.}, year={1999}, address={Hillsdale, NJ}, editor={B. MacWhinney}, publisher={Lawrence Earlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Emergence of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/aslin99statisticalLearning.html} } @incollection{atkinson06phylogeneticMethods, author={Quentin D. Atkinson and Russell D. Gray}, title={How Old is the Indo-European Language Family? Illumination or More Moths to the Flame?}, year={2006}, pages={91-}, chapter={8}, editor={Peter Forster and Colin Renfrew}, publisher={}, booktitle={Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/atkinson06phylogeneticMethods.html} } @article{atkinson08evolveBursts, author={Quentin D. Atkinson and Andrew Meade and Chris Venditti and Simon J. Greenhill and Mark Pagel}, title={Languages Evolve in Punctuational Bursts}, journal={Science}, year={2008}, month={February}, volume={319}, number={5863}, pages={588}, doi={10.1126/science.1149683}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/atkinson08evolveBursts.html}, abstract={Linguists speculate that human languages often evolve in rapid or punctuational bursts, sometimes associated with their emergence from other languages, but this phenomenon has never been demonstrated. We used vocabulary data from three of the world's major language groups -- Bantu, Indo-European, and Austronesian -- to show that 10 to 33\% of the overall vocabulary differences among these languages arose from rapid bursts of change associated with language-splitting events. Our findings identify a general tendency for increased rates of linguistic evolution in fledgling languages, perhaps arising from a linguistic founder effect or a desire to establish a distinct social identity.} } @inproceedings{aurnhammer06semanticsWWW, author={Melanie Aurnhammer and Peter Hanappe and Luc Steels}, title={Integrating Collaborative Tagging and Emergent Semantics for Image Retrieval}, year={2006}, month={May}, booktitle={Proceedings WWW2006, Collaborative Web Tagging Workshop}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/aurnhammer06semanticsWWW.html}, abstract={In this paper, we investigate the combination of collaborative tagging and emergent semantics for improved data navigation and search. We propose to use visual features in addition to tags provided by users in order to discover new relationships between data. We show that our method is able to overcome some of the problems involved in navigating databases using tags only, such as synonymy or different languages, spelling mistakes, homonymy, or missing tags. On the other hand, image search based on visual features can be simplified substantially by the use of tags. We present technical details of our prototype system and show some preliminary results.} } @unpublished{avdis00selfOrganisation, author={Efstathios Avdis}, title={Self-Organisation of Communicating Agents -- Linguistic Diversity in Populations of Autonomous Agents}, year={2000}, note={}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/avdis00selfOrganisation.html} } @inproceedings{avesani03P2Pgame, author={P. Avesani and A. Agostini}, title={A Peer-to-Peer Advertising Game}, year={2003}, pages={28-42}, publisher={Springer-Verlag LNCS 2910}, booktitle={Proceedings of the First International Conference on Service Oriented Computing}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/avesani03P2Pgame.html}, abstract={Advertising plays a key role in service oriented recommendation over a peer-to-peer network. The advertising problem can be considered as the problem of finding a common language to denote the peers' capabilities and needs. Up to now the current approaches to the problem of advertising revealed that the proposed solutions either affect the autonomy assumption or do not scale up the size of the network. We explain how an approach based on language games can be effective in dealing with the typical issue of advertising: do not require ex-ante agreement and to be responsive to the evolution of the network as an open system. In the paper we introduce the notion of advertising game, a specific language game designed to deal with the issue of supporting the emergence of a common denotation language over a network of peers. We provide the related computational model and an experimental evaluation. A positive empirical evidence is achieved by sketching a peer-to-peer recommendation service for bookmark exchanging using real data.} } @inproceedings{avesani05webAnnotations, author={Paolo Avesani and Marco Cova}, title={Shared lexicon for distributed annotations on the Web}, year={2005}, month={May}, pages={207-214}, address={Chiba, Japan}, booktitle={WWW2005}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/avesani05webAnnotations.html}, abstract={The interoperability among distributed and autonomous systems is the ultimate challenge facing the semantic web. Heterogeneity of data representation is the main source of problems. This paper proposes an innovative solution that combines lexical approaches and language games. The benefits for distributed annotation systems on the web are twofold: firstly, it will reduce the complexity of the semantic problem by moving the focus from the full-featured ontology level to the simpler lexicon level; secondly, it will avoid the drawback of a centralized third party mediator that may become a single point of failure. The main contributions of this work are concerned with (1) providing a proof of concept that language games can be an effective solution to creating and managing a distributed process of agreement on a shared lexicon, (2) describing a fully distributed service oriented architecture for language games, (3) providing empirical evidence on a real world case study in the domain of ski mountaineering.} } @inproceedings{avesani05weblog, author={P. Avesani and M. Cova and C. Hayes and P. Massa}, title={Learning Contextualized Weblog Topics}, year={2005}, month={May}, address={Chiba, Japan}, booktitle={WWW2005, 2nd Annual Workshop on the Weblogging Ecosystem: Aggregation, Analysis and Dynamics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/avesani05weblog.html}, abstract={The blogosphere refers to the distributed network of user opinions published on the WWW. Whereas centralized review sites such Amazon.com previously allowed users to post opinions on goods such as books and CDs, blogging software allows users to publish opinions on any topic without constraints on predefined schema. However, centralized review sites such as Amazon.com have one significant advantage: reviews pertaining to a single topic are collected together in one place, allowing readers to peruse a diverse range of opinions quickly. In this paper we examine how such a topic-centric view of the Blogosphere can be created. We characterise the problems in aligning similar concepts created by a set of distributed, autonomous users and describe current initiatives to solve the problem. Finally, we introduce the Tagsocratic project, a novel initiative to solve the concept alignment problem using techniques derived from research in language acquisition among distributed, autonomous agents.} } @inproceedings{avesani04service, author={Paolo Avesani and Marco Cova and Roberto Tiella and Arun Sharma}, title={A Service Oriented Architecture for Advertising Games}, year={2004}, month={November}, editor={S. Weerawarana}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Service Oriented Computing}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/avesani04service.html}, abstract={A critical issue of distributed systems is concerned with the advertising task. Current solutions require an ex-ante agreement on a common shared language. Although such an approach is feasible from the technological point of view, it is not effective in practice. The process of managing this agreement may present social implications that make the solution difficult to achieve. Recent trends in research propose a new approach based on advertising games where the agreement on a common language is produced at run time. Nevertheless up to now such a model has been studied only through simulations with standalone platforms. Our contribution is the design and the development of the first web services oriented architecture for advertising games. Therefore we approached all the issues typical of distributed systems neglected by the simulators like asynchronous communications, denial of services, and so on. Finally we present a real world application where the architecture has been deployed to support the advertising task using an advertising game model.} } @inproceedings{avesani05CBR, author={Paolo Avesani and Conor Hayes and Marco Cova}, title={Language Games: Solving the Vocabulary Problem in Multi-Case-Base Reasoning}, year={2005}, pages={35-49}, booktitle={ICCBR 2005}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/avesani05CBR.html}, abstract={The problem of heterogeneous case representation poses a major obstacle to realising real-life multi-case-base reasoning (MCBR) systems. The knowledge overhead in developing and maintaining translation protocols between distributed case bases poses a serious challenge to CBR developers. In this paper, we situate CBR as a flexible problem-solving strategy that relies on several heterogeneous knowledge containers. We introduce a technique called language games to solve the interoperability issue. Our technique has two phases. The first is an eager learning phase where case bases communicate to build a shared indexing lexicon of similar cases in the distributed network. The second is the problem-solving phase where, using the distributed index, a case base can quickly consult external case bases if the local solution is insufficient. We provide a detailed description of our approach and demonstrate its effectiveness using an evaluation on a real data set from the tourism domain.} } @article{Badalamenti94poissonEvolution, author={A. F. Badalamenti and R. Langs and G. Cramer and J. Robinson}, title={Poisson evolution in word selection}, journal={Mathematical and Computer Modelling}, year={1994}, month={June}, volume={19}, number={12}, pages={27-36}, doi={10.1016/0895-7177(94)90096-5}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Badalamenti94poissonEvolution.html}, keywords={Word analysis; Stochastic model; Evolutionary process; Rate constants; Poisson}, abstract={This paper presents the finding that the invocation of new words in human language samples is governed by a slowly changing Poisson process. The time dependent rate constant for this process has the form [small lambda, Greek(t)...]. This form implies that there are opening, middle and final phases to the introduction of new words, each distinguished by a dominant rate constant, or equivalently, rate of decay. With the occasional exception of the phase transition from beginning to middle, the rate small lambda, Greek(t) decays monotonically. Thus, small lambda, Greek(t) quantifies how the penchant of humans to introduce new words declines with the progression of their narratives, written or spoken.} } @inproceedings{Baillie05LanguageGamesICDL, author={Jean-Christophe Baillie and Matthieu Nottale}, title={Dynamic Evolution of Language Games between two Autonomous Robots}, year={2005}, booktitle={IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Baillie05LanguageGamesICDL.html}, keywords={Language acquisition, Language games, Symbol grounding, Social behaviors grounding, Autonomous development, Architectures}, abstract={The 'Talking Robots' experiment, inspired by the 'Talking Heads' experiment from Sony, explores possibilities on how to ground symbols into perception. We present here the first results of this experiment and outline a possible extension to social behaviors grounding: the purpose is to have the robots develop not only a lexicon but also the interaction protocol, or language game, that they use to create the lexicon. This raises several complex problems that we review here.} } @article{baker03tics, author={Mark C. Baker}, title={Linguistic differences and language design}, journal={Trends in Cognitive Sciences}, year={2003}, volume={7}, number={8}, pages={349-353}, doi={10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00157-8}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/baker03tics.html}, abstract={A small number of discrete choices (‘parameters’) embedded within a system of otherwise universal principles create the extensive superficial differences between unrelated languages like English, Japanese, and Mohawk. Most current thinking about the evolution of language ignores or denies the existence of these parameters because it can see no rationale for them. That the human language faculty is organized in this way makes more sense if language is compared to a cipher or code. As such, it would have a purpose of concealing information from some at the same time as it communicates information to others.} } @unpublished{balkenius00theOrigin, author={Christian Balkenius and Peter Gardenfors and Lars Hall}, title={The Origin of Symbols in the Brain}, year={2000}, institution={Lund University Cognitive Science}, note={}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/balkenius00theOrigin.html} } @incollection{barber92ontongenyAnd, author={E. J. W. Barber and A. M. W. Peters}, title={Ontongeny and Phylogeny: What Child Language and Archaeology Have to Say to Each Other}, year={1992}, address={Reading, MA}, editor={Hawkins, John A. and Murray Gell-Mann}, publisher={Addison-Wesley}, booktitle={The Evolution of Human Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/barber92ontongenyAnd.html} } @inproceedings{baronchelli05fastConvergence, author={Andrea Baronchelli and Luca Dall'Asta and Alain Barrat and Vittorio Loreto}, title={Strategies for fast convergence in semiotic dynamics}, year={2006}, pages={480-485}, editor={Luis M. Rocha and et al.}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Artificial Life X}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/baronchelli05fastConvergence.html}, abstract={Semiotic dynamics is a novel field that studies how semiotic conventions spread and stabilize in a population of agents. This is a central issue both for theoretical and technological reasons since large system made up of communicating agents, like web communities or artificial embodied agents teams, are getting widespread. In this paper we discuss a recently introduced simple multi-agent model which is able to account for the emergence of a shared vocabulary in a population of agents. In particular we introduce a new deterministic agents' playing strategy that strongly improves the performance of the game in terms of faster convergence and reduced cognitive effort for the agents.} } @article{baronchelli05topologyLanguageGame, author={A. Baronchelli and L. Dall'Asta and A. Barrat and V. Loreto}, title={Topology Induced Coarsening in Language Games}, journal={Physical Review E}, year={2005}, volume={73}, pages={015102}, doi={10.1103/PhysRevE.73.015102}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/baronchelli05topologyLanguageGame.html}, abstract={We investigate how very large populations are able to reach a global consensus, out of local ``microscopic'' interaction rules, in the framework of a recently introduced class of models of semiotic dynamics, the so-called Naming Game. We compare in particular the convergence mechanism for interacting agents embedded in a low-dimensional lattice with respect to the mean-field case. We highlight that in low-dimensions consensus is reached through a coarsening process which requires less cognitive effort of the agents, with respect to the mean-field case, but takes longer to complete. In 1-d the dynamics of the boundaries is mapped onto a truncated Markov process from which we analytically computed the diffusion coefficient. More generally we show that the convergence process requires a memory per agent scaling as N and lasts a time N^{1+2/d} in dimension d<5 (d=4 being the upper critical dimension), while in mean-field both memory and time scale as N^{3/2}, for a population of N agents. We present analytical and numerical evidences supporting this picture.} } @article{baronchelli05sharpTransitionVocabulary, author={A. Baronchelli and M. Felici and E. Caglioti and V. Loreto and L. Steels}, title={Sharp Transition towards Shared Vocabularies in Multi-Agent Systems}, journal={J. Stat. Mech.}, year={2006}, number={P06014}, doi={10.1088/1742-5468/2006/06/P06014}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/baronchelli05sharpTransitionVocabulary.html}, keywords={interacting agent models, scaling in socio-economic systems, stochastic processes, new applications of statistical mechanics}, abstract={What processes can explain how very large populations are able to converge on the use of a particular word or grammatical construction without global coordination? Answering this question helps to understand why new language constructs usually propagate along an S-shaped curve with a rather sudden transition towards global agreement. It also helps to analyze and design new technologies that support or orchestrate self-organizing communication systems, such as recent social tagging systems for the web. The article introduces and studies a microscopic model of communicating autonomous agents performing language games without any central control. We show that the system undergoes a disorder/order transition, going trough a sharp symmetry breaking process to reach a shared set of conventions. Before the transition, the system builds up non-trivial scale-invariant correlations, for instance in the distribution of competing synonyms, which display a Zipf-like law. These correlations make the system ready for the transition towards shared conventions, which, observed on the time-scale of collective behaviors, becomes sharper and sharper with system size. This surprising result not only explains why human language can scale up to very large populations but also suggests ways to optimize artificial semiotic dynamics.} } @inproceedings{baronchelli06bootstrappingCommunication, author={Andrea Baronchelli and Vittorio Loreto and Luca Dall'Asta and Alain Barrat}, title={Bootstrapping communication in language games: strategy, topology and all that}, year={2006}, pages={11-18}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/baronchelli06bootstrappingCommunication.html}, abstract={Semiotic dynamics is a fast growing field according to which language can be seen as an evolving and self-organizing system. In this paper we present a simple multi-agent framework able to account for the emergence of shared conventions in a population. Agents perform pairwise games and final consensus is reached without any outside control nor any global knowledge of the system. In particular we discuss how embedding the population in a non trivial interaction topology affects the behavior of the system and forces to carefully consider agents selection strategies. These results cast an interesting framework to address and study more complex issues in semiotic dynamics.} } @article{barr04conventionalCommunication, author={Dale J. Barr}, title={Establishing conventional communication systems: Is common knowledge necessary?}, journal={Cognitive Science}, year={2004}, month={November-December}, volume={28}, number={6}, pages={937-962}, doi={10.1016/j.cogsci.2004.07.002}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/barr04conventionalCommunication.html}, keywords={Conventions; Common knowledge; Pragmatics; Communication; Multi-agent simulation}, abstract={How do communities establish shared communication systems? The Common Knowledge view assumes that symbolic conventions develop through the accumulation of common knowledge regarding communication practices among the members of a community. In contrast with this view, it is proposed that coordinated communication emerges a by-product of local interactions among dyads. A set of multi-agent computer simulations show that a population of 'egocentric' agents can establish and maintain symbolic conventions without common knowledge. In the simulations, convergence to a single conventional system was most likely and most efficient when agents updated their behavior on the basis of local rather than global, system-level information. The massive feedback and parallelism present in the simulations gave rise to phenomena that are often assumed to result from complex strategic processing on the part of individual agents. The implications of these findings for the development of theories of language use are discussed.} } @article{Bartlett05navigationToLanguage, author={Mark Bartlett and Dimitar Kazakov}, title={The origins of syntax: from navigation to language}, journal={Connection Science}, year={2005}, month={December}, volume={17}, number={3-4}, pages={271-288}, doi={10.1080/09540090500282479}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Bartlett05navigationToLanguage.html}, keywords={Language faculty, Evolution, Navigation, Computer simulations}, abstract={This article suggests that the parser underlying human syntax may have originally evolved to assist navigation, a claim supported by computational simulations as well as evidence from neuroscience and psychology. We discuss two independent conjectures about the way in which navigation could have supported the emergence of this aspect of the human language faculty: firstly, by promoting the development of a parser; and secondly, by possibly providing a topic of discussion to which this parser could have been applied with minimum effort. The paper summarizes our previously published experiments and provides original results in support of the evolutionary advantages this type of communication can provide, compared with other foraging strategies. Another aspect studied in the experiments is the combination and range of environmental factors that make communication beneficial, focusing on the availability and volatility of resources. We suggest that the parser evolved for navigation might initially have been limited to handling regular languages, and describe a mechanism that may have created selective pressure for a context-free parser.} } @incollection{batali02theNegotiation, author={J. Batali}, title={The negotiation and acquisition of recursive grammars as a result of competition among exemplars}, year={2002}, chapter={5}, editor={Ted Briscoe}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Linguistic Evolution through Language Acquisition: Formal and Computational Models}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/batali02theNegotiation.html} } @incollection{batali98computationalSimulations, author={J. Batali}, title={Computational simulations of the emergence of grammar}, year={1998}, pages={405-426}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/batali98computationalSimulations.html}, abstract={A model of simple agents capable of sending and receiving se­ quences of characters and associating them with elements of a set of structured meanings is used to explore the emergence of systematic communication. In computational simulations, each member of a population alternates between learning to interpret the sequences sent by other members, and sending sequences that others learn to interpret. Eventually the agents develop highly coordinated communication systems that incorporate structural regularities reminiscent of those in human languages.} } @unpublished{batali95smallSignaling, author={J. Batali}, title={Small Signaling Systems can Evolve in the Absence of Benefit to the Information Sender}, year={1995}, note={Submitted to Artificial Life}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/batali95smallSignaling.html}, abstract={While it is of clear benefit for the members of a population to be able to make use of information made available by others, it is not as obvious that any benefit accrues to the sender of informative signals. If the sender of information receives no benefit from so doing, a good strategy would be to exploit the informative signals of others, while sending few useful signals. There is therefore a puzzle as to how coordinated signaling systems could have evolved in the absence of benefit to the information sender. These considerations are explored in a formal model of the evolution of populations of animals that possess signaling systems they inherit from their parents. In the model, an individual's reproductive fitness depends only its ability to correctly interpret the signals of others. No maximally coordinated or stable system will emerge under such conditions. However if there is a relatively small number (less than about 10) of distinct sigals to be sent, populations can reach dynamic equilibria in which a significant fraction of the signals are correctly interpreted.} } @inproceedings{batali94innateBiases, author={J. Batali}, title={Innate biases and critical periods: Combining evolution and learning in the acquisition of syntax}, year={1994}, pages={160-171}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={R. Brooks and P. Maes}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Artificial Life IV}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/batali94innateBiases.html}, abstract={Recurrent neural networks can be trained to recognize strings generated by context-free grammars, but the ability of the networks to do so depends on their having an appropriate set of initial connection weights. Simulations of evolution were performed on populations of simple recurrent networks where the selection criterion was the ability of the networks to recognize strings generated by grammars. The networks evolved sets of initial weights from which they could reliably learn to recognize the strings. In order to recognize if a string was generated by a given context-free grammar, it is necessary to use a stack or counter to keep track of the depth of embedding in the string. The networks that evolved in our simulations are able to use the values passed along their recurrent connections for this purpose. Furthermore, populations of networks can evolve a bias towards learning the underlying regularities in a class of related languages. These results suggest a new explanation for the ``critical period'' effects observed in the acquisition of language and other cognitive faculties. Instead of being the result of an exogenous maturational process, the degraded acquisition ability may be the result of the values of innately specified initial weights diverging in response to training on spurious input.} } @incollection{bates99onThe, author={Elizabeth Bates and Judith C. Goodman}, title={On the Emergence of Grammar From the Lexicon}, year={1999}, address={Hillsdale, NJ}, editor={B. MacWhinney}, publisher={Lawrence Earlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Emergence of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bates99onThe.html} } @article{baxter06utteranceSelectionModel, author={Gareth J. Baxter and Richard A. Blythe and William Croft and Alan J. McKane}, title={Utterance Selection Model of Language Change}, journal={Physical Review E}, year={2006}, volume={73}, pages={046118}, doi={10.1103/PhysRevE.73.046118}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/baxter06utteranceSelectionModel.html}, abstract={We present a mathematical formulation of a theory of language change. The theory is evolutionary in nature and has close analogies with theories of population genetics. The mathematical structure we construct similarly has correspondences with the Fisher-Wright model of population genetics, but there are significant differences. The continuous time formulation of the model is expressed in terms of a Fokker-Planck equation. This equation is exactly soluble in the case of a single speaker and can be investigated analytically in the case of multiple speakers who communicate equally with all other speakers and give their utterances equal weight. Whilst the stationary properties of this system have much in common with the single-speaker case, time-dependent properties are richer. In the particular case where linguistic forms can become extinct, we find that the presence of many speakers causes a two-stage relaxation, the first being a common marginal distribution that persists for a long time as a consequence of ultimate extinction being due to rare fluctuations.} } @book{beaken96theMaking, author={Mike Beaken}, title={The Making of Language}, year={1996}, publisher={Edinburgh University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/beaken96theMaking.html} } @inproceedings{beal02bootstrappingCommunications, author={Jacob Beal}, title={An Algorithm for Bootstrapping Communications}, year={2002}, month={June}, booktitle={International Conference on Complex Systems (ICCS)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/beal02bootstrappingCommunications.html}, abstract={In a distributed model of intelligence, peer components need to communicate with one another. I present a system which enables two agents connected by a thick twisted bundle of wires to bootstrap a simple communication system from observations of a shared environment. The agents learn a large vocabulary of symbols, as well as inflections on those symbols which allow thematic role-frames to be transmitted. Language acquisition time is rapid and linear in the number of symbols and inflections. The final communication system is robust and performance degrades gradually in the face of problems.} } @unpublished{beaver_simulatedEvolution, author={David Beaver}, title={Simulated Evolution of Language and Language Processors}, year={1997}, note={proposal}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/beaver_simulatedEvolution.html} } @unpublished{belletti99interviewChomsky, author={Adriana Belletti and Luigi Rizzi}, title={AN INTERVIEW ON MINIMALISM with Noam Chomsky}, year={1999}, note={University of Siena, Nov 8-9, 1999 (rev: March 16, 2000)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/belletti99interviewChomsky.html} } @article{belpaeme07bookreview, author={Tony Belpaeme}, title={Review of ``The Computational Nature of Language Learning and Evolution'' by Partha Niyogi, 2006}, journal={Computational Linguistics}, year={2007}, month={September}, volume={33}, number={3}, pages={429-431}, doi={10.1162/coli.2007.33.3.429}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/belpaeme07bookreview.html} } @phdthesis{belpaeme02factorsInfluencing, author={Tony Belpaeme}, title={Factors influencing the origins of colour categories}, year={2002}, school={Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Artificial Intelligence Lab}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/belpaeme02factorsInfluencing.html}, abstract={Humans perceive a continuous colour spectrum, but divide the spectrum into colour categories in order to reason and communicate about colour. There is an ongoing debate on whether these colour categories necessary for language communication are universal or culture-specific, whether these categories are genetically determined or learned, and whether there is a causal influence of language on colour category acquisition or not. The dissertation presents a number of models, each examining one of these outstanding issues. The models draw on techniques from multi-agent systems, machine learning and evolutionary programming. After considering the behaviour of each model, we conclude in favour of a cultural specificity of language categories and argue that learning under the influence of language is the most plausible explanation for their acquisition.} } @inproceedings{belpaeme02evolang, author={Tony Belpaeme}, title={Understanding the origins of colour categories through computational modelling}, year={2002}, editor={Maggie Tallerman}, booktitle={Proccedings of the 4th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/belpaeme02evolang.html}, abstract={Human colour perception is continuous, but humans categorise the colour continuum and often label the resulting colour categories. The debate on whether colour categorisation is an individual process, or whether it is embedded in genetic constraints has not been settled yet. Further- more, as colour categories have colour names, it is claimed that language could have an influence on the categorisation. This paper reports on agent-based simulations that test the validity of dirent theories, and uncovers the weak and strong points of each. We conclude, from experi- ments using AI techniques, that colour categorisation is most likely to be cultural process.} } @inproceedings{belpaeme01reachingCoherent, author={T. Belpaeme}, title={Reaching coherent color categories through communication}, year={2001}, pages={41-48}, address={Amsterdam, The Netherlands}, editor={Krose, B. and et al.}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 13th Belgium-Netherlands Conference on Artificial Intelligence (BNAIC'01)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/belpaeme01reachingCoherent.html} } @inproceedings{belpaeme01simulatingThe, author={Tony Belpaeme}, title={Simulating the Formation of Color Categories}, year={2001}, pages={393-400}, address={Seattle, WA}, booktitle={IJCAI01}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/belpaeme01simulatingThe.html}, keywords={Signal-meaning mappings}, abstract={This paper investigates the formation of color categories and color naming in a population of agents. The agents perceive and categorize color stimuli, and try to communicate about these perceived stim- uli. While doing so they adapt their internal representations to be more successful at conveying color meaning in future interactions. The agents have no access to global information or to the representa- tions of other agents; they only exchange word forms. The factors driving the population coherence are the shared environment and the interactions. The experiments show how agents can form a coherent lexicon of color terms and ­particularly­ how a coherent color categorization emerges through these linguistic interactions. The results are interpreted in the light of theories describing and explaining universal tendencies in human color categorization and color naming. At the same time, the experiments confirm aspects of the theories of Luc Steels who views language as a complex dynamic system, arising from selforganization and cultural interactions.} } @article{belpaeme05colorCategoriesABJ, author={Tony Belpaeme and Joris Bleys}, title={Explaining Universal Color Categories Through a Constrained Acquisition Process}, journal={Adaptive Behavior}, year={2005}, volume={13}, number={4}, pages={293-310}, doi={10.1177/105971230501300404}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/belpaeme05colorCategoriesABJ.html}, keywords={color,color categories,linguistic relativism,language game,universalism}, abstract={Color categories enjoy a special status among human perceptual categories as they exhibit a remarkable cross-cultural similarity. Many scholars have explained this universal character as being the result of an innate representation or an innate developmental program which all humans share. We will critically assess the available evidence, which is at best controversial, and we will suggest an alternative account for the universality of color categories based on linguistic transmission constrained by universal biases. We introduce a computational model to test our hypothesis and present results. These show that indeed the cultural acquisition of color categories together with mild constraints on the perception and categorical representation result in categories that have a distribution similar to human color categories.} } @inproceedings{belpaeme05colourfulLanguage_EELC, author={Tony Belpaeme and Joris Bleys}, title={Colourful language and colour categories}, year={2005}, booktitle={Second International Symposium on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/belpaeme05colourfulLanguage_EELC.html} } @techreport{bergstrom01thePeacock, author={Carl T. Bergstrom and Rustom Antia and Szabolcs Számadó and Michael Lachmann}, title={The Peacock, the Sparrow, and the Evolution of Human Language}, year={2001}, institution={Santa Fe Institute}, note={working paper #: 01-05-027}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bergstrom01thePeacock.html}, keywords={Language evolution, costly signalling, cues, punishment, dominance, sexual signals}, abstract={How did human language arise, and what accounts for its present structure? Over the past decade, there has been great interest -- and impressive progress -- in using evolutionary theory to address to these and related questions. In particular, a number of studies have shown that several key features of language could plausibly arise and be maintained by natural selection when individuals have coicident interests. However, these models have largely ignored a vital strategic component of the social context in which language is employed: individuals in real societies, both past and present, do not have fully coincident interests. Simultaneously, theoretical models of animal communication have confronted these strategic issues head-on, but they have largely focused on costly (Zahavian) signals. We approach this problem directly, asking the following question: Can language evolve and be maintained under common biological scenarios of non-coincident interest? Using a trio of examples -- the peacock, the sparrow, and human language -- we show that an explicit connection can be drawn between costly signalling theory as developed for the study of animal communication, and the cheap signals employed in human language. We argue that coincident interests are not a prerequisite for linguistic communication, and explore the structural features to be expected of languages employed in societies with non-coincident interests. We find that many of the results derived previously by assuming coincident interests will also be expected under less restrictive models of society.} } @inproceedings{ahmed-redaberrah99speciesAn, author={Ahmed-Reda Berrah and Rafael Laboissière}, title={SPECIES: An Evolutionary Model for the Emergence of Phonetic Structures in an Artificial Society of Speech Agents}, year={1999}, pages={674-678}, address={Berlin}, editor={D. Floreano and J. Nicoud and F. Mondada}, publisher={Springer-Verlag}, booktitle={ECAL99}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ahmedredaberrah99speciesAn.html} } @incollection{berwick98languageEvolution, author={R. C. Berwick}, title={Language evolution and the minimalist program: The origins of syntax}, year={1998}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/berwick98languageEvolution.html} } @article{berwick97syntaxFacit, author={R. C. Berwick}, title={Syntax facit saltum}, journal={Journal of Neurolinguistics}, year={1997}, volume={10}, number={2/3}, pages={231-249}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/berwick97syntaxFacit.html} } @article{best_adaptiveValue, author={Michael L. Best}, title={Adaptive Value Within Natural Language Discourse}, journal={Interaction Studies}, year={2006}, volume={7}, number={1}, pages={1-15}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/best_adaptiveValue.html}, keywords={Evolution in communication, adaptation, population memetics, cultural evolution}, abstract={A trait is of adaptive value if it confers a fitness advantage to its possessor. Thus adaptivness is an ahistorical identification of a trait affording some selective advantage to an agent within some particular environment. In results reported here we identify a trait within natural language discourse as having adaptive value by computing a trait/fitness covariance; the possession of the trait correlates with the replication success of the trait's possessor. We show that the trait covaries with fitness across multiple unrelated discursive groups. In our analysis the trait in question is a particular statistically derived word?n? context, that is, a word set. Variation of the word?sage is measured as the relative presence of the word set within a particular text, that is, the percentage of the text devoted to this set of words. Fitness is measured as the rate in which the text is responded to, or replicates, within an online environment. Thus we are studying the micro?volutionary dynamics of natural language discourse.} } @phdthesis{best00microevolutionaryLanguage, author={M. L. Best}, title={Microevolutionary Language Theory}, year={2000}, school={School of Architecture and Planning, MIT}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/best00microevolutionaryLanguage.html}, abstract={A new microevolutionary theory of complex design within language is pro­ posed. Experiments were carried out that support the theory that complex functional design --- adaptive complexity --- accumulates due to the evolu­ tionary algorithm at the simplest levels within human natural language. A large software system was developed which identifies and tracks evolution­ ary dynamics within text discourse. With this system hundreds of examples of activity suggesting evolutionary significance were distilled from a text collection of many millions of words.

Research contributions include: (1) An active replicator model of micro­ evolutionary dynamics within natural language, (2) methods to distill active replicators offering evidence of evolutionary processes in action and at multiple linguistic levels (lexical, lexical co­occurrence, lexico­syntac­ tic, and syntactic), (3) a demonstration that language evolution and organic evolution are both examples of a single over­arching evolutionary algo­ rithm, (4) a set of tools to comparatively study language over time, and (5) methods to materially improve text retrieval.} } @article{best99meaningAs, author={Michael L. Best and Richard Pocklington}, title={Meaning as use: Transmission fidelity and evolution in NetNews}, journal={Journal of Theoretical Biology}, year={1999}, volume={196}, number={3}, pages={389-395}, doi={10.1006/jtbi.1998.0850}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/best99meaningAs.html} } @article{best97culturalEvolution, author={Michael L. Best and Richard Pocklington}, title={Cultural Evolution and Units of Selection in Replicating Text}, journal={Journal of Theoretical Biology}, year={1997}, month={September}, volume={188}, number={1}, pages={79-87}, doi={10.1006/jtbi.1997.0460}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/best97culturalEvolution.html}, abstract={The use of biological models and metaphors in studies of culture has a long and checkered history. While there are many superficial similarities between biological and cultural evolution, attempts to pin down such analogies have not been wholly successful. One limiting factor may be a lack of empirical evidence that the basic assumptions of the evolutionary model are met within a cultural system. We argue that a focus on the detection and description of the units of selection is an essential first step in constructing any evolutionary model. In this paper we outline the necessary connection between units of selection and evolution, describe the properties of a unit of selection, and introduce an empirical method for the detection of putative units of selection in a model cultural system: discourse within NetNews, a discussion system on the Internet.} } @book{bichakjian02languageIn, author={Bernard H. Bichakjian}, title={Language in a Darwinian Perspective}, year={2002}, volume={3}, address={Frankfurt}, series={Bochum Publications in Evolutionary Cultural Semiotics}, publisher={Peter Lang}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bichakjian02languageIn.html} } @article{bichakjian99languageEvolution, author={Bernard H. Bichakjian}, title={Language Evolution and the Complexity Criterion}, journal={Psycoloquy}, year={1999}, volume={10}, number={033}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bichakjian99languageEvolution.html}, keywords={complexity, Indo-European, language evolution, lateralization, neoteny, word order} } @incollection{bichakjian97languageEvolution, author={Bernard H. Bichakjian}, title={Language Evolution and the Shift to Features Characteristic of the Left Hemis phere}, year={1997}, pages={42-51}, address={Stuttgart}, editor={Andreas Gather and Heinz Werner}, publisher={Steiner}, booktitle={Semiotische Prozesse und natürliche Sprache}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bichakjian97languageEvolution.html} } @incollection{bichakjian97evolutionAnd, author={Bernard H. Bichakjian}, title={Evolution and the biological Correlates of Linguistic Features}, year={1997}, pages={31-42}, address={London}, editor={Roger Blench and Matthew Spriggs}, publisher={Routledge}, booktitle={Archaeology and Language I. Theoretical and Methodological Orientations}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bichakjian97evolutionAnd.html} } @incollection{bichakjian96evolutionFrom, author={Bernard H. Bichakjian}, title={Evolution: From Biology to Language}, year={1996}, editor={C.C. Magori and C. B. Saanane and F. Schrenk.}, publisher={}, booktitle={Four Million Years of Hominid Evolution in Africa: Papers in Honour of Dr. Mary Douglas Leakey's Outstanding Contribution in Palaeoanthropology.}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bichakjian96evolutionFrom.html} } @incollection{bichakjian94languageEvolution, author={Bernard H. Bichakjian}, title={Language Evolution: A Darwinian Process}, year={1994}, pages={269-92.}, address={Berlin}, editor={Winfried Nöth}, publisher={Mouton de Gruyter}, booktitle={Origins of Semiosis: Sign Evolution in Nature and Culture}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bichakjian94languageEvolution.html} } @article{bichakjian93theProblems, author={Bernard H. Bichakjian}, title={The problems of Extrapolating from Creole to DNA to Protolanguage: A reply to Derek Bickerton}, journal={ASCAP Newsletter}, year={1993}, volume={6}, number={2}, pages={12-15}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bichakjian93theProblems.html} } @incollection{bichakjian92languageEvolution, author={Bernard H. Bichakjian}, title={Language Evolution: Evidence from Historical Linguistics}, year={1992}, pages={507-26}, address={Dordrecht, The Netherlands}, editor={Jan Wind and Bernard H.Bichakjian and Alberto Nocentini and Brunetto Chiarelli}, publisher={Kluwer}, booktitle={Language Origin: A Multidisciplinary Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bichakjian92languageEvolution.html} } @book{bichakjian88evolutionIn, author={Bernard H. Bichakjian}, title={Evolution in Language}, year={1988}, address={Ann Arbor, MI}, publisher={Karoma}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bichakjian88evolutionIn.html} } @article{bickerton07LINGUA, author={Derek Bickerton}, title={Language evolution: A brief guide for linguists}, journal={Lingua}, year={2007}, month={March}, volume={117}, number={3}, pages={510-526}, doi={10.1016/j.lingua.2005.02.006}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bickerton07LINGUA.html}, keywords={Language evolution; Protolanguage; Holophrastic language; Social intelligence; Mirror neurons; FOXP2 gene}, abstract={For the benefit of linguists new to the field of language evolution, the author sets out the issues that need to be distinguished in any research on it. He offers a guided tour of contemporary approaches, including the work of linguists (Bickerton, Carstairs-McCarthy, Chomsky, Hurford, Jackendoff, Pinker, Wray), animal behaviour experts (Dunbar, Hauser, Premack, Savage-Rumbaugh), neurophysiologists (Arbib, Calvin), psychologists (Corballis, Donald), archaeologists (Davidson), and computer modellers (Batali, Kirby, Steels). He criticises the expectation that recent discoveries such as ‘mirror neurons’ and the FOXP2 gene will provide easy answers. He emphasises the extremely interdisciplinary nature of this field, and also the importance of involvement in it by linguists, after more than a century of neglect.} } @incollection{bickerton03symbolAndStructure, author={D. Bickerton}, title={Symbol and structure: a comprehensive framework for language evolution}, year={2003}, editor={M.H. Christiansen and S. Kirby}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Evolution: The States of the Art}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bickerton03symbolAndStructure.html} } @incollection{bickerton02foragingVersus, author={Derek Bickerton}, title={Foraging Versus Social Intelligence in the Evolution of Protolanguage}, year={2002}, address={Oxford}, chapter={10}, editor={Alison Wray}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={The Transition to Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bickerton02foragingVersus.html} } @article{bickerton02bookreview, author={D. Bickerton}, title={Review of ``The Origins of Vowel Systems'' by Bart de Boer, 2001}, journal={Selection}, year={2002}, month={November}, volume={3}, number={1}, pages={127-130}, doi={10.1556/Select.3.2002.1.10}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bickerton02bookreview.html} } @incollection{bickerton00howProtolanguage, author={D. Bickerton}, title={How protolanguage became language}, year={2000}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Chris Knight and James R. Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bickerton00howProtolanguage.html} } @incollection{bickerton98catastrophicEvolution, author={D. Bickerton}, title={Catastrophic evolution: The case for a single step from protolanguage to full human language}, year={1998}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bickerton98catastrophicEvolution.html} } @article{bickerton91languageOrigins, author={Derek Bickerton}, title={Language origins and evolutionary plausibility}, journal={Language and Communication}, year={1991}, volume={11}, number={1-2}, pages={37-39}, doi={10.1016/0271-5309(91)90014-M}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bickerton91languageOrigins.html} } @book{bickerton90languageAnd, author={D. Bickerton}, title={Language and Species}, year={1990}, publisher={University of Chicago Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bickerton90languageAnd.html} } @article{bickerton84theLanguage, author={D. Bickerton}, title={The Language Bioprogram Hypothesis}, journal={Behavioral and Brain Sciences}, year={1984}, volume={7}, number={2}, pages={173-222}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bickerton84theLanguage.html} } @book{bickerton81rootsOf, author={Derek Bickerton}, title={Roots of language}, year={1981}, address={Ann Arbor, MI}, publisher={Karoma}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bickerton81rootsOf.html} } @article{billard99experimentsIn, author={A. Billard and K. Dautenhahn}, title={Experiments in learning by imitation - grounding and use of communication in robotic agents}, journal={Adaptive Behavior}, year={1999}, volume={7}, number={3/4}, pages={415-438}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/billard99experimentsIn.html} } @book{bloom00meaningsOfWordsBOOK, author={Paul Bloom}, title={How Children Learn the Meanings of Words}, year={2000}, publisher={MIT Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bloom00meaningsOfWordsBOOK.html} } @incollection{bloom99evolutionOf, author={P. Bloom}, title={Evolution of language}, year={1999}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={R. Wilson and F. Keil}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bloom99evolutionOf.html} } @incollection{bloom99theEvolution, author={P. Bloom}, title={The evolution of new cognitive capacities}, year={1999}, address={Oxford}, editor={M. Corballis}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={The descent of mind}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bloom99theEvolution.html} } @article{blume93evolutionaryStability, author={Andreas Blume and Yong-Gwan Kim and Joel Sobel}, title={Evolutionary stability in games of communication}, journal={Games and Economic Behavior}, year={1993}, volume={5}, number={4}, pages={547-575}, doi={10.1006/game.1993.1031}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/blume93evolutionaryStability.html}, abstract={This paper identifies evolutionarily stable outcomes in games in which one player has private information and the other takes a payoff-relevant action. The informed player can communicate at little cost. Outcomes satisfying a set-valued evolutionary stability condition must exist and be efficient in common-interest games. When there is a small cost associated with using each message the outcome preferred by the informed player is stable. The paper introduces a nonequilibrium, set-valued stability notion of entry resistant sets. For games with partial common interest, the no-communication outcome is never an element of an entry resistant set.} } @inproceedings{Bodik03LanguageChange, author={Peter Bodik}, title={Language Change in Multi-generational Community}, year={2003}, booktitle={Proceedings of CALCI'03}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Bodik03LanguageChange.html}, abstract={Steels in [4] claims that both flux of agents (changing of agents in an experiment) and stochasticity in communication of agents are necessary for a spontaneous change in language. This paper argues that flux of agents alone could be responsible for a spontaneous change in language. This hypothesis is demonstrated by modeling language use through language games played in a population of evolving agents.} } @unpublished{Bodik03thesis, author={Peter Bodik}, title={Emergence of Language in Spatial Language Games}, year={2003}, note={diploma thesis}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Bodik03thesis.html} } @inproceedings{Bodik03SpatialLexicon, author={Peter Bodik and Martin Takac}, title={Formation of a Common Spatial Lexicon and its Change in a Community of Moving Agents}, year={2003}, publisher={IOS Press}, booktitle={Frontiers in AI: Proceedings of SCAI'03}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Bodik03SpatialLexicon.html}, abstract={This paper investigates factors influencing the establishment of a common spatial lexicon in a community of agents moving in a simulated environment. The model avoids some traditionally criticized features of other models of the emergence of a common lexicon such as the use of only cued representations, pre-defined fixed meanings shared by all agents, explicit meaning transmission and nonverbal feedback about the outcome of a game. While each agent forms its own concepts for distances and directions, coherent lexicon emerges enabling agents to localize objects in the environment based on their spatial description. Factors necessary for language change are then investigated in an experiment where agents join/leave the community and the results are compared to those of the related model of Steels.} } @mastersthesis{bontempo04, author={James BonTempo}, title={Exploring the dynamics of language change in finite populations}, year={2004}, school={University of Chicago}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bontempo04.html} } @article{botha02eye, author={Rudolf P. Botha}, title={Did language evolve like the vertebrate eye?}, journal={Language and Communication}, year={2002}, month={April}, volume={22}, number={2}, pages={131-158}, doi={10.1016/S0271-5309(01)00020-9}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/botha02eye.html}, keywords={Language evolution; Adaptation; Natural selection; Form-function `misfit'; Complex adaptive design; Adaptive complexity}, abstract={On various modern accounts, human language or some of its features evolved like the vertebrate eye by natural selection. The present article offers a critical appraisal of the way in which this idea is articulated in Pinker and Bloom's (1990) selectionist account of language evolution—the most sophisticated account of its kind. It is argued that this account is less than insightful since it fails to draw some of the conceptual distinctions that are central to a certain requirement for such selectionist accounts. The requirement states that language can be accorded the evolutionary status of an adaptation by natural selection if it exhibits complex adaptive design for some evolutionary significant function.} } @incollection{brighton05minimumDescription, author={Henry Brighton}, title={Linguistic Evolution and Induction by Minimum Description Length}, year={2005}, editor={Werning, M. and Machery, E.}, publisher={Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag}, booktitle={The Compositionality of Concepts and Meanings: Applications to Linguistics, Psychology and Neuroscience}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/brighton05minimumDescription.html} } @phdthesis{brighton03phdthesis, author={Henry Brighton}, title={Simplicity as a Driving Force in Linguistic Evolution}, year={2003}, school={Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, The University of Edinburgh}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/brighton03phdthesis.html}, abstract={How did language come to have its characteristic structure? Many argue that by understanding those parts of our biological machinery relevant to language, we can explain why language is the way it is. If the hallmarks of language are simply properties of our biological machinery, elicited through the process of language acquisition, then such an explanatory route is adequate.

As soon as we admit the possibility that knowledge of language is learned, in the sense that language acquisition is a process involving inductive generalisations, then an explanatory inadequacy arises. Any thorough explanation of the characteristic structure of language must now explain why the input to the language acquisition process has certain properties and not others. This thesis builds on recent work that proposes that the linguistic stimulus has certain structural properties that arise as a result of linguistic evolution. Here, languages themselves adapt to fit the task of learning: they reflect an accumulated structural residue laid down by previous generations of language users.

Using computational models of linguistic evolution I explore the relationship be- tween language induction and generalisation based on a simplicity principle, and the linguistic evolution of compositional structures. The two main contributions of this thesis are as follows. Firstly, using a model of induction based on the minimum description length principle, I address the question of linguistic evolution resulting from a bias towards compression. Secondly, I carry out a thorough examination of the parameter space affecting the cultural transmission of language, and note that the conditions for linguistic evolution towards compositional structure correspond to (1) specific levels of semantic complexity, and (2), induction based on sparse language exposure.

Ultimately, the story of the evolution of language in humans must depend on an account of the genetic evolution of the biological machinery underlying language. Rather than explicitly encoding the observed constraints on language, I argue that any explanation based on biological evolution should instead aim to explain how the conditions for linguistic evolution, outlined above, came about.} } @article{brighton02compositionalSyntax, author={H. Brighton}, title={Compositional Syntax from Cultural Transmission}, journal={Artificial Life}, year={2002}, volume={8}, number={1}, pages={25-54}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/brighton02compositionalSyntax.html}, keywords={Language, Evolution, Syntax, Learning, Compression, Culture}, abstract={A growing body of work demonstrates that syntactic structure can evolve in populations of genetically identical agents. Traditional explanations for the emergence of syntactic structure employ an argument based on genetic evolution: syntactic structure is specified by an innate Language Acquisition Device (LAD). Knowledge of language is complex, yet the data available to the language learner is sparse. This incongruous situation, termed the ``poverty of the stimulus'', is accounted for by placing much of the specification of language in the LAD. The assumption is that the characteristic structure of language is somehow coded genetically. The effect of language evolution on the cultural substrate, in the absence of genetic change, is not addressed by this explanation. We show that the poverty of the stimulus introduces a pressure for compositional language structure when we consider language evolution resulting from iterated observational learning. We use a mathematical model to map the space of parameters that result in compositional syntax. Our hypothesis is that compositional syntax cannot be explained by understanding the LAD alone: compositionality is an emergent property of the dynamics resulting from sparse language exposure.} } @article{brighton_visualizing_ALife, author={H. Brighton and S. Kirby}, title={Understanding Linguistic Evolution by Visualizing the Emergence of Topographic Mappings}, journal={Artificial Life}, year={2006}, month={Spring}, volume={12}, number={2}, pages={229-242}, doi={10.1162/106454606776073323}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/brighton_visualizing_ALife.html}, keywords={Language, evolution, visualization, replicators, learning}, abstract={We show how cultural selection for learnability during the process of linguistic evolution can be visualized using a simple iterated learning model. Computational models of linguistic evolution typically focus on the nature of, and conditions for, stable states. We take a novel approach and focus on understanding the process of linguistic evolution itself. What kind of evolutionary system is this process? Using visualization techniques, we explore the nature of replicators in linguistic evolution, and argue that replicators correspond to local regions of regularity in the mapping between meaning and signals. Based on this argument, we draw parallels between phenomena observed in the model and linguistic phenomena observed across languages. We then go on to identify issues of replication and selection as key points of divergence in the parallels between the processes of linguistic evolution and biological evolution.} } @inproceedings{brighton01theSurvival, author={H. Brighton and S. Kirby}, title={The Survival of the Smallest: Stability Conditions for the Cultural Evolution of Compositional Language}, year={2001}, pages={592-601}, editor={J. Kelemen and P. Sosík}, publisher={Springer-Verlag}, booktitle={ECAL01}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/brighton01theSurvival.html}, keywords={computational simulation, language evolution, language acquisition, machine learning}, abstract={Recent work in the field of computational evolutionary linguistics suggests that the dynamics arising from the cultural evolution of language can explain the emergence of syntactic structure. We build on this work by introducing a model of language acquisition based on the Minimum Description Length Principle. Our experiments show that compositional syntax is most likely to occur under two conditions specific to hominids: (i) A complex meaning space structure, and (ii) the poverty of the stimulus.} } @techreport{brighton01meaningSpace, author={H. Brighton and S. Kirby}, title={Meaning Space Structure Determines the Stability of Culturally Evolved Compositional Language}, year={2001}, institution={Language Evolution and Computation Research Unit, Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, The University of Edinburgh}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/brighton01meaningSpace.html}, keywords={cultural evolution, machine learning, language evolution, dynamical systems} } @incollection{brighton_threehypotheses, author={H. Brighton and S. Kirby and K. Smith}, title={Cultural Selection for Learnability: Three principles underlying the view that language adapts to be learnable}, year={2005}, chapter={13}, editor={Tallerman, M.}, publisher={Oxford: Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/brighton_threehypotheses.html} } @inproceedings{smith_situatedCognition, author={Henry Brighton and Simon Kirby and Kenny Smith}, title={Situated cognition and the role of multi-agent models in explaining language structure}, year={2003}, pages={88-109}, editor={D. Kudenko and E. Alonso and D. Kazakov}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Adaptive Agents and Multi-Agent Systems: Adaptation and Multi-Agent Learning}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smith_situatedCognition.html}, abstract={How and where are the universal features of language specified? We consider language users as situated agents acting as conduits for the cultural transmission of language. Using multi-agent computational models we show that certain hallmarks of language are adaptive in the context of cultural transmission. This observation requires us to reconsider the role of innateness in explaining the characteristic structure of language. The relationship between innate bias and the universal features of language becomes opaque when we consider that significant linguistic evolution can occur as a result of cultural transmission.} } @article{brighton05review, author={Henry Brighton and Kenny Smith and Simon Kirby}, title={Language as an evolutionary system}, journal={Physics of Life Reviews}, year={2005}, month={September}, volume={2}, number={3}, pages={177-226}, doi={10.1016/j.plrev.2005.06.001}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/brighton05review.html}, keywords={Language; Evolution; Artificial life; Culture; Adaptation; Replication}, abstract={John Maynard Smith and EöSzathmá argued that human language signified the eighth major transition in evolution: human language marked a new form of information transmission from one generation to another [Maynard Smith J, Szathmá E. The major transitions in evolution. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press; 1995]. According to this view language codes cultural information and as such forms the basis for the evolution of complexity in human culture. In this article we develop the theory that language also codes information in another sense: languages code information on their own structure. As a result, languages themselves provide information that influences their own survival. To understand the consequences of this theory we discuss recent computational models of linguistic evolution. Linguistic evolution is the process by which languages themselves evolve. This article draws together this recent work on linguistic evolution and highlights the significance of this process in understanding the evolution of linguistic complexity. Our conclusions are that: (1) the process of linguistic transmission constitutes the basis for an evolutionary system, and (2), that this evolutionary system is only superficially comparable to the process of biological evolution.} } @inproceedings{briscoe06powerLaw, author={E. J. Briscoe}, title={Language learning, power laws and sexual selection}, year={2006}, pages={19-26}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/briscoe06powerLaw.html}, abstract={I discuss the ubiquity of power law distributions in language organisation (and elsewhere), and argue against Miller's (2000) argument that large vocabulary size is a consequence of sexual selection. Instead I argue that power law distributions are evidence that languages are best modelled as dynamical systems but raise some issues for models of iterated language learning.} } @incollection{briscoe02, author={E. J. Briscoe}, title={Coevolution of the language faculty and language(s) with decorrelated encodings}, year={2005}, chapter={14}, editor={Tallerman, M.}, publisher={Oxford: Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/briscoe02.html} } @incollection{briscoe02grammaticalAssimilation, author={E. J. Briscoe}, title={Grammatical Assimilation}, year={2003}, editor={M.H. Christiansen and S. Kirby}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Evolution: The States of the Art}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/briscoe02grammaticalAssimilation.html} } @incollection{briscoe02introduction, author={E. J. Briscoe}, title={Introduction}, year={2002}, chapter={1}, editor={Ted Briscoe}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Linguistic Evolution through Language Acquisition: Formal and Computational Models}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/briscoe02introduction.html} } @book{briscoe-2002-editedbook, title={Linguistic Evolution through Language Acquisition: Formal and Computational Models}, year={2002}, editor={E. J. Briscoe}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/briscoe2002editedbook.html} } @incollection{briscoe02grammaticalAcquisition, author={E. J. Briscoe}, title={Grammatical Acquisition and Linguistic Selection}, year={2002}, chapter={9}, editor={Ted Briscoe}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Linguistic Evolution through Language Acquisition: Formal and Computational Models}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/briscoe02grammaticalAcquisition.html} } @unpublished{briscoe00anEvolutionary, author={E. J. Briscoe}, title={An evolutionary approach to (logistic-like) language change}, year={2000}, note={Draft of DIGS6 talk, Maryland, 23rd May 2000 and Univ of Sussex, 8th Dec 2000}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/briscoe00anEvolutionary.html} } @incollection{briscoe00evolutionaryPerspectives, author={E. J. Briscoe}, title={Evolutionary Perspectives on Diachronic Syntax}, year={2000}, editor={Pintzuk, S. and Tsoulas, G. and Warner, A.}, publisher={}, booktitle={Diachronic Syntax: Models and Mechanisms}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/briscoe00evolutionaryPerspectives.html} } @article{briscoe00grammaticalAcquisition, author={E. J. Briscoe}, title={Grammatical Acquisition: Inductive Bias and Coevolution of Language and the Language Acquisition Device}, journal={Language}, year={2000}, volume={76}, number={2}, pages={245-296}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/briscoe00grammaticalAcquisition.html} } @unpublished{briscoe00notes, author={E. J. Briscoe}, title={Macro and micro models of linguistic evolution}, year={2000}, note={unpublished notes on talk presented at The 3rd Int. Conf. on Lg. and Evolution, Paris, April, 2000.}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/briscoe00notes.html} } @article{briscoe99theAcquisition, author={E. J. Briscoe}, title={The Acquisition of Grammar in an Evolving Population of Language Agents}, journal={Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence}, year={1999}, volume={3}, note={Section B: Selected Articles from the Machine Intelligence 16 Workshop}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/briscoe99theAcquisition.html} } @inproceedings{briscoe98languageAs, author={E. J. Briscoe}, title={Language as a Complex Adaptive System: Coevolution of Language and of the Language Acquisition Device}, year={1998}, editor={H. van Halteren and et al.}, booktitle={Proceedings of Eighth Computational Linguistics in the Netherlands Conference}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/briscoe98languageAs.html} } @inproceedings{briscoe97acl, author={E. J. Briscoe}, title={Co-evolution of Language and of the Language Acquisition Device}, year={1997}, publisher={Morgan Kaufmann}, booktitle={Proc. of 35th Assoc. for Comp. Ling.}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/briscoe97acl.html} } @inproceedings{brooks05cladistics, author={Daniel R. Brooks and Esra Erdem and James W. Minett and Don Ringe}, title={Character-Based Cladistics and Answer Set Programming}, year={2005}, pages={37--51}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Seventh International Symposium on Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages (PADL)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/brooks05cladistics.html}, abstract={We describe the reconstruction of a phylogeny for a set of taxa, with a character-based cladistics approach, in a declarative knowledge representation formalism, and show how to use computational methods of answer set programming to generate conjectures about the evolution of the given taxa. We have applied this computational method in two domains: to historical analysis of languages, and to historical analysis of parasite-host systems. In particular, using this method, we have computed some plausible phylogenies for Chinese dialects, for Indo-European language groups, and for Alcataenia species. Some of these plausible phylogenies are different from the ones computed by other software. Using this method, we can easily describe domain specific information (e.g. temporal and geographical constraints), and thus prevent the reconstruction of some phylogenies that are not plausible.} } @article{broom02entropy, author={Mark Broom}, title={Using Game Theory to Model the Evolution of Information: an Illustrative Game}, journal={Entropy}, year={2002}, volume={4}, number={2}, pages={35-46}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/broom02entropy.html}, keywords={Game theory, evolution, evolutionarily stable strategy, evolution of information, entropy, animal communication, dominance}, abstract={The application of information theory to biology can be broadly split into three areas: (i) At the level of the genome; considering the storage of information using the genetic code. (ii) At the level of the individual animal; communication between animals passes information from one animal to another (usually, but not always, for mutual benefit). (iii) At the level of the population; the diversity of a population can be measured using population entropy. This paper is concerned with the second area. We consider the evolution of an individual's ability to obtain and process information using the ideas of evolutionary game theory. An important part of game theory is the definition of the information available to the participants. Such games tend to treat information as a static quantity whilst behaviour is strategic. We consider game theoretic modelling where use of information is strategic and can thus evolve. A simple model is developed which shows how the information acquiring ability of animals can evolve through time. The model predicts that it is likely that there is an optimal level of information for any particular contest, rather than more information being inherently better. The total information required for optimal performance corresponded to approximately the same entropy, regardless of the value of the individual pieces of information concerned.} } @article{brown06phonologyEvolution, author={J.C. Brown and Chris Golston}, title={Embedded structure and the evolution of phonology}, journal={Interaction Studies}, year={2006}, volume={7}, number={1}, pages={17-41}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/brown06phonologyEvolution.html}, keywords={consonants; embedding; language evolution; phonology; vowels}, abstract={This paper explores a structure ubiquitous in grammar, the embedded tree, and develops a proposal for how such embedded structures played a fundamental role in the evolution of consonants and vowels. Assuming that linguistic capabilities emerged as a cognitive system from a simply reactive system and that such a transition required the construction of an internal mapping of the system body (cf. Cruse 2003), we propose that this mapping was determined through articulation and acoustics. By creating distinctions between articulators in the vocal tract or by acoustic features of sounds, and then embedding these distinctions, the various possible properties of consonants and vowels emerged. These embedded distinctions represent paradigmatic options for the production of sounds, which provide the basic building blocks for prosodic structure. By anchoring these embedded structures in the anatomy and physiology of the vocal tract, the evolution of phonology itself can be explained by extra-linguistic factors.} } @incollection{bryant06phylogeneticMethods, author={David Bryant}, title={Radiation and Network Breaking in Polynesian Linguistics}, year={2006}, pages={111-}, chapter={9}, editor={Peter Forster and Colin Renfrew}, publisher={}, booktitle={Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bryant06phylogeneticMethods.html} } @inproceedings{bullock97anExploration, author={Seth Bullock}, title={An Exploration of Signalling Behaviour by both Analytic and Simulation Means for both Discrete and Continuous Models}, year={1997}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={Husbands, P. and Harvey, I.}, publisher={MIT Press.}, booktitle={ECAL97}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bullock97anExploration.html} } @book{burling05talkingApe, author={Robbins Burling}, title={The Talking Ape: How Language Evolved}, year={2005}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/burling05talkingApe.html} } @incollection{burling02theSlow, author={Robbins Burling}, title={The Slow Growth of Language in Children}, year={2002}, address={Oxford}, chapter={14}, editor={Alison Wray}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={The Transition to Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/burling02theSlow.html} } @incollection{burling00comprehensionProduction, author={Robbins Burling}, title={Comprehension, production and conventionalization in the origins of language}, year={2000}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Chris Knight and James R. Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/burling00comprehensionProduction.html} } @incollection{burling99motivation, author={Robbins Burling}, title={Motivation, Conventionalization, and Arbitrariness in the Origin of Language}, year={1999}, chapter={9}, editor={Barbara J. King}, publisher={School of American Research Press}, booktitle={The Origins of Language: What Nonhuman Primates Can Tell Us}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/burling99motivation.html} } @article{buzing05jasss, author={P.C. Buzing and A.E. Eiben and M.C. Schut}, title={Emerging communication and cooperation in evolving agent societies}, journal={Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation}, year={2005}, volume={8}, number={1}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/buzing05jasss.html}, keywords={Social Simulation, Communication, Cooperation, Artificial Societies}, abstract={The main contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it presents a new software system for empirical investigations of evolving agent societies in SugarScape like environments. Second, it introduces a conceptual framework for modeling cooperation in an artificial society. In this framework the environmental pressure to cooperate is controllable by a single parameter, thus allowing systematic investigations of system behavior under varying circumstances. Third, it reports upon results from experiments that implemented and tested environments based upon this new model of cooperation. The results show that the pressure to cooperate leads to the evolution of communication skills facilitating cooperation. Furthermore, higher levels of cooperation pressure lead to the emergence of increased communication.} } @inproceedings{buzing03ECAL, author={P.C. Buzing and A.E. Eiben and M.C. Schut}, title={Evolving Agent Societies with VUScape}, year={2003}, pages={434-441}, booktitle={ECAL03}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/buzing03ECAL.html}, abstract={The main contribution of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it presents a new system for empirical investigations of evolving agent societies in SugarScapelike environments, which improves existing Sugarscape testbeds. Secondly, we introduce a framework for modelling communication and cooperation in an animal society. In this framework the environmental pressure to communicate and cooperate is controllable by a single parameter. We perform several experiments with different values for this parameter and observe some surprising outcomes.} } @incollection{bybee_cognitiveProcesses, author={J. L. Bybee}, title={Cognitive processes in grammaticalization}, year={2002}, address={New Jersey}, editor={M. Thomasello}, publisher={Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.}, booktitle={The New Psychology of Language,volume II}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bybee_cognitiveProcesses.html} } @unpublished{bybee01mechanismsOf, author={J. L. Bybee}, title={Mechanisms of change in grammaticization:the role of frequency}, year={2001}, note={}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bybee01mechanismsOf.html} } @article{bybee98aFunctionalist, author={Joan L. Bybee}, title={A Functionalist Approach to Grammar and its Evolution}, journal={Evolution of Communication}, year={1998}, volume={2}, number={2}, pages={249-278}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bybee98aFunctionalist.html} } @incollection{bybee88morphologyAs, author={J. L. Bybee}, title={Morphology as lexical organization}, year={1988}, pages={119-141}, address={San Diego}, editor={M. Hammond and M. Noonan}, publisher={Academic Press}, booktitle={Theoretical morphology}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bybee88morphologyAs.html} } @book{bybee85morphologyA, author={J. L. Bybee}, title={Morphology: A study of the relation between meaning and form}, year={1985}, address={Philadelphia}, publisher={Benjamins}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bybee85morphologyA.html} } @book{bybee_frequencyAnd, author={J. L. Bybee and Paul Hopper}, title={Frequency and the Emergence of Language Structure}, year={2001}, address={Amsterdam}, publisher={John Benjamins}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bybee_frequencyAnd.html} } @book{bybee94theEvolution, author={J. L. Bybee and Revere Perkins and William Pagliuca}, title={The evolution of grammar: tense, aspect and modality in the language of the world}, year={1994}, address={Chicago}, publisher={University of Chicago Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/bybee94theEvolution.html} } @incollection{Cace06EELC, author={Ivana Cace and Joanna J. Bryson}, title={Agent Based Modelling of Communication Costs: Why Information can be Free}, year={2006}, address={London}, editor={C. Lyon and C. L Nehaniv and A. Cangelosi}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, note={in press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Cace06EELC.html} } @book{calvin00linguaEx, author={William H. Calvin and Derek Bickerton}, title={Lingua ex Machina}, year={2000}, publisher={MIT Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/calvin00linguaEx.html} } @article{cangelosi07LanguageSciences, author={Angelo Cangelosi}, title={Adaptive Agent Modeling of Distributed Language: Investigations on the Effects of Cultural Variation and Internal Action Representations}, journal={Language Sciences}, year={2007}, doi={10.1016/j.langsci.2006.12.026}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi07LanguageSciences.html}, keywords={Symbol grounding; Language evolution; Computational modeling; Neural networks; Embodied cognition}, abstract={In this paper we present the `grounded adaptive agent' computational framework for studying the emergence of communication and language. This modeling framework is based on simulations of population of cognitive agents that evolve linguistic capabilities by interacting with their social and physical environment (internal and external symbol grounding). These models provide an integrative vision of language where the linguistic abilities of cognitive agents strictly depend on other social, sensorimotor, neural and cognitive capabilities. Here language is not seen as an isolated and dedicated symbol processing system, but rather as a heterogeneous set of artifacts implicated in cultural and cognitive activities. The proposed modeling approach is also closely related to embodied cognition theories of the grounding of language in the organism's perceptual and motor systems.} } @article{cangelosi06PragmaticsAndCognition, author={Angelo Cangelosi}, title={The Grounding and Sharing of Symbols}, journal={Pragmatics and Cognition}, year={2006}, volume={14}, number={2}, pages={275-285}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi06PragmaticsAndCognition.html}, keywords={artificial life, cognitive modeling, neural networks, symbol grounding}, abstract={The double function of language, as a social/communicative means, and as an individual/cognitive capability, derives from its fundamental property that allows us to internally re-represent the world we live in. This is possible through the mechanism of symbol grounding, i.e. the ability to associate entities and states in the external and internal world with internal categorical representations. The symbol grounding mechanism, as language, has both an individual and a social component. The individual component, called the “Physical Symbol Grounding”, refers to the ability of each individual to create an intrinsic link between world entities and internal categorical representations. The social component, called “Social Symbol Grounding”, refers to the collective negotiation for the selection of shared symbols (words) and their grounded meanings. The paper discusses these two aspects of symbol grounding in relation to distributed cognition, using examples from cognitive modeling research on grounded agents and robots.} } @article{cangelosi05PlymouthUnivResearch, author={A. Cangelosi}, title={Evolving cognitive systems: Adaptive behaviour and cognition research at the University of Plymouth}, journal={Cognitive Processing}, year={2005}, volume={6}, pages={202-207}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi05PlymouthUnivResearch.html} } @incollection{cangelosi05groundingSymbols, author={A. Cangelosi}, title={Approaches to Grounding Symbols in Perceptual and Sensorimotor Categories}, year={2005}, pages={719-737}, editor={H. Cohen and C. Lefebvre}, publisher={Elsevier}, booktitle={Handbook of Categorization in Cognitive Science}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi05groundingSymbols.html} } @article{Cangelosi05neuralAdaptiveAgentModels, author={Angelo Cangelosi}, title={The emergence of language: neural and adaptive agent models}, journal={Connection Science}, year={2005}, month={December}, volume={17}, number={3-4}, pages={185-190}, doi={10.1080/09540090500177471}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Cangelosi05neuralAdaptiveAgentModels.html} } @inproceedings{cangelosi04sab, author={A. Cangelosi}, title={The sensorimotor bases of linguistic structure: Experiments with grounded adaptive agents}, year={2004}, month={July}, pages={487-496}, address={Los Angeles}, editor={S. Schaal and et al.}, publisher={Cambridge MA, MIT Press}, booktitle={SAB04}, note={Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on the Simulation of Adaptive Behaviour: From Animals to Animats 8}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi04sab.html} } @article{cangelosi03braincognition, author={A. Cangelosi}, title={Neural network models of category learning and language}, journal={Brain and Cognition}, year={2003}, volume={53}, number={2}, pages={106-107}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi03braincognition.html} } @article{cangelosi03aisb, author={A. Cangelosi}, title={Grounding language in sensorimotor and cognitive categories}, journal={AISB Quarterly}, year={2003}, volume={115}, pages={5-8}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi03aisb.html} } @article{cangelosi01evolutionOf, author={A. Cangelosi}, title={Evolution of communication and language using signals, symbols, and words}, journal={IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation}, year={2001}, month={April}, volume={5}, number={2}, pages={93-101}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi01evolutionOf.html}, abstract={This paper describes different types of models for the evolution of communication and language. It uses the distinction between signals, symbols, and words for the analysis of evolutionary models of language. In particular, it show how evolutionary computation techniques, such as Artificial Life, can be used to study the emergence of syntax and symbols from simple communication signals. Initially, a computational model that evolves repertoires of isolated signals is presented. This study has simulated the emer- gence of signals for naming foods in a population of foragers. This type of model studies communication systems based on simple signal-object associations. Subsequently, models that study the emergence of grounded symbols are discussed in general, including a detailed description of a work on the evolution of simple syntactic rules. This model focuses on the emergence of symbol-symbol relationships in evolved languages. Finally, computational models of syntax acquisition and evolution are discussed. These different types of computational models provide an operational definition of the signal/symbol/word distinction. The simulation and analysis of these types of models will help understanding the role of symbols and symbol acquisition in the origin of language.} } @inproceedings{cangelosi99modelingThe, author={A. Cangelosi}, title={Modeling the evolution of communication: From stimulus associations to grounded symbolic associations}, year={1999}, pages={654-663}, address={Berlin}, editor={D. Floreano and J. Nicoud and F. Mondada}, publisher={Springer-Verlag}, booktitle={ECAL99}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi99modelingThe.html} } @inproceedings{cangelosi99evolutionOf, author={A. Cangelosi}, title={Evolution of communication using combination of grounded symbols in populations of neural networks}, year={1999}, pages={4365-4368}, address={Washington, DC}, publisher={IEEE Press}, booktitle={Proceedings of IJCNN99 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (vol. 6)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi99evolutionOf.html} } @inproceedings{cangelosi04neuralComputationPsychology, author={A. Cangelosi and K.R. Coventry and R. Rajapakse and A. Bacon and S.N. Newstead}, title={Grounding language into perception: A connectionist model of spatial terms and vague quantifiers}, year={2005}, month={May}, editor={A. Cangelosi and G. Bugmann and R. Borisyuk}, publisher={Singapore: World Scientific}, booktitle={Modelling Language, Cognition and Action: Proceedings of the 9th Neural Computation and Psychology Workshop}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi04neuralComputationPsychology.html} } @incollection{cangelosi01symbolGrounding, author={Angelo Cangelosi and Alberto Greco and Stevan Harnad}, title={Symbol Grounding and the Symbolic Theft Hypothesis}, year={2002}, pages={191-210}, address={London}, chapter={9}, editor={Angelo Cangelosi and Domenico Parisi}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Simulating the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi01symbolGrounding.html} } @article{cangelosi00fromRobotic, author={A. Cangelosi and A. Greco and S. Harnad}, title={From robotic toil to symbolic theft: Grounding transfer from entry-level to higher-level categories}, journal={Connection Science}, year={2000}, volume={12}, number={2}, pages={143-162}, doi={10.1080/09540090050129763}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi00fromRobotic.html}, keywords={SYMBOL GROUNDING CATEGORICAL PERCEPTION NEURAL NETWORKS PATTERN RECOGNITION}, abstract={Neural network models of categorical perception (compression of withincategory similarity and dilation of between-category differences) are applied to the symbol-grounding problem (of how to connect symbols with meanings) by connecting analogue sensorimotor projections to arbitrary symbolic representations via learned category-invariance detectors in a hybrid symbolic/non-symbolic system. Our nets are trained to categorize and name 50 2 50 pixel images (e.g. circles, ellipses, squares and rectangles) projected on to the receptive field of a 7 2 7 retina. They first learn to do prototype matching and then entry-level naming for the four kinds of stimuli, grounding their names directly in the input patterns via hidden-unit representations ('sensorimotor toil'). We show that a higher-level categorization (e.g. 'symmetric' versus 'asymmetric') can be learned in two very different ways: either (1) directly from the input, just as with the entry-level categories (i.e. by toil); or (2) indirectly, from Boolean combinations of the grounded category names in the form of propositions describing the higher-order category ('symbolic theft'). We analyse the architectures and input conditions that allow grounding (in the form of compression/ separation in internal similarity space) to be 'transferred' in this second way from directly grounded entry-level category names to higher-order category names. Such hybrid models have implications for the evolution and learning of language.} } @article{cangelosi02theAdaptive, author={A. Cangelosi and S. Harnad}, title={The adaptive advantage of symbolic theft over sensorimotor toil: Grounding language in perceptual categories}, journal={Evolution of Communication}, year={2001}, volume={4}, number={1}, pages={117-142}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi02theAdaptive.html} } @inproceedings{cangelosi06IJCNN, author={A. Cangelosi and E. Hourdakis and V. Tikhanoff}, title={Language acquisition and symbol grounding transfer with neural networks and cognitive robots}, year={2006}, pages={1576-1582}, address={Vancouver}, booktitle={IJCNN 2006}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi06IJCNN.html}, abstract={Neural networks have been proposed as an ideal cognitive modeling methodology to deal with the symbol grounding problem. More recently, such neural network approaches have been incorporated in studies based on cognitive agents and robots. In this paper we present a new model of symbol grounding transfer in cognitive robots. Language learning simulations demonstrate that robots are able to acquire new action concepts via linguistic instructions. This is achieved by autonomously transferring the grounding from directly grounded action names to new higher-order composite actions. The robot's neural network controller permits such a grounding transfer. The implications for such a modeling approach in cognitive science and autonomous robotics are discussed.} } @article{cangelosi_parisi_BrainLanguage, author={A. Cangelosi and D. Parisi}, title={The processing of verbs and nouns in neural networks: Insights from Synthetic Brain Imaging}, journal={Brain and Language}, year={2004}, volume={89}, number={2}, pages={401-408}, doi={10.1016/S0093-934X(03)00353-5}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi_parisi_BrainLanguage.html}, abstract={The paper presents a computational model of language in which linguistic abilities evolve in organisms that interact with an environment. Each individual¿s behavior is controlled by a neural network and we study the consequences in the network¿s internal functional organization of learning to process different classes of words. Agents are selected for reproduction according to their ability to manipulate objects and to understand nouns (objects¿ names) and verbs (manipulation tasks). The weights of the agents¿ neural networks are evolved using a genetic algorithm. Synthetic brain imaging techniques are then used to examine the functional organization of the neural networks. Results show that nouns produce more integrated neural activity in the sensory-processing hidden layer, while verbs produce more integrated synaptic activity in the layer where sensory information is integrated with proprioceptive input. Such findings are qualitatively compared with human brain imaging data that indicate that nouns activate more the posterior areas of the brain related to sensory and associative processing, while verbs activate more the anterior motor areas.} } @book{cangelosi-parisi-2001-editedbook, title={Simulating the evolution of language}, year={2002}, editor={Angelo Cangelosi and Domenico Parisi}, publisher={Springer-Verlag}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosiparisi2001editedbook.html} } @incollection{cangelosi01computerSimulation, author={Angelo Cangelosi and Domenico Parisi}, title={Computer Simulation: A New Scientific Approach to the Study of Language Evolution}, year={2002}, pages={3-28}, address={London}, chapter={1}, editor={Angelo Cangelosi and Domenico Parisi}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Simulating the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi01computerSimulation.html} } @inproceedings{cangelosi01howNouns, author={A. Cangelosi and D. Parisi}, title={How nouns and verbs differentially affect the behavior of artificial organisms}, year={2001}, pages={170-175}, address={London}, editor={Johanna D. Moore and Keith Stenning}, publisher={Lawrence Erlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Twenty-third Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi01howNouns.html}, abstract={This paper presents an Artificial Life and Neural Network (ALNN) model for the evolution of syntax. The simulation methodology provides a unifying approach for the study of the evolution of language and its interaction with other behavioral and neural factors. The model uses an object manipulation task to simulate the evolution of language based on a simple verb-noun rule. The analyses of results focus on the interaction between language and other non-linguistic abilities, and on the neural control of linguistic abilities. The model shows that the beneficial effects of language on non-linguistic behavior are explained by the emergence of distinct internal representation patterns for the processing of verbs and nouns.} } @article{cangelosi98theEmergence, author={A. Cangelosi and D. Parisi}, title={The emergence of a language in an evolving population of neural networks}, journal={Connection Science}, year={1998}, volume={10}, number={2}, pages={83-97}, doi={10.1080/095400998116512}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi98theEmergence.html}, keywords={Language evolution, genetic algorithm, artificial life, symbol grounding}, abstract={The evolution of language implies the parallel evolution of an ability to respond appropriately to signals (language understanding) and an ability to produce the appropriate signals in the appropriate circumstances (language production). When linguistic signals are produced to inform other individuals, individuals that respond appropriately to these signals may increase their reproductive chances but it is less clear what the reproductive advantage is for the language producers. We present simulations in which populations of neural networks living in an environment evolve a simple language with an informative function. Signals are produced to help other individuals categorize edible and poisonous mushrooms, in order to decide whether to approach or avoid encountered mushrooms. Language production, while not under direct evolutionary pressure, evolves as a byproduct of the independently evolving perceptual ability to categorize mushrooms.} } @article{cangelosi06embodiedModel, author={A. Cangelosi and T. Riga}, title={An Embodied Model for Sensorimotor Grounding and Grounding Transfer: Experiments with Epigenetic Robots}, journal={Cognitive Science}, year={2006}, volume={30}, number={4}, pages={673-689}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi06embodiedModel.html}, keywords={Symbol grounding, epigenetic robotics, human-robot interaction, embodied cognition, language evolution, imitation, grounding transfer}, abstract={The grounding of symbols in computational models of linguistic abilities is one of the fundamental properties of psychologically-plausible cognitive models. This paper presents an embodied model for the grounding of language in action based on epigenetic robots. Epigenetic robotics is one of the new cognitive modeling approaches to modeling autonomous mental development. The robot model is based on an integrative vision of language, in which linguistic abilities are strictly dependent on, and grounded in, other behaviors and skills. It uses simulated robots that learn through imitation the names of basic actions. Robots also learn higher-order action concepts through the process of grounding transfer. The simulation demonstrates how new, higher-order behavioral abilities can be autonomously built upon previously-grounded basic action categories, following linguistic interaction with human users.} } @inproceedings{cangelosi04languageEmergence, author={Angelo Cangelosi and Thomas Riga and Barbara Giolito and Davide Marocco}, title={Language emergence and grounding in sensorimotor agents and robots}, year={2004}, address={Kanazawa, Japan}, booktitle={First International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi04languageEmergence.html} } @inproceedings{cangelosi04newFrontiersAI, author={A. Cangelosi and T. Riga and B. Giolito and D. Marocco}, title={The emergence of language in grounded adaptive agents and robots}, year={2004}, editor={K. Hasida and K. Nitta}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence: Joint Proceeding of the 17th and 18th Annual Conferences of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi04newFrontiersAI.html} } @book{cangelosi06EvoLangProceedings, title={The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, year={2006}, editor={Cangelosi, A. and Smith, A.D.M. and Smith, K.}, publisher={Singapore: World Scientific}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cangelosi06EvoLangProceedings.html} } @unpublished{canning92learningLanguage, author={D. Canning}, title={Learning language conventions in common interest signaling games}, year={1992}, note={Unpublished manuscript, Columbia University.}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/canning92learningLanguage.html} } @article{carstairsmccarthy07LINGUA, author={Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy}, title={Language evolution: What linguists can contribute}, journal={Lingua}, year={2007}, month={March}, volume={117}, number={3}, pages={503-509}, doi={10.1016/j.lingua.2005.07.004}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/carstairsmccarthy07LINGUA.html}, keywords={Language evolution; Adaptation; Natural selection; Historical accident; Explanatory adequacy}, abstract={Three factors contribute to the evolutionary development of an organism: (i) historical accident (the genetic raw material available for natural selection to work on); (ii) adaptation through natural selection; (iii) nonbiological (especially physical) constraints. The same factors apply in principle to characteristics of an organism, such as the biological basis of the capacity for language in humans. From the point of view of these three factors, the author discusses recent contributions from linguists to language evolution research, including the contributions in this volume. He emphasises the importance of language evolution research for the development of linguistic theory, and the consequent need for more linguists to get involved in language evolution research.} } @incollection{carstairsmccarthy05morphology, author={Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy}, title={The Evolutionary Origin of Morphology}, year={2005}, chapter={8}, editor={Maggie Tallerman}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/carstairsmccarthy05morphology.html} } @article{CarstairsMcCarthy04bookreview, author={Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy}, title={LANGUAGE: Many Perspectives, No Consensus}, journal={Science}, year={2004}, month={February}, volume={303}, number={5662}, pages={1299-1300}, doi={10.1126/science.1094779}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/CarstairsMcCarthy04bookreview.html} } @incollection{carstairs-mccarthy00theDistinction, author={A. Carstairs-McCarthy}, title={The distinction between sentences and noun phrases: An impediment to language evolution?}, year={2000}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Chris Knight and James R. Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/carstairsmccarthy00theDistinction.html} } @book{carstairs-mccarthy99theOrigins, author={Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy}, title={The Origins of Complex Language: An Inquiry into the Evolutionary Beginnings of Sentences, Syllables, and Truth}, year={1999}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/carstairsmccarthy99theOrigins.html} } @article{carstairs-mccarthy98theFrame, author={A. Carstairs-McCarthy}, title={The frame/content model and syntactic evolution}, journal={Behavioral and Brain Sciences}, year={1998}, pages={515-516}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/carstairsmccarthy98theFrame.html} } @incollection{carstairs-mccarthy98synonymyAvoidance, author={A. Carstairs-McCarthy}, title={Synonymy avoidance, phonology and the origin of syntax}, year={1998}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/carstairsmccarthy98synonymyAvoidance.html} } @article{castro04culturalTransmission, author={Laureano Castro and Alfonso Medina and Miguel A. Toro}, title={Hominid cultural transmission and the evolution of language}, journal={Biology and Philosophy}, year={2004}, month={November}, volume={19}, number={5}, pages={721-737}, doi={10.1007/s10539-005-5567-7}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/castro04culturalTransmission.html}, keywords={cultural transmission, evolution of language, human evolution}, abstract={This paper presents the hypothesis that linguistic capacity evolved through the action of natural selection as an instrument which increased the efficiency of the cultural transmission system of early hominids. We suggest that during the early stages of hominization, hominid social learning, based on indirect social learning mechanisms and true imitation, came to constitute cumulative cultural transmission based on true imitation and the approval or disapproval of the learned behaviour of offspring. A key factor for this transformation was the development of a conceptual capacity for categorizing learned behaviour in value terms - positive or negative, good or bad. We believe that some hominids developed this capacity for categorizing behaviour, and such an ability allowed them to approve or disapprove of their offsprings- learned behaviour. With such an ability, hominids were favoured, as they could transmit to their offspring all their behavioural experience about what can and cannot be done. This capacity triggered a cultural transmission system similar to the human one, though pre-linguistic. We suggest that the adaptive advantage provided by this new system of social learning generated a selection pressure in favour of the development of a linguistic capacity allowing children to better understand the new kind of evaluative information received from parents.} } @article{cattuto06semioticDynamicsEPJC, author={Ciro Cattuto}, title={Semiotic dynamics in online social communities}, journal={Eur. Phys. J. C}, year={2006}, volume={46}, number={s02}, pages={33-37}, doi={10.1140/epjcd/s2006-03-004-4}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cattuto06semioticDynamicsEPJC.html}, abstract={A distributed classification paradigm known as collaborative tagging has been successfully deployed in large-scale web applications designed to manage and share diverse online resources. Users of these applications organize resources by associating with them freely chosen text labels, or tags. Here we regard tags as basic dynamical entities and study the semiotic dynamics underlying collaborative tagging. We collect data from a popular system and focus on tags associated with a given resource. We find that the frequencies of tags obey to a generalized Zipf's law and show that a Yule-Simon process with memory can be used to explain the observed frequency distributions in terms of a simple model of user behavior} } @article{cattuto06semioticDynamics, author={Ciro Cattuto and Vittorio Loreto and Luciano Pietronero}, title={Semiotic dynamics and collaborative tagging}, journal={PNAS}, year={2007}, month={January}, volume={104}, number={5}, pages={1461-1464}, doi={10.1073/pnas.0610487104}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cattuto06semioticDynamics.html}, keywords={online social communities,statistical physics,social bookmarking,information dynamics}, abstract={Collaborative tagging has been quickly gaining ground because of its ability to recruit the activity of web users into effectively organizing and sharing vast amounts of information. Here we collect data from a popular system and investigate the statistical properties of tag cooccurrence. We introduce a stochastic model of user behavior embodying two main aspects of collaborative tagging: (i) a frequency-bias mechanism related to the idea that users are exposed to each other's tagging activity; (ii) a notion of memory, or aging of resources, in the form of a heavy-tailed access to the past state of the system. Remarkably, our simple modeling is able to account quantitatively for the observed experimental features with a surprisingly high accuracy. This points in the direction of a universal behavior of users who, despite the complexity of their own cognitive processes and the uncoordinated and selfish nature of their tagging activity, appear to follow simple activity patterns.} } @article{cavalli-sforza97genes, author={L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza}, title={Genes, peoples and languages}, journal={PNAS}, year={1997}, volume={94}, number={15}, pages={7719-7724}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cavallisforza97genes.html}, abstract={The genetic history of a group of populations is usually analyzed by reconstructing a tree of their origins. Reliability of the reconstruction depends on the validity of the hypothesis that genetic differentiation of the populations is mostly due to population fissions followed by independent evolution. If necessary, adjustment for major population admixtures can be made. Dating the fissions requires comparisons with paleoanthropological and paleontological dates, which are few and uncertain. A method of absolute genetic dating recently introduced uses mutation rates as molecular clocks; it was applied to human evolution using microsatellites, which have a sufficiently high mutation rate. Results are comparable with those of other methods and agree with a recent expansion of modern humans from Africa. An alternative method of analysis, useful when there is adequate geographic coverage of regions, is the geographic study of frequencies of alleles or haplotypes. As in the case of trees, it is necessary to summarize data from many loci for conclusions to be acceptable. Results must be independent from the loci used. Multivariate analyses like principal components or multidimensional scaling reveal a number of hidden patterns and evaluate their relative importance. Most patterns found in the analysis of human living populations are likely to be consequences of demographic expansions, determined by technological developments affecting food availability, transportation, or military power. During such expansions, both genes and languages are spread to potentially vast areas. In principle, this tends to create a correlation between the respective evolutionary trees. The correlation is usually positive and often remarkably high. It can be decreased or hidden by phenomena of language replacement and also of gene replacement, usually partial, due to gene flow.} } @article{cavalli-sforza83paradox, author={L. L. Cavalli-Sforza and M. W. Feldman}, title={Paradox of the Evolution of Communication and of Social Interactivity}, journal={PNAS}, year={1983}, volume={80}, number={7}, pages={2017-2021}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cavallisforza83paradox.html}, abstract={Communication between individuals of a species is likely to increase the capacity to acquire skills useful for survival and propagation and thus may confer important selective advantages. Since interaction occurs between two or more individuals, the selective process is frequency dependent, and the analysis shows that communication cannot initially increase at a reasonable rate when it is limited to random unrelated individuals, so that it is likely to abort for stochastic reasons. However, this bottleneck is removed if the communication process takes place in the nuclear family or among close relatives or if aggregation of communicators occurs because of assortative mating or meeting. Use of the individual conditional fitnesses we have introduced earlier permits an exact analysis. We show that, in general, the initial rate of increase can be geometric if and only if, in the class of selective models considered, the conditional probability of a communicator interacting with another contains a positive constant term. In our discussion of communication, cost factors for the act of communication have been omitted. However, the model has been generalized to include cooperativeness, and also altruism, or competition, by introducing costs. There is a close relationship among these situations, and the same considerations about the initial bottleneck and its resolution also extend to them. The models given here are for haploids but they extend to diploids and the conclusions are similar.} } @book{cavalli-sforza81book, author={Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza and Marcus W. Feldman}, title={Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A quantitative approach}, year={1981}, publisher={Princeton University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cavallisforza81book.html}, abstract={To understand human evolution, we require, among other things, a theory describing the dynamics of culturally acquired phenotypes. In this book, Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman present a series of theoretical models that represent an important beginning toward such a theory.} } @article{cavallisforza92geneAndLanguages, author={L.L. Cavalli-Sforza and E. Minch and J.L. Mountain}, title={Coevolution of genes and languages revisited}, journal={PNAS}, year={1992}, month={June}, volume={89}, number={12}, pages={5620-5624}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cavallisforza92geneAndLanguages.html}, abstract={In an earlier paper it was shown that linguistic families of languages spoken by a set of 38 populations associate rather strongly with an evolutionary tree of the same populations derived from genetic data. While the correlation was clearly high, there was no evaluation of statistical significance; no such test was available at the time. This gap has now been filled by adapting to this aim a procedure based on the consistency index, and the level of significance is found to be much stronger than 10(-3). Possible reasons for coevolution of strictly genetic characters and the strictly cultural linguistic system are discussed briefly. Results of this global analysis are compared with those obtained in independent local analysis.} } @article{cernansky07neuralNetworks, author={Michal Cernansky and Matej Makula and Lubica Benuskova}, title={Organization of the state space of a simple recurrent network before and after training on recursive linguistic structures}, journal={Neural Networks}, year={2007}, month={March}, volume={20}, number={2}, pages={236-244}, doi={10.1016/j.neunet.2006.01.020}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cernansky07neuralNetworks.html}, abstract={Recurrent neural networks are often employed in the cognitive science community to process symbol sequences that represent various natural language structures. The aim is to study possible neural mechanisms of language processing and aid in development of artificial language processing systems. We used data sets containing recursive linguistic structures and trained the Elman simple recurrent network (SRN) for the next-symbol prediction task. Concentrating on neuron activation clusters in the recurrent layer of SRN we investigate the network state space organization before and after training. Given a SRN and a training stream, we construct predictive models, called neural prediction machines, that directly employ the state space dynamics of the network. We demonstrate two important properties of representations of recursive symbol series in the SRN. First, the clusters of recurrent activations emerging before training are meaningful and correspond to Markov prediction contexts. We show that prediction states that naturally arise in the SRN initialized with small random weights approximately correspond to states of Variable Memory Length Markov Models (VLMM) based on individual symbols (i.e. words). Second, we demonstrate that during training, the SRN reorganizes its state space according to word categories and their grammatical subcategories, and the next-symbol prediction is again based on the VLMM strategy. However, after training, the prediction is based on word categories and their grammatical subcategories rather than individual words. Our conclusion holds for small depths of recursions that are comparable to human performances. The methods of SRN training and analysis of its state space introduced in this paper are of a general nature and can be used for investigation of processing of any other symbol time series by means of SRN.} } @inproceedings{chang01groundedLearning, author={N. C. Chang and T. V. Maia}, title={Grounded Learning of Grammatical Constructions}, year={2001}, booktitle={2001 AAAI Spring Symposium on Learning Grounded Representations}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/chang01groundedLearning.html} } @article{cheney05constraintsAndPreadaptation, author={Dorothy L. Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth}, title={Constraints and preadaptations in the earliest stages of language evolution}, journal={The Linguistic Review}, year={2005}, month={December}, volume={22}, number={2-4}, pages={135-159}, doi={10.1515/tlir.2005.22.2-4.135}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cheney05constraintsAndPreadaptation.html}, abstract={If we accept the view that language first evolved from the conceptual structure of our pre-linguistic ancestors, several questions arise, including: What kind of structure? Concepts about what? Here we review research on the vocal communication and cognition of nonhuman primates, focusing on results that may be relevant to the earliest stages of language evolution. From these data we conclude, first, that nonhuman primates' inability to represent the mental states of others makes their communication fundamentally different from human language. Second, while nonhuman primates' production of vocalizations is highly constrained, their ability to extract complex information from sounds is not. Upon hearing vocalizations, listeners acquire information about their social companions that is referential, discretely coded, hierarchically structured, rule-governed, and propositional. We therefore suggest that, in the earliest stages of language evolution, communication had a formal structure that grew out of its speakers' knowledge of social relations.} } @book{cheney90monkeys, author={Dorothy L. Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth}, title={How monkeys see the world: Inside the mind of another species}, year={1990}, publisher={Chicago,University of Chicago Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cheney90monkeys.html} } @incollection{chomsky76languageNature, author={N. Chomsky}, title={On the nature of language}, year={1976}, pages={46-57}, editor={S. R. Harnad and H. D. Steklis and J. Lancaster}, publisher={}, booktitle={Origins and Evolution of Language and Speech. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 280}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/chomsky76languageNature.html} } @phdthesis{choudhury07phdthesis, author={Monojit Choudhury}, title={Computational Models of Real World Phonological Change}, year={2007}, month={May}, school={Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur}, note={under review and awaiting defense}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/choudhury07phdthesis.html} } @article{choudhury06schwaDeletionJASSS, author={Monojit Choudhury and Anupam Basu and Sudeshna Sarkar}, title={Multi-Agent Simulation of Emergence of Schwa Deletion Pattern in Hindi}, journal={Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation}, year={2006}, month={March}, volume={9}, number={2}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/choudhury06schwaDeletionJASSS.html}, keywords={Language Change, Linguistic Agent, Language Game, Multi-Agent Simulation, Schwa Deletion}, abstract={Recently, there has been a revival of interest in multi-agent simulation techniques for exploring the nature of language change. However, a lack of appropriate validation of simulation experiments against real language data often calls into question the general applicability of these methods in modeling realistic language change. We try to address this issue here by making an attempt to model the phenomenon of schwa deletion in Hindi through a multi-agent simulation framework. The pattern of Hindi schwa deletion and its diachronic nature are well studied, not only out of general linguistic inquiry, but also to facilitate Hindi grapheme-to-phoneme conversion, which is a preprocessing step to text-to-speech synthesis. We show that under certain conditions, the schwa deletion pattern observed in modern Hindi emerges in the system from an initial state of no deletion. The simulation framework described in this work can be extended to model other phonological changes as well.} } @inproceedings{choudhury04schwaDeletionSIGPHON, author={Monojit Choudhury and Anupam Basu and Sudeshna Sarkar}, title={A Diachronic Approach for Schwa Deletion in Indo Aryan Languages}, year={2004}, month={July}, pages={20--26}, address={Barcelona, Spain}, publisher={Association for Computational Linguistics}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Seventh Meeting of the ACL Special Interest Group in Computational Phonology}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/choudhury04schwaDeletionSIGPHON.html}, abstract={Schwa deletion is an important issue in grapheme-to-phoneme conversion for Indo- Aryan languages (IAL). In this paper, we describe a syllable minimization based algorithm for dealing with this that outperforms the existing methods in terms of efficiency and accuracy. The algorithm is motivated by the fact that deletion of schwa is a diachronic and sociolinguistic phenomenon that facilitates faster communication through syllable economy. The contribution of the paper is not just a better algorithm for schwa deletion; rather we describe here a constrained optimization based framework that can partly model the evolution of languages, and hence, can be used for solving many problems in computational linguistics that call for diachronic explanations.} } @inproceedings{choudhury07sigmorphon, author={Monojit Choudhury and Vaibhav Jalan and Sudeshna Sarkar and Anupam Basu}, title={Evolution, optimization and language change: the case of Bengali verb inflections}, year={2007}, month={June}, address={Prague}, booktitle={Proceedings of Ninth Meeting of the ACL Special Interest Group in Computational Morphology and Phonology}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/choudhury07sigmorphon.html}, abstract={The verb inflections of Bengali underwent a series of phonological change between 10th and 18th centuries, which gave rise to several modern dialects of the language. In this paper, we offer a functional explanation for this change by quantifying the functional pressures of ease of articulation, perceptual contrast and learnability through objective functions or constraints, or both. The multi-objective and multi-constraint optimization problem has been solved through genetic algorithm, whereby we have observed the emergence of Pareto-optimal dialects in the system that closely resemble some of the real ones.} } @inproceedings{choudhury06consonantACL, author={Monojit Choudhury and Animesh Mukherjee and Anupam Basu and Niloy Ganguly}, title={Analysis and Synthesis of the Distribution of Consonants over Languages: A Complex Network Approach}, year={2006}, address={Sydney, Australia}, booktitle={COLING-ACL06}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/choudhury06consonantACL.html}, abstract={Cross-linguistic similarities are reflected by the speech sound systems of languages all over the world. In this work we try to model such similarities observed in the consonant inventories, through a complex bipartite network. We present a systematic study of some of the appealing features of these inventories with the help of the bipartite network. An important observation is that the occurrence of consonants follows a two regime power law distribution. We find that the consonant inventory size distribution together with the principle of preferential attachment are the main reasons behind the emergence of such a two regime behavior. In order to further support our explanation we present a synthesis model for this network based on the general theory of preferential attachment.} } @incollection{christiansen_languageEvolution2, author={M. H. Christiansen}, title={Language evolution and change}, year={2002}, month={November}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={M.A. Arbib}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Handbook of Brain Theory and Neural Networks (2nd Edition)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/christiansen_languageEvolution2.html} } @phdthesis{christiansen94phd, author={M. H. Christiansen}, title={Infinite Languages, Finite Minds: Connectionism, Learning and Linguistic Structure}, year={1994}, school={University of Edinburgh, Scotland}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/christiansen94phd.html}, abstract={This thesis presents a connectionist theory of how infinite languages may fit within nite minds. Arguments are presented against the distinction between linguistic competence and observable language performance. It is suggested that certain kinds of finite state automata--i.e., recurrent neural networks|are likely to have sufficient computational power, and the necessary generalization capability, to serve as models for the processing and acquisition of linguistic structure. These arguments are further corroborated by a number of computer simulations, demonstrating that recurrent connectionist models are able to learn complex recursive regularities and have powerful generalization abilities. Importantly, the performance evinced by the networks are comparable with observed human behavior on similar aspects of language. Moreover, an evolutionary account is provided, advocating a learning and processing based explanation of the origin and subsequent phylogenetic development of language. This view construes language as a nonobligate symbiant, arguing that language has evolved to fit human learning and processing mechanisms, rather than vice versa. As such, this perspective promises to explain linguistic universals in functional terms, and motivates an account of language acquisition which incorporates innate, but not language-specific constraints on the learning process. The purported poverty of the stimulus is re-appraised in this light, and it is concluded that linguistic structure may be learnable by bottom-up statistical learning models, such as, connectionist neural networks.} } @unpublished{christiansen07languageBrain, author={Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater}, title={Language as Shaped by the Brain}, year={2007}, note={}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/christiansen07languageBrain.html}, abstract={It is widely assumed that human learning and the structure of human languages are intimately related. This relationship is frequently suggested to be rooted in a language-specific biological endowment, which encodes universal, but arbitrary, principles of language structure (a universal grammar or UG). How might such a UG have evolved? We argue that UG could not have arisen either by biological adaptation or non- adaptationist genetic processes. The resulting puzzle concerning the origin of UG we call the logical problem of language evolution. Because the processes of language change are much more rapid than processes of genetic change, language constitutes a “moving target” both over time and across different human populations, and hence cannot provide a stable environment to which UG genes could have adapted. We conclude that a biologically determined UG is not evolutionarily viable. Instead, the original motivation for UG—the mesh between learners and languages—arises because language has been shaped to fit the human brain, rather than vice versa. Following Darwin, we view language itself as a complex and interdependent “organism,” which evolves under selectional pressures from human learning and processing mechanisms. That is, languages are themselves undergoing severe selectional pressure from each generation of language users and learners. This suggests that apparently arbitrary aspects of linguistic structure may result from general learning and processing biases, independent of language. We illustrate how this framework can integrate evidence from different literatures and methodologies to explain core linguistic phenomena, including binding constraints, word order universals, and diachronic language change.} } @article{christiansen99towardA, author={M. H. Christiansen and N. Chater}, title={Toward a connectionist model of recursion in human linguistic performance}, journal={Cognitive Science}, year={1999}, volume={23}, number={2}, pages={157-205}, doi={10.1207/s15516709cog2302_2}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/christiansen99towardA.html}, abstract={Naturally occurring speech contains only a limited amount of complex recursive structure, and this is reflected in the empirically documented difficulties that people experience when processing such structures. We present a connectionist model of human performance in processing recursive language structures. The model is trained on simple artificial languages. We find that the qualitative performance profile of the model matches human behavior, both on the relative difficulty of center-embedding and cross-dependency, and between the processing of these complex recursive structures and right-branching recursive constructions. We analyze how these differences in performance are reflected in the internal representations of the model by performing discriminant analyses on these representations both before and after training. Furthermore, we show how a network trained to process recursive structures can also generate such structures in a probabilistic fashion. This work suggests a novel explanation of people's limited recursive performance, without assuming the existence of a mentally represented competence grammar allowing unbounded recursion.} } @article{christiansen94generalizationAnd, author={M. H. Christiansen and N. Chater}, title={Generalization and connectionist language learning}, journal={Mind and Language}, year={1994}, volume={9}, pages={273-287}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/christiansen94generalizationAnd.html} } @incollection{christiansen05ACEchapter, author={Morten H. Christiansen and Christopher M. Conway and Suzanne Curtin}, title={Multiple-cue integration in language acquisition: A connectionist model of speech segmentation and rule-like behavior}, year={2005}, month={July}, editor={James W. Minett and William S.-Y. Wang}, publisher={City University of Hong Kong Press}, booktitle={Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/christiansen05ACEchapter.html} } @incollection{Christiansen_dale_RoleOfLearning, author={M. H. Christiansen and R. Dale}, title={The Role of Learning and Development in Language Evolution: A Connectionist Perspective}, year={2004}, pages={91-109}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={Cambridge MA: MIT Press}, booktitle={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Christiansen_dale_RoleOfLearning.html} } @incollection{christiansen03lang-evo-change, author={Morten H. Christiansen and Rick Dale}, title={Language evolution and change}, year={2003}, pages={604-606}, editor={M.A. Arbib}, publisher={Cambridge, MA: MIT Press}, booktitle={Handbook of brain theory and neural networks (2nd ed.)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/christiansen03langevochange.html} } @incollection{christiansen01theRole, author={Morten H. Christiansen and Rick Dale and Michelle R. Ellefson and Christopher M. Conway}, title={The role of sequential learning in language evolution: Computational and experimental studies}, year={2002}, pages={165-188}, address={London}, chapter={8}, editor={Angelo Cangelosi and Domenico Parisi}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Simulating the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/christiansen01theRole.html} } @inproceedings{christiansen97recursiveInconsistencies, author={M. H. Christiansen and J. T. Devlin}, title={Recursive inconsistencies are hard to learn: A connectionist perspective on universal word order correlations}, year={1997}, month={August}, pages={113-118}, address={Mahwah, NJ}, publisher={Lawrence Erlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/christiansen97recursiveInconsistencies.html} } @incollection{christiansen02linguisticAdaptation, author={Morten H. Christiansen and Michelle R. Ellefson}, title={Linguistic Adaptation Without Linguistic Constraints: The Role of Sequential Learning in Language Evolution}, year={2002}, address={Oxford}, chapter={16}, editor={Alison Wray}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={The Transition to Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/christiansen02linguisticAdaptation.html}, abstract={Introduction

The acquisition and processing of language is governed by a number of universal constraints, many of which undoubtedly derive from innate properties of the human brain. These constraints lead to certain universal tendencies in how languages are structured and used. More generally, the constraints help explain why the languages of the world take up only a small part of the considerably larger space de. ned by the logically possible linguistic subpatterns. Although there is broad consensus about the existence of innate constraints on the way language is acquired and processed, there is much disagreement over whether these constraints are linguistic or cognitive in nature. Determining the nature of these constraints is important not only for theories of language acquisition and processing, but also for theories of language evolution. Indeed, these issues are theoretically intertwined because the constraints on language define the endpoints for evolutionary explanations: theories about how the constraints evolved in the hominid lineage are thus strongly determined by what the nature of these constraints is taken to be.

The Chomskyan approach to language suggests that the constraints on the acquisition and processing of language are linguistic, rather than cognitive, in nature. Th e constraints are represented in the form of a Universal Grammar (UG)—a large biological endowment of linguistic knowledge (e.g. Chomsky 1986). It is assumed that this knowledge-base is highly abstract, comprising a complex set of linguistic rules and principles that could not be acquired from exposure to language during development. Opinions differ about how UG emerged as the endpoint of language evolution. Some researchers have suggested that it evolved through a gradual process of natural selection (e.g., Newmeyer 1991; Pinker 1994; Pinker and Bloom 1990), whereas others have argued for a sudden emergence through non-adaptationist evolutionary processes (e.g., Bickerton 1995; Piattelli-Palmarini 1989). An important point of agreement is the emphasis in their explanations of language evolution on the need for very substantial biological changes to accommodate linguistic structure.

More recently an alternative perspective is gaining ground, advocating a refocus in thinking about language evolution. Rather than concentrating on biological changes to accommodate language, this approach stresses the adaptation of linguistic structures to the biological substrate of the human brain (e.g., Batali 1998; Christiansen 1994; Christiansen and Devlin 1997; Deacon 1997; Kirby 1998, 2000, 2001). Languages are viewed as dynamic systems of communication, subject to selection pressures arising from limitations on human learning and processing. Some approaches within this framework have built in a certain amount of linguistic machinery, such as context-free grammars (Kirby 2000). In this chapter we argue that many of the constraints on linguistic adaptation derive from non-linguistic limitations on the learning and processing of hierarchically organized sequential structure. Th ese mechanisms existed prior to the appearance of language, but presumably also underwent changes aft er the emergence of language. However, the selection pressures are likely to have come not only from language but also from other kinds of complex hierarchical processing, such as the need for increasingly complex manual combinations following tool sophistication. Consequently, many language universals may re. ect nonlinguistic, cognitive constraints on learning and processing of sequential structure rather than an innate UG.} } @incollection{christiansen03introductionHow, author={Morten H. Christiansen and Simon Kirby}, title={Language Evolution: The Hardest Problem in Science?}, year={2003}, editor={M.H. Christiansen and S. Kirby}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Evolution: The States of the Art}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/christiansen03introductionHow.html} } @book{christiansen-kirby-2003-editedbook, title={Language Evolution: The States of the Art}, year={2003}, editor={M. H. Christiansen and S. Kirby}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/christiansenkirby2003editedbook.html} } @article{christiansen03trends, author={Morten H. Christiansen and Simon Kirby}, title={Language Evolution: Consensus and Controversies}, journal={Trends in Cognitive Sciences}, year={2003}, month={7}, volume={7}, number={7}, pages={300-307}, doi={10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00136-0}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/christiansen03trends.html}, abstract={Why is language the way it is? How did language come to be this way? And why is our species alone in having complex language? These are old unsolved questions that have seen a renaissance in the dramatic recent growth in research being published on the origins and evolution of human language. This review provides a broad overview of some of the important current work in this area. We highlight new methodologies (such as computational modeling), emerging points of consensus (such as the importance of pre-adaptation), and the major remaining controversies (such as gestural origins of language). We also discuss why language evolution is such a difficult problem, and suggest probable directions research may take in the near future.} } @inproceedings{Christiansen06BaldwinEffect, author={Morten H. Christiansen and Florencia Reali and Nick Chater}, title={The Baldwin effect works for functional, but not arbitrary, features of language}, year={2006}, pages={27-34}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Christiansen06BaldwinEffect.html}, abstract={Human languages are characterized by a number of universal patterns of structure and use. Theories differ on whether such linguistic universals are best understood as arbitrary features of an innate language acquisition device or functional features deriving from cognitive and communicative constraints. From the viewpoint of language evolution, it is important to explain how such features may have originated. We use computational simulations to investigate the circumstances under which universal linguistic constraints might get genetically fixed in a population of language learning agents. Specifically, we focus on the Baldwin effect as an evolutionary mechanism by which previously learned linguistic features might become innate through natural selection across many generations of language learners. The results indicate that under assumptions of linguistic change, only functional, but not arbitrary, features of language can become genetically fixed.} } @book{clark93theLexicon, author={E. Clark}, title={The Lexicon in Acquisition}, year={1993}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/clark93theLexicon.html} } @incollection{clark87thePrinciple, author={E. Clark}, title={The principle of contrast: A constraint on language acquisition}, year={1987}, pages={1-33}, address={Hillsdale, NJ}, editor={B. MacWhinney}, publisher={Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc.}, booktitle={Mechanisms of language acquisition}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/clark87thePrinciple.html} } @article{clark93aComputational, author={R. Clark and I. Roberts}, title={A Computational Model of Language Learnability and Language Change}, journal={Linguistic Inquiry}, year={1993}, volume={24}, pages={299-345}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/clark93aComputational.html} } @article{cohen08geneticsOfLanguage, author={Jon Cohen}, title={The Genetics of Language}, journal={Technology Review}, year={2008}, month={January}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cohen08geneticsOfLanguage.html}, abstract={Researchers are beginning to crack the code that gives humans our way with words.} } @techreport{cohen00learningConcepts, author={Paul R. Cohen}, title={Learning Concepts by Interaction}, year={2000}, institution={Computer Science Department, University of Massachusetts at Amherst}, note={Technical Report 00-52}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cohen00learningConcepts.html} } @techreport{cohen98growingOntologies, author={Paul R. Cohen}, title={Growing Ontologies}, year={1998}, institution={Computer Science Department, University of Massachusetts at Amherst}, note={Technical Report 98-20}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cohen98growingOntologies.html} } @article{collier04sensorNetworks, author={Travis C. Collier and Charles E. Taylor}, title={Self-organization in sensor networks}, journal={Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing}, year={2004}, month={July}, volume={64}, number={7}, pages={866-873}, doi={10.1016/j.jpdc.2003.12.004}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/collier04sensorNetworks.html}, keywords={Self-organization; Sensor networks}, abstract={In an effort to better guide research into self-configuring wireless sensor networks, we discuss a technical definition of the term self-organization. We define a self-organizing system as one where a collection of units coordinate with each other to form a system that adapts to achieve a goal more efficiently. We then lay out some conditions that must hold for a system to meet this definition and discuss some examples of self-organizing systems. Finally, we explore some of the ways this definition applies to wireless sensor networks.} } @inproceedings{colunga98linguisticRelativity, author={Eliana Colunga and M. Gasser}, title={Linguistic Relativity and Word Acquisition: A Computational Approach}, year={1998}, pages={244-249}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/colunga98linguisticRelativity.html} } @incollection{comrie92beforeComplexity, author={Bernard Comrie}, title={Before Complexity}, year={1992}, address={Reading, MA}, editor={Hawkins, John A. and Murray Gell-Mann}, publisher={Addison-Wesley}, booktitle={The Evolution of Human Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/comrie92beforeComplexity.html} } @incollection{comrie05grammaticalStructures, author={Bernard Comrie and Tania Kuteva}, title={The Evolution of Grammatical Structures and 'Functional Need' Explanations}, year={2005}, chapter={9}, editor={Maggie Tallerman}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/comrie05grammaticalStructures.html} } @article{conway01sequentialLearning, author={Christopher M. Conway and Morten H. Christiansen}, title={Sequential learning in non-human primates}, journal={Trends in Cognitive Sciences}, year={2001}, volume={5}, number={12}, pages={539-546}, doi={10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01800-3}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/conway01sequentialLearning.html}, keywords={sequential learning; fixed sequences; statistical learning; hierarchical structure; primate learning}, abstract={Sequential learning plays a role in a variety of common tasks, such as human language processing, animal communication, and the learning of action sequences. In this article, we investigate sequential learning in non-human primates from a comparative perspective, focusing on three areas: the learning of arbitrary, fixed sequences; statistical learning; and the learning of hierarchical structure. Although primates exhibit many similarities to humans in their performance on sequence learning tasks, there are also important differences. Crucially, non-human primates appear to be limited in their ability to learn and represent the hierarchical structure of sequences. We consider the evolutionary implications of these differences and suggest that limitations in sequential learning may help explain why non-human primates lack human-like language.} } @incollection{corballis03fromHandToMouth, author={M. C. Corballis}, title={From hand to mouth: The gestural origins of language}, year={2003}, editor={M.H. Christiansen and S. Kirby}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Evolution: The States of the Art}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/corballis03fromHandToMouth.html} } @incollection{corballis02didLanguage, author={Michael C. Corballis}, title={Did Language Evolve from Manual Gestures?}, year={2002}, address={Oxford}, chapter={8}, editor={Alison Wray}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={The Transition to Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/corballis02didLanguage.html} } @book{corballis02fromHand, author={Michael C. Corballis}, title={From Hand to Mouth: The Origins of Language}, year={2002}, publisher={Princeton University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/corballis02fromHand.html} } @article{corballis92cognition, author={M. C. Corballis}, title={On the evolution of language and generativity}, journal={Cognition}, year={1992}, month={September}, volume={44}, number={3}, pages={197--126}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/corballis92cognition.html}, abstract={One of the properties that most conspicuously distinguishes human language from any other form of animal communication is generativity. Language with this property therefore presumably evolved with the Homo line somewhere between H. habilis and H. sapiens sapiens. Some have suggested that it emerged relatively suddenly and completely with H. sapiens sapiens, and this view is consistent with (a) linguistic estimates as to when vocal language emerged, (b) the relatively late 'explosion' of manufacture and cultural artifacts such as body ornamentation and cave drawings, and (c) evidence on changes in the vocal apparatus. However, evidence on brain size and developmental patterns of growth suggests an earlier origin and a more continuous evolution. I propose that these scenarios can be reconciled if it is supposed that generative language evolved, perhaps from H. habilis on, as a system of manual gestures, but switched to a predominantly vocal system with H. sapiens sapiens. The subsequent 'cultural explosion' can then be attributed to the freeing of the hands from primary involvement in language, so that they could be exploited, along with generativity, for manufacture, art, and other activities.} } @article{corominas06languageGame, author={Bernat Corominas and Ricard V. Sole}, title={Network topology and self-consistency in language games}, journal={Journal of Theoretical Biology}, year={2006}, month={July}, volume={241}, number={2}, pages={438-441}, doi={10.1016/j.jtbi.2005.11.025}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/corominas06languageGame.html} } @incollection{coupe05polygenesis, author={Christophe Coupe and Jean-Marie Hombert}, title={Polygenesis of Linguistic Strategies: A Scenario for the Emergence of Languages}, year={2005}, month={July}, editor={James W. Minett and William S.-Y. Wang}, publisher={City University of Hong Kong Press}, booktitle={Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/coupe05polygenesis.html}, abstract={On the one hand, numerous hypotheses have been put forward to account for the emergence of language during the last million years of human evolution. On the other hand, a large majority of linguists considers that nothing can be said about past languages before 8,000 or 10,000 years in the past, given our current knowledge on modern languages. A large gap obviously separates such approaches and conceptions, and has to be crossed to provide a better account of the development of our communicative system. To partially bridge the gap between the former domains, we aim at proposing a plausible scenario for the emergence of languages, with an emphasis on the development of linguistic diversity. The present study will address the question of the monogenesis or polygenesis of modern languages, which is often implicitly biased toward the first hypothesis. Probabilistic and computational models, as well as palaeo-demographic data and evolutionary considerations, will constitute the key points of our proposals.} } @inproceedings{coventry02puttingGeometry, author={K. R. Coventry and A. Cangelosi and D. W. Joyce and L. Richards}, title={Putting Geometry and Function Together - Towards a Psychologically-Plausible Computational Model for Spatial Language Comprehension}, year={2002}, address={Virginia, US}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Twenty-fourth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/coventry02puttingGeometry.html} } @inproceedings{coventry04SCC, author={K. R. Coventry and A. Cangelosi and R. Rajapakse and A. Bacon and S. Newstead and D. Joyce and L. V. Richards}, title={Spatial prepositions and vague quantifiers: Implementing the functional geometric framework}, year={2005}, address={Germany}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Proceedings of Spatial Cognition Conference 2004}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/coventry04SCC.html} } @article{crespi07FOXP2, author={Bernard J. Crespi}, title={Sly FOXP2: genomic conflict in the evolution of language}, journal={Trends in Ecology and Evolution}, year={2007}, month={April}, volume={22}, number={4}, pages={174--175}, doi={10.1016/j.tree.2007.01.007}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/crespi07FOXP2.html} } @article{croft02languageDarwinization, author={William Croft}, title={The Darwinization of Linguistics}, journal={Selection}, year={2002}, month={November}, volume={3}, number={1}, pages={75-91}, doi={10.1556/Select.3.2002.1.7}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/croft02languageDarwinization.html}, keywords={Linguistics, language change, evolution, selection, replicator}, abstract={Linguistics and evolutionary biology have substantially diverged until recently. The chief reason for this divergence was the dominance of essentialist thinking in linguistics during the twentieth century. Croft (2000) describes a thoroughgoing application of Hull's (1988) generalized theory of selection to language change. In this model, tokens of linguistic structure in utterances (`linguemes') are replicators and speakers are interactors. Current debates in the philosophy of evolutionary biology (e.g. Sterelny and Griffiths, 1999) are then applied to language change. Hull's generalized theory is post-synthesis: it recognizes a distinction between replicator and interactor and is independent of levels of biological organization. Biological issues such as mechanisms of inheritance (e.g. Lamarckism) and of selection (e.g. intentional behavior) are simply irrelevant to the generalized theory of selection outside biology. However, there are many striking parallels between biological evolution and language change that are likely to be consequences of the generalized theory of selection, including flexibility of adaptation to the environment, emergent structure, evolutionary conservatism, vestigial traits, exaptation, and the absence of ``progress''. The evolutionary theory of language change is not evolutionary psychology, but it is mimetics; this approach is defended against Sterelny and Griffith's criticisms.} } @book{croft00book, author={William Croft}, title={Explaining Language Change: An Evolutionary Approach}, year={2000}, publisher={London: Longman}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/croft00book.html} } @incollection{crow02protocadherinXy, author={T. J. Crow}, title={Protocadherin XY: A Candidate Gene for Cerebral Asymmetry and Language}, year={2002}, address={Oxford}, chapter={5}, editor={Alison Wray}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={The Transition to Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/crow02protocadherinXy.html} } @mastersthesis{crumpton94evolutionOf, author={Joseph J. Crumpton}, title={Evolution of Two Symbol Signals by Simulated Organisms}, year={1994}, month={December}, school={}, note={This thesis reports experiments on the factors promoting or inhibiting the evolution of simulated organisms using strings of length 2 for communication. The simulation program is also available.}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/crumpton94evolutionOf.html} } @article{cucker03, author={Felipe Cucker and Steve Smale and Ding-Xuan Zhou}, title={Modeling Language Evolution}, journal={Foundations of Computational Mathematics}, year={2004}, month={July}, volume={4}, number={3}, pages={315-343}, doi={10.1007/s10208-003-0101-2}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cucker03.html}, keywords={Language evolution,Learning theory}, abstract={We describe a model for the evolution of the languages used by the agents of a society. Our main result proves convergence of these langua ges to a common one under certain conditions. A few special cases are elaborated in more depth.} } @article{culicover06simplerSyntaxHypothesis, author={Peter W. Culicover and Ray Jackendoff}, title={The simpler syntax hypothesis.}, journal={Trends in Cognitive Sciences}, year={2006}, month={Sep}, volume={10}, number={9}, pages={413--418}, doi={10.1016/j.tics.2006.07.007}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/culicover06simplerSyntaxHypothesis.html}, keywords={Comprehension; Humans; Language; Psycholinguistics; Semantics; Thinking}, abstract={What roles do syntax and semantics have in the grammar of a language? What are the consequences of these roles for syntactic structure, and why does it matter? We sketch the Simpler Syntax Hypothesis, which holds that much of the explanatory role attributed to syntax in contemporary linguistics is properly the responsibility of semantics. This rebalancing permits broader coverage of empirical linguistic phenomena and promises a tighter integration of linguistic theory into the cognitive scientific enterprise. We suggest that the general perspective of the Simpler Syntax Hypothesis is well suited to approaching language processing and language evolution, and to computational applications that draw upon linguistic insights.} } @techreport{curran02techreport, author={Dara Curran and Colm O'Riordan}, title={Language Evolution In Artificial Systems}, year={2002}, institution={Dept. of IT., NUI, Galway}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/curran02techreport.html} } @mastersthesis{dai02locality, author={Wenjing Dai}, title={Locality as a Stabilizing Factor for Evolving Language Systems}, year={2002}, school={Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dai02locality.html} } @inproceedings{daland07socialNetworkRussian, author={Robert Daland and Andrea D. Sims and Janet Pierrehumbert}, title={Much ado about nothing: A social network model of Russian paradigmatic gaps}, year={2007}, pages={936-943}, address={Prague, Czech Republic}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/daland07socialNetworkRussian.html}, abstract={A number of Russian verbs lack 1sg non-past forms. These paradigmatic gaps are puzzling because they seemingly contradict the highly productive nature of inflectional systems. We model the persistence and spread of Russian gaps via a multi-agent model with Bayesian learning. We ran three simulations: no grammar learning, learning with arbitrary analogical pressure, and morphophonologically conditioned learning. We compare the results to the attested historical development of the gaps. Contradicting previous accounts, we propose that the persistence of gaps can be explained in the absence of synchronic competition between forms.} } @article{dallasta06microscopicPatterns, author={Luca Dall'Asta and Andrea Baronchelli}, title={Microscopic activity patterns in the Naming Game}, journal={Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General}, year={2006}, month={12}, volume={39}, number={48}, pages={14851-14867}, doi={10.1088/0305-4470/39/48/002}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dallasta06microscopicPatterns.html}, abstract={The models of statistical physics used to study collective phenomena in some interdisciplinary contexts, such as social dynamics and opinion spreading, do not consider the effects of the memory on individual decision processes. On the contrary, in the Naming Game, a recently proposed model of Language formation, each agent chooses a particular state, or opinion, by means of a memory-based negotiation process, during which a variable number of states is collected and kept in memory. In this perspective, the statistical features of the number of states collected by the agents becomes a relevant quantity to understand the dynamics of the model, and the influence of topological properties on memory-based models. By means of a master equation approach, we analyze the internal agent dynamics of Naming Game in populations embedded on networks, finding that it strongly depends on very general topological properties of the system (e.g. average and fluctuations of the degree). However, the influence of topological properties on the microscopic individual dynamics is a general phenomenon that should characterize all those social interactions that can be modeled by memory-based negotiation processes.} } @article{dallasta06agreementDynamicsSmallWorld, author={L. Dall'Asta and A. Baronchelli and A. Barrat and V. Loreto}, title={Agreement dynamics on small-world networks}, journal={Europhysics Letters}, year={2006}, volume={73}, number={6}, pages={969-975}, doi={10.1209/epl/i2005-10481-7}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dallasta06agreementDynamicsSmallWorld.html}, abstract={In this paper we analyze the effect of a non-trivial topology on the dynamics of the so-called Naming Game, a recently introduced model which addresses the issue of how shared conventions emerge spontaneously in a population of agents. We consider in particular the small-world topology and study the convergence towards the global agreement as a function of the population size $N$ as well as of the parameter $p$ which sets the rate of rewiring leading to the small-world network. As long as $p \gg 1/N$ there exists a crossover time scaling as $N/p^2$ which separates an early one-dimensional-like dynamics from a late stage mean-field-like behavior. At the beginning of the process, the local quasi one-dimensional topology induces a coarsening dynamics which allows for a minimization of the cognitive effort (memory) required to the agents. In the late stages, on the other hand, the mean-field like topology leads to a speed up of the convergence process with respect to the one-dimensional case.} } @article{dallasta06languageGamesNetworks, author={Luca Dall'Asta and Andrea Baronchelli and Alain Barrat and Vittorio Loreto}, title={Non-equilibrium dynamics of language games on complex networks}, journal={Physical Review E}, year={2006}, volume={74}, pages={036105}, doi={10.1103/PhysRevE%2E74%2E036105}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dallasta06languageGamesNetworks.html}, abstract={The Naming Game is a model of non-equilibrium dynamics for the self-organized emergence of a linguistic convention or a communication system in a population of agents with pairwise local interactions. We present an extensive study of its dynamics on complex networks, that can be considered as the most natural topological embedding for agents involved in language games and opinion dynamics. Except for some community structured networks on which metastable phases can be observed, agents playing the Naming Game always manage to reach a global consensus. This convergence is obtained after a time generically scaling with the population's size $N$ as $t\_{conv} \sim N^{1.4 \pm 0.1}$, i.e. much faster than for agents embedded on regular lattices. Moreover, the memory capacity required by the system scales only linearly with its size. Particular attention is given to heterogenous networks, in which the dynamical activity pattern of a node depends on its degree. High degree nodes have a fundamental role, but require larger memory capacity. They govern the dynamics acting as spreaders of (linguistic) conventions. The effects of other properties, such as the average degree and the clustering, are also discussed.} } @article{dautenhahn01narrativeIntelligence, author={Kerstin Dautenhahn and Steven J. Coles}, title={Narrative Intelligence from the Bottom Up: A Computational Framework for the Study of Story-Telling in Autonomous Agents}, journal={Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation}, year={2001}, volume={4}, number={1}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dautenhahn01narrativeIntelligence.html}, abstract={This paper addresses Narrative Intelligence from a bottom up, Artificial Life perspective. First, different levels of narrative intelligence are discussed in the context of human and robotic story-tellers. Then, we introduce a computational framework which is based on minimal definitions of stories, story-telling and autobiographic agents. An experimental test-bed is described which is applied to the study of story-telling, using robotic agents as examples of situated, autonomous minimal agents. Experimental data are provided which support the working hypothesis that story-telling can be advantageous, i.e. increases the survival of an autonomous, autobiographic, minimal agent. We conclude this paper by discussing implications of this approach for story-telling in humans and artifacts.} } @incollection{davidson03theArchaeological, author={Iain Davidson}, title={The archaeological evidence of language origins: States of the art}, year={2003}, editor={M.H. Christiansen and S. Kirby}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Evolution: The States of the Art}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/davidson03theArchaeological.html} } @incollection{davidson02theFinished, author={Iain Davidson}, title={The 'Finished Artefact Fallacy': Acheulean Handaxes and Language Origins}, year={2002}, address={Oxford}, chapter={9}, editor={Alison Wray}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={The Transition to Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/davidson02theFinished.html} } @incollection{davidson99nameGame, author={Iain Davidson}, title={The Game of the Name: Continuity and Discontinuity in Language Origins}, year={1999}, chapter={7}, editor={Barbara J. King}, publisher={School of American Research Press}, booktitle={The Origins of Language: What Nonhuman Primates Can Tell Us}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/davidson99nameGame.html} } @incollection{deacon03univeralGrammar, author={Terrence W. Deacon}, title={Universal Grammar and semiotic constraints}, year={2003}, editor={M.H. Christiansen and S. Kirby}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Evolution: The States of the Art}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/deacon03univeralGrammar.html} } @article{deacon00jcd, author={Terrence W. Deacon}, title={Evolutionary perspectives on language and brain plasticity}, journal={Journal of Communication Disorders}, year={2000}, volume={33}, number={4}, pages={273-291}, doi={10.1016/S0021-9924(00)00025-3}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/deacon00jcd.html}, keywords={Evolution; Speech; Language; Neuroanatomy}, abstract={Our understanding of speech and language disorders may be aided by information about the constraints and predispositions contributed by neural developmental processes. As soon as we begin to look at human neuroanatomy and development from a comparative perspective, it is possible to recognize a number of ways that human brains diverge from the general pattern of other ape and monkey brains. These divergences may offer clues to language evolution. Large-scale quantitative changes in the relative proportions of brain regions (as opposed to just overall expansion) offer some of the most obvious clues. Additional information about how axons are guided in their extensions to distant developmental targets and how competitive trophic processes sculpt these connections also provides a way to understand how gross quantitative changes in cell numbers could affect circuit organization and ultimately behavior.} } @book{deacon97theSymbolic, author={Terrence W. Deacon}, title={The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain}, year={1997}, publisher={W.W. Norton}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/deacon97theSymbolic.html} } @incollection{deacon92brainLanguage, author={Terrence W. Deacon}, title={Brain-Language Coevolution}, year={1992}, address={Reading, MA}, editor={Hawkins, John A. and Murray Gell-Mann}, series={SFI Studies in the Sciences of Complexity}, publisher={Addison-Wesley}, booktitle={The Evolution of Human Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/deacon92brainLanguage.html} } @inproceedings{dediu06evolang, author={Dan Dediu}, title={Mostly out of Africa, but what did the others have to say?}, year={2006}, pages={59-66}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dediu06evolang.html}, abstract={The Recent Out-of-Africa human evolutionary model seems to be generally accepted. This impression is very prevalent outside palaeoanthropological circles (including studies of language evolution), but proves to be unwarranted. This paper offers a short review of the main challenges facing ROA and concludes that alternative models based on the concept of metapopulation must be also considered. The implications of such a model for language evolution and diversity are briefly reviewed.} } @article{dediu07linguisticTonePNAS, author={Dan Dediu and D. Robert Ladd}, title={Linguistic tone is related to the population frequency of the adaptive haplogroups of two brain size genes, ASPM and Microcephalin}, journal={PNAS}, year={2007}, month={June}, volume={104}, number={26}, pages={10944-10949}, doi={10.1073/pnas.0610848104}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dediu07linguisticTonePNAS.html}, keywords={learning biases,tone language,linguistic typology,cultural transmission}, abstract={The correlations between interpopulation genetic and linguistic diversities are mostly noncausal (spurious), being due to historical processes and geographical factors that shape them in similar ways. Studies of such correlations usually consider allele frequencies and linguistic groupings (dialects, languages, linguistic families or phyla), sometimes controlling for geographic, topographic, or ecological factors. Here, we consider the relation between allele frequencies and linguistic typological features. Specifically, we focus on the derived haplogroups of the brain growth and development-related genes ASPM and Microcephalin, which show signs of natural selection and a marked geographic structure, and on linguistic tone, the use of voice pitch to convey lexical or grammatical distinctions. We hypothesize that there is a relationship between the population frequency of these two alleles and the presence of linguistic tone and test this hypothesis relative to a large database (983 alleles and 26 linguistic features in 49 populations), showing that it is not due to the usual explanatory factors represented by geography and history. The relationship between genetic and linguistic diversity in this case may be causal: certain alleles can bias language acquisition or processing and thereby influence the trajectory of language change through iterated cultural transmission.} } @inproceedings{demolin06evolang, author={Didier Demolin and Veronique Delvaux}, title={A comparison of the articulatory parameters involved in the production of sound of bonobos and modern humans}, year={2006}, pages={67-74}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/demolin06evolang.html}, abstract={Most studies of vocalizations with chimpanzees and Bonobos focus on the interpretation of the vocal behaviour of both captive and free-ranging groups to relate sounds produced to their semantic contexts. Spectrographic analyses reveal the acoustic structure of the vocalizations but rarely raise the question of the specific articulatory capacities of Bonobos in relation to the acoustics. This point is essential if one wants to understand the articulatory control that Bonobos have on their vocalizations. It is also important when the vocalizations of Bonobos and the sound produced by modern humans are compared.} } @article{demolin01theRole, author={D. Demolin and A. Soquet}, title={The role of self-organisation in the emergence of phonological systems}, journal={Evolution of Communication}, year={1999}, volume={3}, number={1}, pages={21-48}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/demolin01theRole.html}, abstract={The origin of phonological systems is examined from the paradigm of self-organization. We claim that phonological systems could have emerged as the product of self-organizing processes. Self-organization may have facilitated the evolution of structures within the sounds that humans were able to produce. One of the main points of the paper concerns the identification of the processes which could account for the self-organized behavior of sound systems used in languages spoken by humans. In this paradigm, phonological systems or sound patterns of human languages are emergent properties of these systems rather than properties imposed by some external influence. Regulations are defined as the constraints that adjust the rate of production of the elements of a system to the state of the system and of relevant environmental variables. The main operators of these adjustments are feedback loops. Two types of processes can be distinguished in regulatory networks, homeostatic and epigenetic. Since the origin of sound patterns, of human languages, is in the vocal tract constraints, we make the hypothesis that sound change does not reflect any adaptive character but rather is the phonetic modality of differentiation understood as epigenetic regulation.} } @inproceedings{dessalles06generalisedSignalling, author={Jean-Louis Dessalles}, title={Generalised signalling: a possible solution to the paradox of language}, year={2006}, pages={75-82}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dessalles06generalisedSignalling.html}, abstract={The systematic and universal communicative behaviour that drives human beings to give honest information to conspecifics during long-lasting conversational episodes still represents a Darwinian paradox. Attempts to solve it by comparing conversation with a mere reciprocal cooperative information exchange is at odds with the reality of spontaneous language use. The Costly Signalling Theory has recently attracted attention as a tentative explanation of the evolutionary stability of language. Unfortunately, it makes the wrong prediction that only elite individuals would talk. I show that as far as social bonding is assortative in our species, generalised signalling through language becomes a viable strategy to attract allies.} } @incollection{dessalles00languageAnd, author={J-L. Dessalles}, title={Language and hominid politics}, year={2000}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Chris Knight and James R. Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dessalles00languageAnd.html}, abstract={Language is the main distinctive feature of our species. Why do we feel the urge to communicate with our fellows, and why is this form of communication, characterised by relevance, unique in animal kingdom ? In this chapter, we will first stress this specificity of human communication. In a second part, using computer evolutionary simulations, we will dismiss the usual claim that human communication is a specific form of reciprocal cooperation. A Darwinian account of language requires that we find a selective advantage in the communication act. We will propose, in the third part of this chapter, that such an advantage can be found if we consider language activity in the broader frame of human social organisation. In the continuation of the 'chimpanzee politics' studied by de Waal (1982), the ability to form large coalitions must have been an essential feature of hominid societies (Dunbar 1996). We will suggest that relevant speech originated in this context, as a way for individuals to select each other to form alliances.} } @article{dessalles99coalitionFactor, author={J-L. Dessalles}, title={Coalition factor in the evolution of non-kin altruism}, journal={Advances in complex systems}, year={1999}, volume={2}, number={2}, pages={143-172}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dessalles99coalitionFactor.html}, abstract={Animal behavior is often altruistic. In the frame of the theory of natural selection, altruism can only exist under specific conditions like kin selection or reciprocal cooperation. We show that reciprocal cooperation, which is generally invoked to explain non-kin altruism, requires very restrictive conditions to be evolutionary stable. Some of these conditions are not met in many cases of altruism observed in nature. In the search of another explanation of non-kin altruism, we consider Zahavis's theory of prestige. We extend it to propose a 'political' model of altruism. We give evidence showing that non-kin altruism can evolve in the context of inter-subgroup competition. Under such circumstances, altruistic behavior can be used by individuals to advertise their quality as efficient coalition members. In this model, only abilities which positively correlate with the subgroup success can evolve into altruistic behaviors.} } @incollection{dessalles98altruismStatus, author={J-L. Dessalles}, title={Altruism, status, and the origin of relevance}, year={1998}, pages={130-147}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dessalles98altruismStatus.html}, keywords={relevance, evolution, status, pragmatics, conversation, argumentation, altruism}, abstract={We deal here with the problem of the origin of language from the point of view of pragmatics. Our aim is to show that any scenario of language origin should explain the relevance phenomenon. Why do people feel obliged to be relevant in casual conversation ? Analysing the structure of relevance leads to unexpected conclusions : relevant information is valuable, therefore language seems to be altruistic. As a consequence, from a Darwinian perspective, speakers should be rare and continually prompted for their knowledge. What we observe, however, is the exact opposite : in many situations, speakers repeatedly strive to make their point, while listeners systematically evaluate what they hear. A possible solution to this paradox is that language is not altruistic and that relevant information is traded for status. The observation of spontaneous conversation provides some evidence that supports such a hypothesis.} } @incollection{dewar06phylogeneticMethods, author={Robert E. Dewar}, title={Malagasy Language as a Guide to Understanding Malagasy History}, year={2006}, pages={11-}, chapter={1}, editor={Peter Forster and Colin Renfrew}, publisher={}, booktitle={Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dewar06phylogeneticMethods.html} } @incollection{debeule05construc_time, author={Joachim De Beule}, title={Simulating the syntax and semantics of linguistic constructions about time}, year={2006}, address={Dordrecht}, editor={Gontier, Nathalie and van Bendegem, Jean Paul and Aerts, Diederik}, series={Theory and Decision Library - Series A: Philosophy and Methodology of the Social Sciences}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Evolutionary Epistemology, Language and Culture - A non-adaptationist, systems theoretical approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/debeule05construc_time.html}, abstract={In this paper we motivate and report on the implementation of a computer experiment to investigate the syntax and semantics of linguistic constructions about time. It is argued that the way in which a domain like time is conceptualized is not universal and evolves over time. To investigate this we want to simulate a population of agents evolving their proper language and ontology of time in order to succeed in communicating temporal information. Such simulations can be done using a formalism proposed by Steels (2004). Some advances in applying the formalism to the domain of time are reported and examples of actual simulations are presented.} } @inproceedings{debeule04timeOntology, author={Joachim De Beule}, title={Creating Temporal Categories for an Ontology of Time}, year={2004}, pages={107-114}, editor={Rineke Verbrugge and Niels Taatgen and Lambert Schomaker}, booktitle={BNAIC-04}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/debeule04timeOntology.html}, abstract={A mechanism is described that enables a robotic agent to create temporal categories for conceptualizing the world. The creation of a new category is triggered when the agent is unable to temporally distinguish an event from the other events in the context using already adopted categories. This is different from most other approaches where ontological categories are defined by humans and the ontologies are fixed in advance.} } @inproceedings{debeule06compositionality, author={Joachim De Beule and Benjamin K. Bergen}, title={On the emergence of compositionality}, year={2006}, pages={35-42}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/debeule06compositionality.html}, abstract={Compositionality is a hallmark of human language - words and morphemes can be factorially combined to produce a seemingly limitless number of viable strings. This contrasts with nonhuman communication systems, which for the most part are holistic - encoding a whole message through a single, gestalt form. Why does every human language adopt a compositional strategy? In this paper, we show that compositional language can arise automatically through grounded communication among populations of communicators. The proposed mechanism is the following: if a holistic and a compositional approach are in competition and if both structured (compositional) and atomic meanings need to be communicated, the holistic strategy becomes less successful as it does not recruit already acquired bits of language. We demonstrate the viability of this explanation through computer simulations in which populations of artificial agents perform a communicative task - describing scenes that they have observed. Successful language strategies (that is, those yielding successful transmission of information about a scene) are reinforced while unsuccessful ones are demoted. The simulations show that this reinforcement on the basis of communicative success indeed leads to the dominance of compositional language as long as the fraction of unstructured meaning to be communicated is sufficiently high. Moreover, following Elman (1993), we then show that the same effect can be achieved by, instead of manipulating the world (the fraction of unstructured meaning presented to the agents), letting the agents themselves go through developmental stages. These simulations confirm that simple reinforcement mechanisms applied during communicative interactions can account for the emergence of linguistic compositionality.} } @inproceedings{joachim05hierar_fluid_construc_gramm, author={Joachim De Beule and Luc Steels}, title={Hierarchy in Fluid Construction Grammar}, year={2005}, number={3698}, pages={1-15}, address={Berlin}, editor={Furbach U.}, series={Lecture Notes in AI}, publisher={Springer-Verlag}, booktitle={Proceedings of KI-2005}, doi={10.1007/11551263_1}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/joachim05hierar_fluid_construc_gramm.html}, abstract={This paper reports further progress into a computational implementation of a new formalism for construction grammar, known as Fluid Construction Grammar (FCG). We focus in particular on how hierarchy can be implemented. The paper analyses the requirements for a proper treatment of hierarchy in emergent grammar and then proposes a particular solution based on a new operator, called the J-operator. The J-operator constructs a new unit as a side effect of the matching process.} } @inproceedings{beule02groundingFormalSyntax, author={Joachim De Beule and Joris Van Looveren and Willem Zuidema}, title={From Perception to Language: Grounding Formal Syntax in an Almost Real World}, year={2002}, booktitle={BNAIC-02}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/beule02groundingFormalSyntax.html}, abstract={Human, syntactic language is one of the most intriguing behaviors and receives increasing attention from researchers in numerous fields. Here we present a model that goes an important step further than previous work because it explicitly connects low-level perception and categorization, hierarchical meaning construction and syntactic language. The model thus shows a solution to the ‘symbol grounding problem’ (Harnad, 1990): the meaning of the symbolic system – logical symbols and syntactic rules – is grounded in its relation with a simplified but realistic world. We discuss the different components of this collaborative effort: (i) a realistic simulation of Newtonian dynamics of objects in a 2D plane; (ii) schemabased event-perception and categorization; (iii) a semantics based on predicate logic; and (iv) a categorial grammar for the production and interpretation of language. The integration of the different components poses on the one hand novel and important constraints; on the other hand, it allows for experiments that help to identify the relations between the different levels. We note some important similarities and differences with SHRDLU (Winograd, 1976) and the Talking Heads experiment (Steels et al., 2002), and give an agenda for future experiments.} } @inproceedings{debeule05cogsci, author={Joachim De Beule and Bart De Vylder}, title={Does Language Shape the Way We Conceptualize the World?}, year={2005}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 27th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/debeule05cogsci.html}, abstract={In this paper it is argued that the way the world is conceptualized for language is language dependent and the result of negotiation between language users. This is investigated in a computer experiment in which a population of artificial agents constructs a shared language to talk about a world that can be conceptualized in multiple and possibly conflicting ways. It is argued that the establishment of a successful communication system requires that feedback about the communicative success is propagated to the ontological level, and thus that language shapes the way we conceptualize the world for communication.} } @inproceedings{DeBeule06Cross_Situational_learning, author={Joachim De Beule and Bart De Vylder and Tony Belpaeme}, title={A cross-situational learning algorithm for damping homonymy in the guessing game}, year={2006}, pages={466-472}, editor={Luis M. Rocha and et al.}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Artificial Life X}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/DeBeule06Cross_Situational_learning.html}, abstract={There is a growing body of research on multi-agent systems bootstrapping a communication system. Most studies are based on simulation, but recently there has been an increased interest in the properties and formal analysis of these systems. Although very interesting and promising results have been obtained in these studies, they always rely on major simplifications. For example, although much larger populations are considered than was the case in most earlier work, previous work assumes the possibility of meaning transfer. With meaning transfer, two agents always exactly know what they are talking about. This is hardly ever the case in actual communication systems, as noise corrupts the agents’ perception and transfer of meaning. In this paper we first consider what happens when relaxing the meaning-transfer assumption, and propose a cross-situational learning scheme that allows a population of agents to still bootstrap a common lexicon under this condition. We empirically show the validity of the scheme and thereby improve on the results reported in (Smith, 2003) and (Vogt and Coumans, 2003) in which no satisfactory solution was found. It is not our aim to reduce the importance of previous work, instead we are excited by recent results and hope to stimulate further research by pointing towards some new challenges.} } @mastersthesis{digh94theGreek, author={Andrew Douglas Digh}, title={The Greek Miracle: An Artificial Life Simulation of the Effects of Literacy on the Dynamics of Communication}, year={1994}, month={December}, school={}, note={This thesis reports a study of complex systems phenomena motivated by the apparent ``phase transition'' that took place in ancient Greece when the alphabet was introduced. In particular, the complexity of behavior (Wolfram's classes I, II, etc.) is related to a parameter analogous to Langton's . Instead of a simple cellular automaton, the topology is given by separate random networks for oral and literate communication.}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/digh94theGreek.html} } @inproceedings{dircks99effectiveLexicon, author={Christopher Dircks and Scott C. Stoness}, title={Effective Lexicon Change in the Absence of Population Flux}, year={1999}, pages={720-724}, address={Berlin}, editor={D. Floreano and J. Nicoud and F. Mondada}, publisher={Springer-Verlag}, booktitle={ECAL99}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dircks99effectiveLexicon.html} } @inproceedings{divina06wordmeaningMappingsEELC, author={Federico Divina and Paul Vogt}, title={A hybrid model for learning word-meaning mappings}, year={2006}, pages={1-15}, editor={P. Vogt and et al.}, publisher={Springer Berlin/Heidelberg}, booktitle={Symbol Grounding and Beyond: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, doi={10.1007/11880172_1}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/divina06wordmeaningMappingsEELC.html}, abstract={In this paper we introduce a model for the simulation of language evolution, which is incorporated in the New Ties project. The New Ties project aims at evolving a cultural society by integrating evolutionary, individual and social learning in large scale multi-agent simulations. The model presented here introduces a novel implementation of language games, which allows agents to communicate in a more natural way than with most other existing implementations of language games. In particular, we propose a hybrid mechanism that combines cross-situational learning techniques with more informed feedback mechanisms. In our study we focus our attention on dealing with referential indeterminacy after joint attention has been established and on whether the current model can deal with larger populations than previous studies involving cross-situational learning. Simulations show that the proposed model can indeed lead to coherent languages in a quasi realistic world environment with larger populations.} } @inproceedings{divina05groundedLexiconECAL, author={Federico Divina and Paul Vogt}, title={Perceptually Grounded Lexicon Formation Using Inconsistent Knowledge}, year={2005}, month={September}, pages={644-654}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={ECAL05}, doi={10.1007/11553090_65}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/divina05groundedLexiconECAL.html}, abstract={Typically, multi-agent models for studying the evolution of perceptually grounded lexicons assume that agents perceive the same set of objects, and that there is either joint attention, corrective feedback or cross-situational learning. In this paper we address these two assumptions, by introducing a new multi-agent model for the evolution of perceptually grounded lexicons, where agents do not perceive the same set of objects, and where agents receive a cue to focus their attention to objects, thus simulating a Theory of Mind. In addition, we vary the amount of corrective feedback provided to guide learning word-meanings. Results of simulations show that the proposed model is quite robust to the strength of these cues and the amount of feedback received.} } @inproceedings{chio06simulationSpatialTopology, author={Cecilia Di Chio and Paolo Di Chio}, title={Simulation model for the evolution of language with spatial topology}, year={2006}, pages={51-58}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/chio06simulationSpatialTopology.html}, abstract={In this paper, we present an agent-based simulation model for the evolution of language. This is based on a previous model proposed by the authors and inspired by Nowak's simplest mathematical model. We extend our previous work with the introduction of a significant characteristic: a world where the languages live and evolve, and which influences interactions among individuals. The main goal of this research is to present a model which shows how the presence of a topological structure influences the communication among individuals and contributes to the emergence of clusters of different languages.} } @article{dipaolo00behavioralCoordination, author={E. A. Di Paolo}, title={Behavioral coordination, structural congruence and entrainment in a simulation of acoustically coupled agents}, journal={Adaptive Behavior}, year={2000}, volume={8}, number={1}, pages={25-46}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dipaolo00behavioralCoordination.html}, keywords={Social behavior, embodied autonomous agents, acoustic interaction, coordina­ tion, entrainment, Structural congruence}, abstract={Social coordination is studied in a simulated model of autonomous embodied agents that interact acoustically. Theoretical concepts concerning social behavior are presented from a systemic perspective and their usefulness is evaluated in interpreting the results obtained. Two agents moving in an unstructured arena must locate each other, and remain within a short distance of one another for as long as possible using noisy continuous acoustic interaction. Evolved dynamical recurrent neural networks are used as the control architecture. Acoustic coupling poses nontrivial problems like discriminating `self' from `non­self' and structuring production of signals in time so as to minimize interference. Detailed observation of the most frequently evolved behavioral strategy shows that interacting agents perform rhythmic signals leading to the coordination of movement. During coordination, signals become entrained in an anti­phase mode that resembles turn­taking. Perturbation techniques show that signalling behavior not only performs an external function, but it is also integrated into the movement of the producing agent, thus showing the difficulty of separating behavior into social and non­ social classes. Structural congruence between agents is shown by exploring internal dynamics as well as the response of single agents in the presence of signalling beacons that reproduce the signal patterns of the interacting agents. Lack of entrainment with the signals produced by the beacons shows the importance of transient periods of mutual dynamic perturbation wherein agents achieve congruence.} } @phdthesis{dipaolo99onThe, author={E. A. Di Paolo}, title={On the Evolutionary and Behavioral Dynamics of Social Coordination: Models and Theoretical Aspects}, year={1999}, school={School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences, University of Sussex}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dipaolo99onThe.html}, abstract={An exploration is presented of the interplay between the situated activity of embodied autonomous organisms and the social dynamics they constitute in interaction, with special emphasis on evolutionary, ecological and behavioral aspects. The thesis offers a series of theoretical and methodological criticisms of recent investigations on the biology of social behavior and animal communication. An alternative theoretical framework, based on a systemic theory of biological autonomy, is provided to meet these criticisms and the elaboration of the corresponding theoretical arguments is supported by the construction and analysis of mathematical and computational models.

A game of action coordination is studied by a series of game-theoretic, ecological and computational models which, by means of systematic comparisons, permit the identification of the evolutionary relevance of different factors like finite populations, ecological and genetic constraints, spatial patterns, discreteness and stochasticity. Only in an individual-based model is it found that cooperative action coordination is evolutionarily stable. This is due to the emergence of spatial clusters in the spatial distribution of players which break many of the in-built symmetries of the game and act as invariants of the dynamics constraining the path of viable evolution.

An extension to this model explores other structuring effects by adding the possibility of parental influences on phenotypic development. The result is a further stabilization of cooperative coordination which is explained by the presence of self-promoting networks of developmental relationships which enslave the evolutionary dynamics.

The behavioral aspects involved in the attainment of a coordinated state between autonomous systems are studied in a simulated model of embodied agents coupled through an acoustic medium. Agents must locate and approach each other only by means of continuous acoustic signals. The results show the emergence of synchronized rhythmic signalling patterns that resemble turn-taking which is accompanied by coherent patterns of movement. It is demonstrated that coordination results from the achievement of structural congruence between the agents during interaction.} } @article{dipaolo98anInvestigation, author={E. A. Di Paolo}, title={An investigation into the evolution of communication}, journal={Adaptive Behavior}, year={1998}, volume={6}, number={2}, pages={285-324}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dipaolo98anInvestigation.html}, keywords={evolution of communication; autopoiesis; action coordination; spatio-temporal constraints}, abstract={This article presents a theoretical criticism of current approaches to the study of the evolution of communication. In particular two very common preconceptions about the subject are analysed: the role of natural selection in the definition of the phenomenon and the metaphor of communication as information exchange. An alternative characterization is presented in terms of autopoietic theory which avoids the mentioned preconceptions. In support of this view, the evolution of coordinated activity is studied in a population of artificial agents playing an interactional game. Dynamical modeling of this evolutionary process based on game-theoretic considerations shows the existence of an evolutionarily stable strategy in the total lack of coordinated activity which, however, may be unreachable due to the presence of a periodic attractor. In a computational model of the same game, action coordination evolves, even with individual costs against it, due to the presence of spatial structuring processes. A detailed explanation of this phenomenon, which does not require kin selection, is presented. In an extended game, recursive coordination evolves nontrivially when the participants share all the relevant information, demonstrating that the metaphor of information exchange can be misleading. It is shown that agents engaged in this sort of interaction are able to perform beyond their individual capabilities.} } @inproceedings{dipaolo97socialCoordination, author={Ezequiel A. Di Paolo}, title={Social coordination and spatial organization: Steps towards the evolution of communication}, year={1997}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={Husbands, P. and Harvey, I.}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={ECAL97}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dipaolo97socialCoordination.html} } @article{dominey05sensorimotorSequenceABJ, author={Peter Ford Dominey}, title={From Sensorimotor Sequence to Grammatical Construction: Evidence from Simulation and Neurophysiology}, journal={Adaptive Behavior}, year={2005}, volume={13}, number={4}, pages={347-361}, doi={10.1177/105971230501300401}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dominey05sensorimotorSequenceABJ.html}, keywords={language,neural network,simulation,sensorimotor sequence}, abstract={The current research describes a functional trajectory from sensorimotor sequence learning to the learning of grammatical constructions in language. A brief review of the functional neurophysiology of the cortex and basal ganglia will be provided as background for a neural network model of this system in sensorimotor sequence learning. Sequential behavior is then defined in terms of serial, temporal and abstract structure. The resulting neuro-computational framework is demonstrated to account for observed sequence learning behavior. More interestingly, this framework naturally extends to grammatical constructions as form-to-meaning mappings. Predictions from the neuro-computational model concerning parallels in language and cognitive sequence processing are tested against behavioral and neurophysiological observations in humans, resulting in a refinement of the allocation of model functions to subdivisions of Broca's area. From a functional perspective this analysis will provide insight into the relation between the coding structure in human languages, and constraints derived from the underlying neurophysiological computational mechanisms.} } @article{Dominey05grammaticalConstructions, author={Peter Ford Dominey}, title={Emergence of grammatical constructions: evidence from simulation and grounded agent experiments}, journal={Connection Science}, year={2005}, month={December}, volume={17}, number={3-4}, pages={289-306}, doi={10.1080/09540090500270714}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Dominey05grammaticalConstructions.html}, keywords={Neural network, Language, Sensorimotor sequence, Grammatical construction}, abstract={This research takes grammatical constructions (sentence form-to-meaning mappings) as an alternative to abstract generative grammars in the context of understanding the emergence of language. A model of sentence processing based on this construction grammar approach is presented, and then a series of neuropsychological and neurophysiological studies are reviewed that attempt to validate the model and to establish its neurophysiological underpinnings. The resulting model is demonstrated to provide insight into a developmental and evolutionary passage from unitary idiom-like holophrases to progressively more abstract grammatical constructions. The model is then functionally validated by its insertion into a perceptually grounded system that allows spoken language interaction with a human interlocutor. The potential utility of this emergence approach in understanding language is discussed.} } @article{dominey01grounding, author={Peter Ford Dominey}, title={Conceptual grounding in simulation studies of language acquisition}, journal={Evolution of Communication}, year={2001}, volume={4}, number={1}, pages={57-85}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dominey01grounding.html} } @article{dominey05groundedRobot, author={Peter Ford Dominey and Jean-David Boucher}, title={Developmental stages of perception and language acquisition in a perceptually grounded robot}, journal={Cognitive Systems Research}, year={2005}, month={September}, volume={6}, number={3}, pages={243-259}, doi={10.1016/j.cogsys.2004.11.005}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dominey05groundedRobot.html}, keywords={Language acquisition; Event perception; Grammatical construction; Neural network}, abstract={The objective of this research is to develop a system for language learning based on a ``minimum'' of pre-wired language-specific functionality, that is compatible with observations of perceptual and language capabilities in the human developmental trajectory. In the proposed system, meaning (in terms of descriptions of events and spatial relations) is extracted from video images based on detection of position, motion, physical contact and their parameters. Meaning extraction requires attentional mechanisms that are implemented from low-level perceptual primitives. Mapping of sentence form to meaning is performed by learning grammatical constructions, i.e., sentence to meaning mappings as defined by Goldberg [Goldberg, A. (1995). Constructions. Chicago and London: Univ. of Chicago Press]. These are stored and retrieved from a ``construction inventory'' based on the constellation of grammatical function words uniquely identifying the target sentence structure. The resulting system displays robust acquisition behavior that reproduces certain observations from developmental studies, with very modest ``innate'' language specificity.} } @incollection{donald98mimesisAnd, author={M. Donald}, title={Mimesis and the executive suite: Missing links in language evolution}, year={1998}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/donald98mimesisAnd.html} } @article{dor01selection, author={Daniel Dor and Eva Jablonka}, title={From Cultural Selection to Genetic Selection: A Framework for the Evolution of Language}, journal={Selection}, year={2001}, volume={1}, number={1-3}, pages={33-56}, doi={10.1556/Select.1.2000.1-3.5}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dor01selection.html}, keywords={Cultural evolution, genetic assimilation, linguistic semantics, syntax.semantics interface, island constraints}, abstract={This paper is an attempt to construct a programmatic framework for the evolution of human language. First, we pres- ent a novel characterization of language, which is based on some of the most recent research results in linguistics. As these results suggest, language is best characterized as a specialized communication system, dedicated to the expres- sion of a surprisingly constrained set of meanings. This characterization calls for an account of the evolution of lan- guage in terms of the interaction between cultural and genetic evolution. We develop such an evolutionary model on the basis of the mechanism of culturally-driven genetic assimilation. As we show, a careful analysis of the diverse effects of this mechanism derives some of the most crucial properties of the evolved linguistic capacity as a specific, functional communication system.} } @article{dorogovtsev01languageAs, author={S. N. Dorogovtsev and J. F. F. Mendes}, title={Language as an evolving word web}, journal={Proceedings of The Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences}, year={2001}, month={December}, volume={268}, number={1485}, pages={2603-2606}, doi={10.1098/rspb.2001.1824}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dorogovtsev01languageAs.html}, keywords={evolution of language, word web, interaction of words, kernel lexicon}, abstract={Human language may be described as a complex network of linked words. In such a treatment, each distinct word in language is a vertex of this web, and interacting words in sentences are connected by edges. The empirical distribution of the number of connections of words in this network is of a peculiar form that includes two pronounced power-law regions. Here we propose a theory of the evolution of language, which treats language as a self-organizing network of interacting words. In the framework of this concept., we completely describe the observed word web structure without any fitting. We show that the two regimes in the distribution naturally emerge from the evolutionary dynamics of the word web. It follows front our theory that the size of the core part of language, the 'kernel lexicon', does not vary as language evolves.} } @inproceedings{dowman07ECAL, author={Mike Dowman}, title={Protolanguages That Are Semi-holophrastic}, year={2007}, pages={435-444}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={ECAL07}, doi={10.1007/978-3-540-74913-4_44}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dowman07ECAL.html}, keywords={Language Evolution,Protolanguage,Synthetic,Analytic,Holophrasis,Iterated Learning}, abstract={There is an ongoing debate about whether the words in the first languages spoken by humans expressed single concepts or complex holophrases. A computer model was used to investigate the nature of the protolanguages that would arise if speakers could associate words and meanings, but lacked any productive ability beyond saying the word whose past uses most closely matched the meaning that they wished to express. It was found that both words expressing single concepts, and holophrastic words could arise, depending on the conceptual and articulatory abilities of the agents. However, most words were of an intermediate type, as they expressed more than a single concept but less than a holophrase. The model therefore demonstrates that protolanguages may have been of types that are not usually considered in the debate over the nature of the first human languages.} } @inproceedings{dowman05colourTerms, author={M. Dowman}, title={Investigating the Effect of Random Noise on the Evolution of Colour Terms}, year={2005}, booktitle={Proceedings of IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dowman05colourTerms.html}, abstract={The effect of adding noise to an expression-induction model of language evolution was investigated. The model consisted of a number of artificial people who were able to infer the denotation of basic colour terms from examples of colours which the words had been used to identify, using a Bayesian inference procedure. The artificial people would express colours to one-another, so producing data from which other people could learn. Occasionally they would be creative, which allowed new words to enter the language. When certain points in the colour space were made especially salient, so that the artificial people were more likely to remember colours at these points, the languages emerging over a number of generations in evolutionary simulations replicated the typological patterns seen in the 110 languages of the world colour survey. It was found that if random noise was added to the data from which the artificial people learned, this had no major effect on the emergent languages, demonstrating that the Bayesian inference procedure is able to learn effectively despite the presence of random noise, even when placed in an evolutionary context.} } @phdthesis{dowman04PhD-ColorLanguage, author={Mike Dowman}, title={Colour Terms, Syntax and Bayes: Modelling Acquisition and Evolution}, year={2004}, school={School of Information Technologies, University of Sydney}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dowman04PhDColorLanguage.html}, abstract={This thesis investigates language acquisition and evolution, using the methodologies of Bayesian inference and expression-induction modelling, making specific reference to colour term typology, and syntactic acquisition. In order to test Berlin and Kay’s (1969) hypothesis that the typological patterns observed in basic colour term systems are produced by a process of cultural evolution under the influence of universal aspects of human neurophysiology, an expression-induction model was created. Ten artificial people were simulated, each of which was a computational agent. These people could learn colour term denotations by generalizing from examples using Bayesian inference, and the resulting denotations had the prototype properties characteristic of basic colour terms. Conversations between these people, in which they learned from one-another, were simulated over several generations, and the languages emerging at the end of each simulation were investigated. The proportion of colour terms of each type correlated closely with the equivalent frequencies found in the World Colour Survey, and most of the emergent languages could be placed on one of the evolutionary trajectories proposed by Kay and Maffi (1999). The simulation therefore demonstrates how typological patterns can emerge as a result of learning biases acting over a period of time.

Further work applied the minimum description length form of Bayesian inference to modelling syntactic acquisition. The particular problem investigated was the acquisition of the dative alternation in English. This alternation presents a learnability paradox, because only some verbs alternate, but children typically do not receive reliable evidence indicating which verbs do not participate in the alternation (Pinker, 1989). The model presented in this thesis took note of the frequency with which each verb occurred in each subcategorization, and so was able to infer which subcategorizations were conspicuously absent, and so presumably ungrammatical. Crucially, it also incorporated a measure of grammar complexity, and a preference for simpler grammars, so that more general grammars would be learned unless there was sufficient evidence to support the incorporation of some restriction. The model was able to learn the correct subcategorizations for both alternating and non-alternating verbs, and could generalise to allow novel verbs to appear in both constructions. When less data was observed, it also overgeneralized the alternation, which is a behaviour characteristic of children when they are learning verb subcategorizations. These results demonstrate that the dative alternation is learnable, and therefore that universal grammar may not be necessary to account for syntactic acquisition. Overall, these results suggest that the forms of languages may be determined to a much greater extent by learning, and by cumulative historical changes, than would be expected if the universal grammar hypothesis were correct.} } @article{dowman02modeling, author={Mike Dowman}, title={Modeling Language as a Product of Learning and Social Interactions}, journal={Cognitive Systems}, year={2003}, volume={6}, number={1}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dowman02modeling.html}, abstract={Computational models were constructed to investigate how the meanings of basic colour terms were learned, and to determine why these words have prototype properties, and why they partition the colour space. A Bayesian model of acquisition was able to learn colo ur term systems with these properties, but could equally well learn colour term systems which did not partition the colour space or have prototype properties, and so it failed to explain the empirical data concerning these words. Computational evolutionary simulations were then conducted by creating a community of artificial people using multiple copies of the Bayesian model. These artificial people then learned colour words from one-another, and colour term systems were allowed to evolve over a number of generations. The emergent colour terms always partitioned the colour space and had prototype properties. These results demonstrate that the Bayesian model is able to account for the properties of colour term systems only when it is placed in a social contex t and so they provide evidence of the importance of understanding language as a product of both psychology and social interaction.} } @inproceedings{dowman03colorTermTypology, author={Mike Dowman}, title={Explaining Color Term Typology as the Product of Cultural Evolution using a Multi-agent Model}, year={2003}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Twenty-fifth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dowman03colorTermTypology.html}, abstract={An expression-induction model was used to simulate the evolution of basic color terms in order to test Berlin and Kay's (1969) hypothesis that the typological patterns observed in basic color term systems are produced by a process of cultural evolution under the influence of universal aspects of human neurophysiology. Ten agents were simulated, each of which could learn color term denotations by generalizing from examples using Bayesian inference. Conversations between these agents, in which agents would learn from one-another, were simulated over several generations, and the languages emerging at the end of each simulation were investigated. The proportion of color terms of each type correlated closely with the equivalent frequencies found in the world color survey, and most of the emergent languages could be placed on one of the evolutionary trajectories proposed by Kay and Maffi (1999). The simulation therefore demonstrates how typological patterns can emerge as a result of learning biases acting over a period of time.} } @inproceedings{dowman06innatenessAndCulture, author={Mike Dowman and Simon Kirby and Thomas L. Griffiths}, title={Innateness and culture in the evolution of language}, year={2006}, pages={83-90}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dowman06innatenessAndCulture.html}, abstract={Is the range of languages we observe today explainable in terms of which languages can be learned easily and which cannot? If so, the key to understanding language is to understand innate learning biases, and the process of biological evolution through which they have evolved. Using mathematical and computer modelling, we show how a very small bias towards regularity can be accentuated by the process of cultural transmission in which language is passed from generation to generation, resulting in languages that are overwhelmingly regular. Cultural evolution therefore plays as big a role as prior bias in determining the form of emergent languages, showing that language can only be explained in terms of the interaction of biological evolution, individual development, and cultural transmission.} } @inproceedings{dras03emergent, author={Mark Dras and David Harrison and Berk Kapicioglu}, title={Emergent Behavior in Phonological Pattern Change}, year={2003}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Artificial Life VIII}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dras03emergent.html}, abstract={Language change has recently come to be seen as a complex dynamical system, along the lines of evolutionary biology and economics, as opposed to previous conceptions as a linear or cyclical system. We model the change of a particular phenomenon, vowel harmony, and look at the conditions under which the trajectory of change matches theoretical and empirical predictions. Our experimental work shows that there are certain conditions under which the desired trajectories do not occur, implying that absence of these conditions is necessary for accurate modeling of language change.} } @incollection{dunbar04music, author={R. Dunbar}, title={Language, Music and Laughter in Evolutionary Perspective}, year={2004}, pages={257-274}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dunbar04music.html} } @incollection{dunbar03theOrigin, author={Robin Dunbar}, title={The Origin and Subsequent Evolution of Language}, year={2003}, editor={M.H. Christiansen and S. Kirby}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Evolution: The States of the Art}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dunbar03theOrigin.html} } @incollection{dunbar98theoryOf, author={R. Dunbar}, title={Theory of mind and the evolution of language}, year={1998}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dunbar98theoryOf.html} } @book{dunbar98groomingGossip, author={Robin Dunbar}, title={Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language}, year={1998}, month={October}, publisher={Harvard Univ Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dunbar98groomingGossip.html} } @article{dunbar93coevolutionOf, author={R. Dunbar}, title={Coevolution of neocortex size, group size and language in humans}, journal={Behavioral and Brain Sciences}, year={1993}, volume={16}, number={4}, pages={681-735}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dunbar93coevolutionOf.html}, keywords={Neocortical size, group size, humans, language, Macchiavellian Intelligence}, abstract={oup size is a function of relative neocortical volume in nonhuman primates. Extrapolation from this regression equation yields a predicted group size for modern humans very similar to that of certain hunter-gatherer and traditional horticulturalist societies. Groups of similar size are also found in other large-scale forms of contemporary and historical society. Among primates, the cohesion of groups is maintained by social grooming; the time devoted to social grooming is linearly related to group size among the Old World monkeys and apes. To maintain the stability of the large groups characteristic of humans by grooming alone would place intolerable demands on time budgets. It is suggested that (1) the evolution of large groups in the human lineage depended on the development of a more efficient method for time-sharing the processes of social bonding and that (2) language uniquely fulfills this requirement. Data on the size of conversational and other small interacting groups of humans are in line with the predictions for the relative efficiency of conversation compared to grooming as a bonding process. Analysis of a sample of human conversations shows that about 60% of time is spent gossiping about relationships and personal experiences. It is suggested that language evolved to allow individuals to learn about the behavioural characteristics of other group members more rapidly than is possible by direct observation alone.} } @article{dunn05ancientLanguageSCIENCE, author={Michael Dunn and Angela Terrill and Ger Reesink and Robert A. Foley and Stephen C. Levinson}, title={Structural Phylogenetics and the Reconstruction of Ancient Language History}, journal={Science}, year={2005}, month={September}, volume={309}, number={5743}, pages={2072-2075}, doi={10.1126/science.1114615}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dunn05ancientLanguageSCIENCE.html}, abstract={The contribution of language history to the study of the early dispersals of modern humans throughout the Old World has been limited by the shallow time depth (about 8000 ± 2000 years) of current linguistic methods. Here it is shown that the application of biological cladistic methods, not to vocabulary (as has been previously tried) but to language structure (sound systems and grammar), may extend the time depths at which language data can be used. The method was tested against well-understood families of Oceanic Austronesian languages, then applied to the Papuan languages of Island Melanesia, a group of hitherto unrelatable isolates. Papuan languages show an archipelago-based phylogenetic signal that is consistent with the current geographical distribution of languages. The most plausible hypothesis to explain this result is the divergence of the Papuan languages from a common ancestral stock, as part of late Pleistocene dispersals.} } @incollection{dyer95towardThe, author={M. Dyer}, title={Toward the Acquisition of Language and the Evolution of Communication}, year={1995}, pages={393-412}, chapter={16}, editor={H. Roitblat and J.A. Meyer}, publisher={Bradford Book/MIT Press}, booktitle={Comparative Approaches to Cognitive Science}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dyer95towardThe.html} } @article{dyer94alife, author={Michael G. Dyer}, title={Toward Synthesizing Artificial Neural Networks that Exhibit Cooperative Intelligent Behavior: Some Open Issues in Artificial Life}, journal={Artificial Life}, year={1994}, volume={1}, number={1}, pages={111-134}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dyer94alife.html}, keywords={artificial neural networks, evolution of communication, evolution of predation, cooperative behavior, genetic algorithm}, abstract={The tasks that animals perform require a high degree of intelligence. Animals forage for food, migrate, navigate, court mates, rear offspring, defend against predators, construct nests, and so on. These tasks commonly require social interaction/cooperation and are accomplished by animal nervous systems, which are the result of billions of years of evolution and complex developmental/learning processes. The Artificial Life (AL) approach to synthesizing intelligent behavior is guided by this biological perspective. In this article we examine some of the numerous open problems in synthesizing intelligent animal behavior (especially cooperative behavior involving communication) that face the field of AL, a discipline still in its infancy.} } @incollection{dyer92distributedSymbol, author={M. G. Dyer and M. Flowers and Y. A. Wang}, title={Distributed Symbol Discovery through Symbol Recirculation: Toward Natural Language Processing in Distributed Connectionist Networks}, year={1992}, pages={21-48}, chapter={2}, editor={R. Reilly and N. Sharkey}, publisher={Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc. Publ.}, booktitle={Connectionist Approaches to Natural Language Understanding}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/dyer92distributedSymbol.html} } @article{eastman82aComment, author={Caroline M. Eastman}, title={A comment on English neologisms and programming language keywords}, journal={Communications of the ACM}, year={1982}, month={December}, volume={25}, number={12}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/eastman82aComment.html}, abstract={The choice of keywords in the design of programming languages is compared to the formation of neologisms, or new words, in natural languages. Examination of keywords in high-level programming languages shows that they are formed using mechanisms analogous to those observed in English. The use of mirror words as closing keywords is a conspicuous exceptions.} } @mastersthesis{eddy05thesisIteratedLearning, author={Joseph Charles Eddy}, title={Iterated Learning: The Exemplar-based Learning Approach}, year={2005}, school={Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, The University of Edinburgh}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/eddy05thesisIteratedLearning.html} } @article{edelman04bookreview, author={Shimon Edelman and Bo Pedersen}, title={Review of ``Linguistic evolution through language acquisition: Formal and computational models'' by Ted Briscoe, 2002}, journal={Journal of Linguistics}, year={2004}, volume={40}, number={2}, pages={14-18}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/edelman04bookreview.html} } @inproceedings{edelman04cogsci, author={Shimon Edelman and Zach Solan and David Horn and Eytan Ruppin}, title={Bridging computational, formal and psycholinguistic approaches to language}, year={2004}, address={Chicago, IL}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Twenty-sixth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/edelman04cogsci.html} } @inproceedings{edelman03nips-workshop, author={Shimon Edelman and Zach Solan and David Horn and Eytan Ruppin}, title={Rich Syntax from a Raw Corpus: Unsupervised Does It}, year={2003}, booktitle={Syntax, Semantics and Statistics Workshop of NIPS-2003}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/edelman03nipsworkshop.html} } @inproceedings{egashira00theFormation, author={S. Egashira and T. Hashimoto}, title={The Formation of Common Norms on the Assumption of `Fundamentally' Imperfect Information}, year={2000}, editor={Rosaria Conte and Chris Dellarocas}, booktitle={Social Order in Multiagent Systems: Workshop on Norms and Institutions in Multi-Agent Systems (Held in conjunction with Autonomous Agents'2000)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/egashira00theFormation.html} } @article{ekstig04meme, author={Borje Ekstig}, title={The Evolution of Language and Science Studied by means of Biological Concepts}, journal={Journal of Memetics}, year={2004}, volume={8}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ekstig04meme.html}, keywords={Evolution, development, memes, cultural evolution, language, science, mathematics}, abstract={This study examines certain mechanisms underlying the evolution of language and science - including mathematics - using concepts developed in the field of biological evolution. Developmental processes are particularly emphasized. Analysis of developmental processes, processes such as human embryonic development, children's verbal development, and adolescents' scientific conceptual development reveals the unifying principle referred to as 'condensation' - the successive shortening of developmental stages. The mechanism of condensation is coupled to the rate of evolutionary change.

The analysis examines the applicability of the concept of the meme. Regarding the evolution of language, we suggest a cooperative combination of genetic and memetic replication; while early on in the evolution of science only memetic replication is envisaged.} } @incollection{elman99theEmergence, author={J. L. Elman}, title={The emergence of language: A conspiracy theory}, year={1999}, address={Hillsdale, NJ}, editor={B. MacWhinney}, publisher={Lawrence Earlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Emergence of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/elman99theEmergence.html} } @inproceedings{elman98generalizationSimple, author={J. L. Elman}, title={Generalization, simple recurrent networks, and the emergence of structure}, year={1998}, address={Mahwah, NJ}, editor={M.A. Gernsbacher and S.J. Derry}, publisher={Lawrence Erlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/elman98generalizationSimple.html} } @incollection{elman95languageAs, author={J. L. Elman}, title={Language as a dynamical system}, year={1995}, pages={195-223}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={R.F. Port and T. van Gelder}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Mind as Motion: Explorations in the Dynamics of Cognition}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/elman95languageAs.html} } @article{elman93cognition, author={J.L. Elman}, title={Learning and development in neural networks: The importance of starting small}, journal={Cognition}, year={1993}, volume={48}, number={1}, pages={71-99}, doi={10.1016/0010-0277(93)90058-4}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/elman93cognition.html}, abstract={It is a striking fact that in humans the greatest learning occurs precisely at that point in time - childhood - when the most dramatic maturational changes also occur. This report describes possible synergistic interactions between maturational change and the ability to learn a complex domain (language), as investigated in connectionist networks. The networks are trained to process complex sentences involving relative clauses, number agreement, and several types of verb argument structure. Training fails in the case of networks which are fully formed and `adultlike' in their capacity. Training succeeds only when networks begin with limited working memory and gradually `mature' to the adult state. This result suggests that rather than being a limitation, developmental restrictions on resources may constitute a necessary prerequisite for mastering certain complex domains. Specifically, successful learning may depend on starting small.} } @article{elman91distributedRepresentations, author={J. L. Elman}, title={Distributed representations, simple recurrent networks, and grammatical structure}, journal={Machine Learning}, year={1991}, volume={7}, pages={195-224}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/elman91distributedRepresentations.html} } @article{elman90findingStructure, author={Jeffrey L. Elman}, title={Finding structure in time}, journal={Cognitive Science}, year={1990}, volume={14}, number={2}, pages={179--211}, doi={10.1016/0364-0213(90)90002-E}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/elman90findingStructure.html}, abstract={Time underlies many interesting human behaviors. Thus, the question of how to represent time in connectionist models is very important. One approach is to represent time implicitly by its effects on processing rather than explicitly (as in a spatial representation). The current report develops a proposal along these lines first described by Jordan (1986) which involves the use of recurrent links in order to provide networks with a dynamic memory. In this approach, hidden unit patterns are fed back to themselves; the internal representations which develop thus reflect task demands in the context of prior internal states. A set of simulations is reported which range from relatively simple problems (temporal version of XOR) to discovering syntactic/semantic features for words. The networks are able to learn interesting internal representations which incorporate task demands with memory demands; indeed, in this approach the notion of memory is inextricably bound up with task processing. These representations reveal a rich structure, which allows them to be highly context-dependent while also expressing generalizations across classes of items. These representations suggest a method for representing lexical categories and the type/token distinction.} } @article{enard02FOXP2, author={Wolfgang Enard and Molly Przeworski and Simon E. Fisher and Cecilia S. L. Lai and Victor Wiebe and Takashi Kitano and Anthony P. Monaco and Svante Paabo}, title={Molecular evolution of FOXP2, a gene involved in speech and language}, journal={Nature}, year={2002}, volume={418}, pages={869-872}, doi={10.1038/nature01025}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/enard02FOXP2.html}, abstract={Language is a uniquely human trait likely to have been a prerequisite for the development of human culture. The ability to develop articulate speech relies on capabilities, such as fine control of the larynx and mouth, that are absent in chimpanzees and other great apes. FOXP2 is the first gene relevant to the human ability to develop language. A point mutation in FOXP2 co-segregates with a disorder in a family in which half of the members have severe articulation difficulties accompanied by linguistic and grammatical impairment. This gene is disrupted by translocation in an unrelated individual who has a similar disorder. Thus, two functional copies of FOXP2 seem to be required for acquisition of normal spoken language. We sequenced the complementary DNAs that encode the FOXP2 protein in the chimpanzee, gorilla, orang-utan, rhesus macaque and mouse, and compared them with the human cDNA. We also investigated intraspecific variation of the human FOXP2 gene. Here we show that human FOXP2 contains changes in amino-acid coding and a pattern of nucleotide polymorphism, which strongly suggest that this gene has been the target of selection during recent human evolution.} } @inproceedings{erbach04EELC, author={Gregor Erbach}, title={Mapping, Measuring, and Modelling the Diffusion of Linguistic Material on the Internet}, year={2004}, address={Kanazawa, Japan}, booktitle={First International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/erbach04EELC.html} } @inproceedings{erdem03PADL, author={E. Erdem and V. Lifschitz and L. Nakhleh and D. Ringe}, title={Reconstructing the evolutionary history of Indo-European languages using answer set programming}, year={2003}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages (PADL 03)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/erdem03PADL.html}, abstract={The evolutionary history of languages can be modeled as a tree, called a phylogeny, where the leaves represent the extant lan- guages, the internal vertices represent the ancestral languages, and the edges represent the genetic relations between the languages. Languages not only inherit characteristics from their ancestors but also sometimes borrow them from other languages. Such borrowings can be represented by additional non-tree edges. This paper addresses the problem of com- puting a small number of additional edges that turn a phylogeny into a 'perfect phylogenetic network'. To solve this problem, we use answer set programming, which represents a given computational problem as a logic program whose answer sets correspond to solutions. Using the answer set solver smodels, with some heuristics and optimization tech- niques, we have generated a few conjectures regarding the evolution of Indo-European languages.} } @article{erdem05temporalPhylogeneticNetwork, author={Esra Erdem and Vladimir Lifschitz and Don Ringe}, title={Temporal phylogenetic networks and logic programming}, journal={Theory and Practice of Logic Programming}, year={2005}, note={To appear}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/erdem05temporalPhylogeneticNetwork.html}, abstract={The concept of a temporal phylogenetic network is a mathematical model of evolution of a family of natural languages. It takes into account the fact that languages can trade their characteristics with each other when linguistic communities are in contact, and also that a contact is only possible when the languages are spoken at the same time. We show how computational methods of answer set programming and constraint logic programming can be used to generate plausible conjectures about contacts between prehistoric linguistic communities, and illustrate our approach by applying it to the evolutionary history of Indo-European languages.} } @incollection{evans04PhylogeneticMethods, author={S.N. Evans and Don Ringe and Tandy Warnow}, title={Inference of divergence times as a statistical inverse problem}, year={2006}, pages={119-}, chapter={10}, publisher={}, booktitle={Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/evans04PhylogeneticMethods.html} } @techreport{farquhar95collaborativeOntology, author={A. Farquhar and R. Fikes and W. Pratt and J. Rice}, title={Collaborative ontology construction for information integration}, year={1995}, institution={Stanford University}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/farquhar95collaborativeOntology.html} } @article{farrell93meaningAnd, author={Joseph Farrell}, title={Meaning and credibility in cheap-talk games}, journal={Games and Economic Behavior}, year={1993}, volume={5}, number={4}, pages={514-31}, doi={10.1006/game.1993.1029}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/farrell93meaningAnd.html}, abstract={I define neologism-proofness, a refinement of perfect Bayesian equilibrium in cheap-talk games. It applies when players have a preexisting common language, so that an unexpected message's literal meaning is clear, and only credibility restricts communication. I show that certain implausible equilibria are not neologism-proof; in some games, no equilibrium is.} } @article{ferrer06isolatedSignals, author={Ramon {Ferrer-i-Cancho}}, title={When language breaks into pieces: A conflict between communication through isolated signals and language}, journal={Biosystems}, year={2006}, month={June}, volume={84}, number={3}, pages={242-253}, doi={10.1016/j.biosystems.2005.12.001}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ferrer06isolatedSignals.html}, keywords={Zipf's law; Communication; Human language; Syntax; Symbolic reference; Schizophrenia}, abstract={Here, we study a communication model where signals associate to stimuli. The model assumes that signals follow Zipf's law and the exponent of the law depends on a balance between maximizing the information transfer and saving the cost of signal use. We study the effect of tuning that balance on the structure of signal-stimulus associations. The model starts from two recent results. First, the exponent grows as the weight of information transfer increases. Second, a rudimentary form of language is obtained when the network of signal-stimulus associations is almost connected. Here, we show the existence of a sudden destruction of language once a critical balance is crossed. The model shows that maximizing the information transfer through isolated signals and language are in conflict. The model proposes a strong reason for not finding large exponents in complex communication systems: language is in danger. Besides, the findings suggest that human words may need to be ambiguous to keep language alive. Interestingly, the model predicts that large exponents should be associated to decreased synaptic density. It is not surprising that the largest exponents correspond to schizophrenic patients since, according to the spirit of Feinberg's hypothesis, i.e. decreased synaptic density may lead to schizophrenia. Our findings suggest that the exponent of Zipf's law is intimately related to language and that it could be used to detect anomalous structure and organization of the brain.} } @article{ferrer05zipfLawVariation, author={R. {Ferrer-i-Cancho}}, title={The variation of Zipf's law in human language}, journal={European Physical Journal B}, year={2005}, volume={44}, number={2}, pages={249-257}, doi={10.1140/epjb/e2005-00121-8}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ferrer05zipfLawVariation.html}, abstract={Words in humans follow the so-called Zipf's law. More precisely, the word frequency spectrum follows a power function, whose typical exponent is $\beta \approx 2$, but significant variations are found. We hypothesize that the full range of variation reflects our ability to balance the goal of communication, i.e. maximizing the information transfer and the cost of communication, imposed by the limitations of the human brain. We show that the higher the importance of satisfying the goal of communication, the higher the exponent. Here, assuming that words are used according to their meaning we explain why variation in $\beta$ should be limited to a particular domain. From the one hand, we explain a non-trivial lower bound at about $\beta=1.6$ for communication systems neglecting the goal of the communication. From the other hand, we find a sudden divergence of $\beta$ if a certain critical balance is crossed. At the same time a sharp transition to maximum information transfer and unfortunately, maximum communication cost, is found. Consistently with the upper bound of real exponents, the maximum finite value predicted is about $\beta=2.4$. It is convenient for human language not to cross the transition and remain in a domain where maximum information transfer is high but at a reasonable cost. Therefore, only a particular range of exponents should be found in human speakers. The exponent $\beta$ contains information about the balance between cost and communicative efficiency.} } @incollection{cancho05syntacticNetwork, author={R. {Ferrer-i-Cancho}}, title={The structure of syntactic dependency networks: insights from recent advances in network theory}, year={2005}, pages={60-75}, editor={Levickij V. and Altmman G.}, publisher={}, booktitle={Problems of quantitative linguistics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/cancho05syntacticNetwork.html}, abstract={Complex networks have received substantial attention from physics recently. Here we review from a physics perspective the different linguistic networks that have been studied. We focus on syntactic dependency networks and summarize some recent strong results that suggest new possible ways of understanding the universal properties of world languages.} } @article{ferrer05ZipfLawPhaseTransition, author={Ramon {Ferrer-i-Cancho}}, title={Zipf's law from a communicative phase transition}, journal={European Physical Journal B}, year={2005}, volume={47}, number={3}, pages={449-457}, doi={10.1140/epjb/e2005-00340-y}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ferrer05ZipfLawPhaseTransition.html}, abstract={Here we present a new model for Zipf's law in human word frequencies. The model defines the goal and the cost of communication using information theory. The model shows a continuous phase transition from a no communication to a perfect communication phase. Scaling consistent with Zipf's law is found in the boundary between phases. The exponents are consistent with minimizing the entropy of words. The model differs from a previous model [Ferrer i Cancho, SoléProc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 100, 788–791 (2003)] in two aspects. First, it assumes that the probability of experiencing a certain stimulus is controlled by the internal structure of the communication system rather than by the probability of experiencing it in the `outside' world, which makes it specially suitable for the speech of schizophrenics. Second, the exponent ? predicted for the frequency versus rank distribution is in a range where ?>1, which may explain that of some schizophrenics and some children, with ?=1.5-1.6. Among the many models for Zipf's law, none explains Zipf's law for that particular range of exponents. In particular, two simplistic models fail to explain that particular range of exponents: intermittent silence and Simon's model. We support that Zipf's law in a communication system may maximize the information transfer under constraints.} } @article{ferrer04physicaA, author={Ramon {Ferrer-i-Cancho}}, title={Decoding least effort and scaling in signal frequency distributions}, journal={Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications}, year={2005}, month={January}, volume={345}, number={1-2}, pages={275-284}, doi={10.1016/j.physa.2004.06.158}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ferrer04physicaA.html}, keywords={Zipf's law; Scaling; Human language; Animal communication}, abstract={Here, assuming a general communication model where objects map to signals, a power function for the distribution of signal frequencies is derived. The model relies on the satisfaction of the receiver (hearer) communicative needs when the entropy of the number of objects per signal is maximized. Evidence of power distributions in a linguistic context (some of them with exponents clearly different from the typical \beta \approximate 2 of Zipf's law) is reviewed and expanded. We support the view that Zipf's law reflects some sort of optimization but following a novel realistic approach where signals (e.g. words) are used according to the objects (e.g. meanings) they are linked to. Our results strongly suggest that many systems in nature use non-trivial strategies for easing the interpretation of a signal. Interestingly, constraining just the number of interpretations of signals does not lead to scaling.} } @article{ferrer04EuclideanDistancePRE, author={R. {Ferrer-i-Cancho}}, title={The Euclidean distance between syntactically linked words}, journal={Physical Review E}, year={2004}, volume={70}, pages={056135}, doi={10.1103/PhysRevE.70.056135}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ferrer04EuclideanDistancePRE.html}, abstract={We study the Euclidean distance between syntactically linked words in sentences. The average distance is significantly small and is a very slowly growing function of sentence length. We consider two nonexcluding hypotheses: (a) the average distance is minimized and (b) the average distance is constrained. Support for (a) comes from the significantly small average distance real sentences achieve. The strength of the minimization hypothesis decreases with the length of the sentence. Support for (b) comes from the very slow growth of the average distance versus sentence length. Furthermore, (b) predicts, under ideal conditions, an exponential distribution of the distance between linked words, a trend that can be identified in real sentences.} } @phdthesis{ferrer-i-cancho2003phdthesis, author={R. {Ferrer-i-Cancho}}, title={Language: universals, principles and origins}, year={2003}, school={}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ferrericancho2003phdthesis.html} } @article{ferrer07communicativeEnergy, author={Ramon {Ferrer-i-Cancho} and Albert Diaz-Guilera}, title={The global minima of the communicative energy of natural communication systems}, journal={Journal of Statistical Mechanics}, year={2007}, volume={6}, pages={P06009}, doi={10.1088/1742-5468/2007/06/P06009}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ferrer07communicativeEnergy.html}, keywords={exact results, random graphs, networks, stochastic search, communication, supply and information networks}, abstract={Until recently, models of communication have explicitly or implicitly assumed that the goal of a communication system is just maximizing the information transfer between signals and 'meanings'. Recently, it has been argued that a natural communication system not only has to maximize this quantity but also has to minimize the entropy of signals, which is a measure of the cognitive cost of using a word. The interplay between these two factors, i.e. maximization of the information transfer and minimization of the entropy, has been addressed previously using a Monte Carlo minimization procedure at zero temperature. Here we derive analytically the globally optimal communication systems that result from the interaction between these factors. We discuss the implications of our results for previous studies within this framework. In particular we prove that the emergence of Zipf's law using a Monte Carlo technique at zero temperature in previous studies indicates that the system had not reached the global optimum.} } @article{ferrer05consequencesOfZipfLaw, author={Ramon {Ferrer-i-Cancho} and Oliver Riordan and Bela Bollobas}, title={The consequences of Zipf's law for syntax and symbolic reference}, journal={Proceedings of The Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences}, year={2005}, doi={10.1098/rspb.2004.2957}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ferrer05consequencesOfZipfLaw.html}, keywords={Zipf's Law, Syntax, Symbolic Reference, Human Language}, abstract={Although many species possess rudimentary communication systems, humans seem to be unique with regard to making use of syntax and symbolic reference. Recent approaches to the evolution of language formalize why syntax is selectively advantageous compared with isolated signal communication systems, but do not explain how signals naturally combine. Even more recent work has shown that if a communication system maximizes communicative efficiency while minimizing the cost of communication, or if a communication system constrains ambiguity in a non-trivial way while a certain entropy is maximized, signal frequencies will be distributed according to Zipf's law. Here we show that such communication principles give rise not only to signals that have many traits in common with the linking words in real human languages, but also to a rudimentary sort of syntax and symbolic reference.} } @article{ferrer05zipfLawSimpleModels, author={R. {Ferrer-i-Cancho} and Vito D.P. Servedio}, title={Can simple models explain Zipf's law in all cases?}, journal={Glottometrics}, year={2005}, volume={11}, pages={1-8}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ferrer05zipfLawSimpleModels.html}, keywords={Zipf's law, Simon model, intermittent silence}, abstract={H. Simon proposed a simple stochastic process for explaining Zipf's law for word frequencies. Here we introduce two similar generalizations of Simon's model that cover the same range of exponents as the standard Simon model. The mathematical approach followed minimizes the amount of mathematical background needed for deriving the exponent, compared to previous approaches to the standard Simon's model. Reviewing what is known from other simple explanations of Zipf's law, we conclude there is no single radically simple explanation covering the whole range of variation of the exponent of Zipf's law in humans. The meaningfulness of Zipf's law for word frequencies remains an open question.} } @article{ferrer04syntaxPRE, author={Ramon {Ferrer-i-Cancho} and Ricard V. Sole}, title={Patterns in syntactic dependency networks}, journal={Physical Review E}, year={2004}, volume={69}, pages={051915}, doi={10.1103/PhysRevE.69.051915}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ferrer04syntaxPRE.html}, abstract={Many languages are spoken on Earth. Despite their diversity, many robust language universals are known to exist. All languages share syntax, i.e., the ability of combining words for forming sentences. The origin of such traits is an issue of open debate. By using recent developments from the statistical physics of complex networks, we show that different syntactic dependency networks (from Czech, German, and Romanian) share many nontrivial statistical patterns such as the small world phenomenon, scaling in the distribution of degrees, and disassortative mixing. Such previously unreported features of syntax organization are not a trivial consequence of the structure of sentences, but an emergent trait at the global scale.} } @article{ferrer03leasteffort, author={Ramon {Ferrer-i-Cancho} and Ricard V. Sole}, title={Least effort and the origins of scaling in human language}, journal={PNAS}, year={2003}, volume={100}, pages={788-791}, doi={10.1073/pnas.0335980100}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ferrer03leasteffort.html}, abstract={The emergence of a complex language is one of the fundamental events of human evolution, and several remarkable features suggest the presence of fundamental principles of organization. These principles seem to be common to all languages. The best known is the so-called Zipf's law, which states that the frequency of a word decays as a (universal) power law of its rank. The possible origins of this law have been controversial, and its meaningfulness is still an open question. In this article, the early hypothesis of Zipf of a principle of least effort for explaining the law is shown to be sound. Simultaneous minimization in the effort of both hearer and speaker is formalized with a simple optimization process operating on a binary matrix of signal-object associations. Zipf's law is found in the transition between referentially useless systems and indexical reference systems. Our finding strongly suggests that Zipf's law is a hallmark of symbolic reference and not a meaningless feature. The implications for the evolution of language are discussed. We explain how language evolution can take advantage of a communicative phase transition.} } @article{ferrer02zipf, author={Ramon {Ferrer-i-Cancho} and Ricard V. Sole}, title={Zipf's law and random texts}, journal={Advances in Complex Systems}, year={2002}, volume={5}, number={1}, pages={1-6}, doi={10.1142/S0219525902000468}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ferrer02zipf.html}, keywords={Human language; scaling; Zipf's law; monkey languages; random texts}, abstract={Random-text models have been proposed as an explanation for the power law relationship between word frequency and rank, the so-called Zipf's law. They are generally regarded as null hypotheses rather than models in the strict sense. In this context, recent theories of language emergence and evolution assume this law as a priori information with no need of explanation. Here, random texts and real texts are compared through (a) the so-called lexical spectrum and (b) the distribution of words having the same length. It is shown that real texts fill the lexical spectrum much more efficiently and regardless of the word length, suggesting that the meaningfulness of Zipf's law is high.} } @article{ferrer01twoRegimes, author={Ramon {Ferrer-i-Cancho} and Ricard V. Sole}, title={Two regimes in the frequency of words and the origins of complex lexicons: Zipf's law revisited}, journal={Journal of Quantitative Linguistics}, year={2001}, volume={8}, number={3}, pages={165-173}, doi={10.1076/jqul.8.3.165.4101}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ferrer01twoRegimes.html}, keywords={Zipf's law, origin of language, scaling}, abstract={Zipf's law states that the frequency of a word is a power function of its rank. The exponent of the power is usually accepted to be close to (-)1. Great deviations between the predicted and real number of different words of a text, disagreements between the predicted and real exponent of the probability density function and statistics on a big corpus, make evident that word frequency as a function of the rank follows two different exponents, \approx (-)1 for the first regime and \approx (-)2 for the second. The implications of the change in exponents for the metrics of texts and for the origins of complex lexicons are analyzed.} } @article{ferrer01theSmall, author={Ramon {Ferrer-i-Cancho} and Ricard V. Sole}, title={The small world of human language}, journal={Proceedings of The Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences}, year={2001}, month={November}, volume={268}, number={1482}, pages={2261-2265}, doi={10.1098/rspb.2001.1800}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ferrer01theSmall.html}, keywords={Small-world, scaling, lexical networks, human language}, abstract={Words in human language interact in sentences in non-random ways, and allow humans to construct an astronomic variety of sentences from a limited number of discrete units. This construction process is extremely fast and robust. The co-occurrence of words in sentences reflects language organization in a subtle manner that can be described in terms of a graph of word interactions. Here, we show that such graphs display two important features recently found in a disparate number of complex systems. (i) The so called small-world effect. In particular, the average distance between two words, d (i.e. the average minimum number of links to be crossed from an arbitrary word to another), is shown to be d approximate to 2-3, even though the human brain can store many thousands. (ii) A scale-free distribution of degrees. The known pronounced effects of disconnecting the most connected vertices in such networks can be identified in some language disorders. These observations indicate some unexpected features of language organization that might reflect the evolutionary and social history of lexicons and the origins of their flexibility and combinatorial nature.} } @techreport{ferrer-i-cancho2003-SFI, author={R. {Ferrer-i-Cancho} and R. V. Sole and R. Kohler}, title={Universality in syntactic dependencies}, year={2003}, institution={Santa Fe Institute}, note={Santa Fe Working paper 03-06-042}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ferrericancho2003SFI.html}, keywords={complex networks, linguistic universals, small-world, syntax, scaling}, abstract={Many languages are spoken on Earth. Despite their diversity, many robust language universals are known to exist. All languages share syntax, i.e. the ability to combine words to form sentences. The origins of such a trait are an open debate. Most linguistic universals are defined in a way that strictly confines them to a linguistic context. This is not the case for the previously unreported potential syntactic universals presented here. By using recent developments from the statistical physics of complex networks, we show that different syntactic dependency networks (from Czech, German, and Romanian) share many non-trivial statistical patterns such as the small world phenomenon, scaling in the distribution of degrees, and disassortative mixing. Such previously unreported features of syntax organization are not a trivial consequence of the structure of sentences, but an emergent trait at the global scale. Our results strongly suggest that existent languages might belong to the same universality class as it is defined in physics.} } @inproceedings{ficici98coevolvingCommunicative, author={Sevan G. Ficici and Jordan B. Pollack}, title={Coevolving Communicative Behavior in a Linear Pursuer-Evader Game}, year={1998}, pages={263--269}, address={Cambridge, CA}, editor={Pfeifer, R. and Blumberg, B. and Meyer, J-A and Wilson, S.}, publisher={The MIT Press}, booktitle={SAB98}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ficici98coevolvingCommunicative.html} } @article{fisher06eloquentApe, author={Simon E. Fisher and Gary F. Marcus}, title={The eloquent ape: genes, brains and the evolution of language}, journal={Nature Reviews Genetics}, year={2006}, month={January}, volume={7}, pages={9-20}, doi={10.1038/nrg1747}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/fisher06eloquentApe.html}, abstract={The human capacity to acquire complex language seems to be without parallel in the natural world. The origins of this remarkable trait have long resisted adequate explanation, but advances in fields that range from molecular genetics to cognitive neuroscience offer new promise. Here we synthesize recent developments in linguistics, psychology and neuroimaging with progress in comparative genomics, gene-expression profiling and studies of developmental disorders. We argue that language should be viewed not as a wholesale innovation, but as a complex reconfiguration of ancestral systems that have been adapted in evolutionarily novel ways.} } @article{fitch07viewsNATURE, author={W. Tecumseh Fitch}, title={Linguistics: an invisible hand}, journal={Nature}, year={2007}, month={Oct}, volume={449}, number={7163}, pages={665--667}, doi={10.1038/449665a}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/fitch07viewsNATURE.html}, abstract={Quantitative relationships between how frequently a word is used and how rapidly it changes over time raise intriguing questions about the way individual behaviours determine large-scale linguistic and cultural change.} } @incollection{fitch05musicEvolution, author={W. Tecumseh Fitch}, title={The Evolution of Music in Comparative Perspective}, year={2005}, month={December}, volume={1060}, pages={29-49}, editor={Giuliano Avanzini and Stefan Koelsch and Luisa Lopez and Maria Majno}, publisher={}, booktitle={The Neurosciences and Music II: From Perception to Performance. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences}, doi={10.1196/annals.1360.004}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/fitch05musicEvolution.html}, keywords={biomusicology, evolution of music, design features of music, comparative data, birdsong, whalesong, ape drumming, linguistics, communication}, abstract={In this paper, I briefly review some comparative data that provide an empirical basis for research on the evolution of music making in humans. First, a brief comparison of music and language leads to discussion of design features of music, suggesting a deep connection between the biology of music and language. I then selectively review data on animal ``music.'' Examining sound production in animals, we find examples of repeated convergent evolution or analogy (the evolution of vocal learning of complex songs in birds, whales, and seals). A fascinating but overlooked potential homology to instrumental music is provided by manual percussion in African apes. Such comparative behavioral data, combined with neuroscientific and developmental data, provide an important starting point for any hypothesis about how or why human music evolved. Regarding these functional and phylogenetic questions, I discuss some previously proposed functions of music, including Pinker's ``cheesecake'' hypothesis; Darwin's and others' sexual selection model; Dunbar's group ``grooming'' hypothesis; and Trehub's caregiving model. I conclude that only the last hypothesis receives strong support from currently available data. I end with a brief synopsis of Darwin's model of a songlike musical ``protolanguage,'' concluding that Darwin's model is consistent with much of the available evidence concerning the evolution of both music and language. There is a rich future for empirical investigations of the evolution of music, both in investigations of individual differences among humans, and in interspecific investigations of musical abilities in other animals, especially those of our ape cousins, about which we know little.} } @article{fitch05comparativeReview, author={W. Tecumseh Fitch}, title={The Evolution of Language: A Comparative Review}, journal={Biology and Philosophy}, year={2005}, month={March}, volume={20}, number={2-3}, pages={193-203}, doi={10.1007/s10539-005-5597-1}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/fitch05comparativeReview.html}, keywords={language, evolution, speech, syntax, semantics, vocal imitation, laryngeal descent, sexual selection, kin selection, theory of mind, homology, analogy, mirror neurons, FOXP2}, abstract={For many years the evolution of language has been seen as a disreputable topic, mired in fanciful “just so stories” about language origins. However, in the last decade a new synthesis of modern linguistics, cognitive neuroscience and neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory has begun to make important contributions to our understanding of the biology and evolution of language. I review some of this recent progress, focusing on the value of the comparative method, which uses data from animal species to draw inferences about language evolution. Discussing speech first, I show how data concerning a wide variety of species, from monkeys to birds, can increase our understanding of the anatomical and neural mechanisms underlying human spoken language, and how bird and whale song provide insights into the ultimate evolutionary function of language. I discuss the “descended larynx” of humans, a peculiar adaptation for speech that has received much attention in the past, which despite earlier claims is not uniquely human. Then I will turn to the neural mechanisms underlying spoken language, pointing out the difficulties animals apparently experience in perceiving hierarchical structure in sounds, and stressing the importance of vocal imitation in the evolution of a spoken language. Turning to ultimate function, I suggest that communication among kin (especially between parents and offspring) played a crucial but neglected role in driving language evolution. Finally, I briefly discuss phylogeny, discussing hypotheses that offer plausible routes to human language from a non-linguistic chimp-like ancestor. I conclude that comparative data from living animals will be key to developing a richer, more interdisciplinary understanding of our most distinctively human trait: language.} } @article{fitch05reviewOnBookByMithen, author={W. Tecumseh Fitch}, title={Dancing to Darwin's tune. Book review of 'The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body by Steve Mithen'}, journal={Nature}, year={2005}, month={November}, volume={438}, number={288}, doi={10.1038/438288a}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/fitch05reviewOnBookByMithen.html} } @incollection{fitch04kinSelection, author={W. Tecumseh Fitch}, title={Kin Selection and ``Mother Tongues'': A Neglected Component in Language Evolution}, year={2004}, pages={275-296}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/fitch04kinSelection.html} } @article{fitch02evolang, author={W. Tecumseh Fitch}, title={The evolution of language comes of age}, journal={Trends in Cognitive Sciences}, year={2002}, volume={6}, number={7}, pages={278-279}, doi={10.1016/S1364-6613(02)01925-3}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/fitch02evolang.html}, keywords={linguistics; communication}, abstract={The Fourth International Conference on the Evolution of Language was held at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA, on 27–30 March 2002.} } @incollection{fitch02comparativeVocal, author={W. Tecumseh Fitch}, title={Comparative Vocal Production and the Evolution of Speech: Reinterpreting the Descent of the Larynx}, year={2002}, address={Oxford}, chapter={2}, editor={Alison Wray}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={The Transition to Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/fitch02comparativeVocal.html} } @article{fitch00speech, author={W. Tecumseh Fitch}, title={The evolution of speech: a comparative review}, journal={Trends in cognitive sciences}, year={2000}, volume={4}, number={7}, pages={258-267}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/fitch00speech.html}, abstract={The evolution of speech can be studied independently of the evolution of language, with the advantage that most aspects of speech acoustics, physiology and neural control are shared with animals, and thus open to empirical investigation. At least two changes were necessary prerequisites for modern human speech abilities: (1) modification of vocal tract morphology, and (2) development of vocal imitative ability. Despite an extensive literature, attempts to pinpoint the timing of these changes using fossil data have proven inconclusive. However, recent comparative data from nonhuman primates have shed light on the ancestral use of formants (a crucial cue in human speech) to identify individuals and gauge body size. Second, comparative analysis of the diverse vertebrates that have evolved vocal imitation (humans, cetaceans, seals and birds) provides several distinct, testable hypotheses about the adaptive function of vocal mimicry. These developments suggest that, for understanding the evolution of speech, comparative analysis of living species provides a viable alternative to fossil data. However, the neural basis for vocal mimicry and for mimesis in general remains unknown.} } @article{fitch05languageFaculty, author={W. Tecumseh Fitch and Marc D. Hauser and Noam Chomsky}, title={The evolution of the language faculty: Clarifications and implications}, journal={Cognition}, year={2005}, month={September}, volume={97}, number={2}, pages={179-210}, doi={10.1016/j.cognition.2005.02.005}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/fitch05languageFaculty.html}, abstract={In this response to Pinker and Jackendoff's critique, we extend our previous framework for discussion of language evolution, clarifying certain distinctions and elaborating on a number of points. In the first half of the paper, we reiterate that profitable research into the biology and evolution of language requires fractionation of ``language'' into component mechanisms and interfaces, a non-trivial endeavor whose results are unlikely to map onto traditional disciplinary boundaries. Our terminological distinction between FLN and FLB is intended to help clarify misunderstandings and aid interdisciplinary rapprochement. By blurring this distinction, Pinker and Jackendoff mischaracterize our hypothesis 3 which concerns only FLN, not ``language'' as a whole. Many of their arguments and examples are thus irrelevant to this hypothesis. Their critique of the minimalist program is for the most part equally irrelevant, because very few of the arguments in our original paper were tied to this program; in an online appendix we detail the deep inaccuracies in their characterization of this program. Concerning evolution, we believe that Pinker and Jackendoff's emphasis on the past adaptive history of the language faculty is misplaced. Such questions are unlikely to be resolved empirically due to a lack of relevant data, and invite speculation rather than research. Preoccupation with the issue has retarded progress in the field by diverting research away from empirical questions, many of which can be addressed with comparative data. Moreover, offering an adaptive hypothesis as an alternative to our hypothesis concerning mechanisms is a logical error, as questions of function are independent of those concerning mechanism. The second half of our paper consists of a detailed response to the specific data discussed by Pinker and Jackendoff. Although many of their examples are irrelevant to our original paper and arguments, we find several areas of substantive disagreement that could be resolved by future empirical research. We conclude that progress in understanding the evolution of language will require much more empirical research, grounded in modern comparative biology, more interdisciplinary collaboration, and much less of the adaptive storytelling and phylogenetic speculation that has traditionally characterized the field.} } @inproceedings{fleischer04SAB, author={Jason Fleischer and Jonathan Shapiro}, title={Imitation Is Not Enough for Lexicon Learning}, year={2004}, pages={477-486}, booktitle={SAB04}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/fleischer04SAB.html}, abstract={Lexicon learning systems need to be concerned with more than just producing symbol usage agreement between agents, which is easy to acquire through imitation. Lexicon learners should also explicitly attempt to increase the mutual information between their symbol usages (a measure of the usefulness of the symbols for transferring information between agents). This paper argues that, although many lexicon learning algorithms presented in the literature do attempt to create highly informative symbol usages implicitly, there are good reasons to make the mutual information of symbol usages an explicit goal of the lexicon learning system. Some first steps in this direction are provided in this paper. It presents lexicon learning experiments using both purely imitative and explicitly information maximizing algorithms. The results of these experiments are used to support the thesis of this paper, that lexicon learning algorithms should explicitly attempt to produce high mutual information symbol usages.} } @article{floreano07robotsCommunication, author={Dario Floreano and Sara Mitri and Stéphane Magnenat and Laurent Keller}, title={Evolutionary conditions for the emergence of communication in robots.}, journal={Curr Biol}, year={2007}, month={Mar}, volume={17}, number={6}, pages={514--519}, doi={10.1016/j.cub.2007.01.058}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/floreano07robotsCommunication.html}, keywords={Artificial Intelligence; Communication; Computer Simulation; Evolution; Robotics}, abstract={Information transfer plays a central role in the biology of most organisms, particularly social species [1, 2]. Although the neurophysiological processes by which signals are produced, conducted, perceived, and interpreted are well understood, the conditions conducive to the evolution of communication and the paths by which reliable systems of communication become established remain largely unknown. This is a particularly challenging problem because efficient communication requires tight coevolution between the signal emitted and the response elicited [3]. We conducted repeated trials of experimental evolution with robots that could produce visual signals to provide information on food location. We found that communication readily evolves when colonies consist of genetically similar individuals and when selection acts at the colony level. We identified several distinct communication systems that differed in their efficiency. Once a given system of communication was well established, it constrained the evolution of more efficient communication systems. Under individual selection, the ability to produce visual signals resulted in the evolution of deceptive communication strategies in colonies of unrelated robots and a concomitant decrease in colony performance. This study generates predictions about the evolutionary conditions conducive to the emergence of communication and provides guidelines for designing artificial evolutionary systems displaying spontaneous communication.} } @article{fogassi04mirrorNeurons, author={Leonardo Fogassi and Pier Francesco Ferrari}, title={Mirror neurons, gestures and language evolution}, journal={Interaction Studies}, year={2004}, volume={5}, number={3}, pages={345-363}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/fogassi04mirrorNeurons.html}, keywords={Broca's area; gesture; language evolution; mirror neurons; monkey}, abstract={Different theories have been proposed for explaining the evolution of language. One of this maintains that gestural communication has been the precursor of human speech. Here we present a series of neurophysiological evidences that support this hypothesis. Communication by gestures, defined as the capacity to emit and recognize meaningful actions, may have originated in the monkey motor cortex from a neural system whose basic function was action understanding. This system is made by neurons of monkey’s area F5, named mirror neurons, activated by both execution and observation of goal-related actions. Recently, two new categories of mirror neurons have been described. Neurons of one category respond to the sound of an action, neurons of the other category respond to the observation of mouth ingestive and communicative actions. The properties of these neurons indicate that monkey's area F5 possesses the basic neural mechanisms for associating gestures and meaningful sounds as a pre-adaptation for the later emergence of articulated speech. The homology and the functional similarities between monkey area F5 and Broca’s area support this evolutionary scenario.} } @article{fontanari07compositionality, author={Jose Fernando Fontanari and Leonid I. Perlovsky}, title={Evolving compositionality in evolutionary language games}, journal={IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation}, year={2007}, month={December}, volume={11}, number={6}, pages={758-769}, doi={10.1109/TEVC.2007.892763}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/fontanari07compositionality.html}, keywords={complexity theory; game theory; genetic algorithms; simulation}, abstract={Evolutionary language games have proved a useful tool to study the evolution of communication codes in communities of agents that interact among themselves by transmitting and interpreting a fixed repertoire of signals. Most studies have focused on the emergence of Saussurean codes (i.e., codes characterized by an arbitrary one-to-one correspondence between meanings and signals). In this contribution, we argue that the standard evolutionary language game framework cannot explain the emergence of compositional codes-communication codes that preserve neighborhood relationships by mapping similar signals into similar meanings-even though use of those codes would result in a much higher payoff in the case that signals are noisy. We introduce an alternative evolutionary setting in which the meanings are assimilated sequentially and show that the gradual building of the meaning-signal mapping leads to the emergence of mappings with the desired compositional property.} } @article{fontanari04wordFrequencyPRE, author={J.F. Fontanari and L.I. Perlovsky}, title={Solvable null model for the distribution of word frequencies}, journal={Physical Review E}, year={2004}, month={Oct}, volume={70}, number={4}, pages={042901}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/fontanari04wordFrequencyPRE.html}, abstract={Zipf's law asserts that in all natural languages the frequency of a word is inversely proportional to its rank. The significance, if any, of this result for language remains a mystery. Here we examine a null hypothesis for the distribution of word frequencies, a so-called discourse-triggered word choice model, which is based on the assumption that the more a word is used, the more likely it is to be used again. We argue that this model is equivalent to the neutral infinite-alleles model of population genetics and so the degeneracy of the different words composing a sample of text is given by the celebrated Ewens sampling formula [

Theor. Pop. Biol. 3, 87 (1972)
], which we show to produce an exponential distribution of word frequencies.} } @incollection{forster06phylogeneticMethods, author={Peter Forster and Tobias Polzin and Arne Rohl}, title={Evolution of English Basic Vocabulary within the Network of Germanic Languages}, year={2006}, pages={131-}, chapter={11}, editor={Peter Forster and Colin Renfrew}, publisher={}, booktitle={Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/forster06phylogeneticMethods.html} } @article{forster03phylogeneticChronology, author={Peter Forster and Alfred Toth}, title={Toward a phylogenetic chronology of ancient Gaulish, Celtic, and Indo-European}, journal={PNAS}, year={2003}, month={July}, volume={100}, number={15}, pages={9079-9084}, doi={10.1073/pnas.1331158100}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/forster03phylogeneticChronology.html}, abstract={Indo-European is the largest and best-documented language family in the world, yet the reconstruction of the Indo-European tree, first proposed in 1863, has remained controversial. Complications may include ascertainment bias when choosing the linguistic data, and disregard for the wave model of 1872 when attempting to reconstruct the tree. Essentially analogous problems were solved in evolutionary genetics by DNA sequencing and phylogenetic network methods, respectively. We now adapt these tools to linguistics, and analyze Indo-European language data, focusing on Celtic and in particular on the ancient Celtic language of Gaul (modern France), by using bilingual Gaulish-Latin inscriptions. Our phylogenetic network reveals an early split of Celtic within Indo-European. Interestingly, the next branching event separates Gaulish (Continental Celtic) from the British (Insular Celtic) languages, with Insular Celtic subsequently splitting into Brythonic (Welsh, Breton) and Goidelic (Irish and Scottish Gaelic). Taken together, the network thus suggests that the Celtic language arrived in the British Isles as a single wave (and then differentiated locally), rather than in the traditional two-wave scenario ('P-Celtic' to Britain and 'Q-Celtic' to Ireland). The phylogenetic network furthermore permits the estimation of time in analogy to genetics, and we obtain tentative dates for Indo-European at 8100 BC ± 1,900 years, and for the arrival of Celtic in Britain at 3200 BC ± 1,500 years. The phylogenetic method is easily executed by hand and promises to be an informative approach for many problems in historical linguistics.} } @inproceedings{foundalis02evolutionOf, author={Harry E. Foundalis}, title={Evolution of Gender in Indo-European Languages}, year={2002}, address={Fairfax, Virginia}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Twenty-fourth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/foundalis02evolutionOf.html} } @incollection{franks05deception, author={Bradley Franks and Kate Rigby}, title={Deception and Mate Selection: Some implications for relevance and the evolution of language}, year={2005}, chapter={10}, editor={Maggie Tallerman}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/franks05deception.html} } @article{freedman96languagePolygenesis, author={David A. Freedman and William S-Y. Wang}, title={Language polygenesis: A probabilistic model}, journal={Anthropological Science}, year={1996}, volume={104}, pages={131-137}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/freedman96languagePolygenesis.html}, abstract={Monogenesis of language is widely accepted, but the conventional argument seems to be mistaken; a simple probabilistic model shows that polygenesis is likely. Other prehistoric inventions are discussed, as are problems in tracing linguistic lineages. Language is a system of representations; within such a system, words can evoke complex and systematic responses. Along with its social functions, language is important to humans as a mental instrument. Indeed, the invention of language,that is the accumulation of symbols to represent emotions, objects, and acts may be the most important event in human evolution, because so many developments follow from it. For example, Edward Sapir speculated that some embryonic form of language must have been available to early man to help him fashion tools from stone (Sapir,1921). Sophisticated biface stone tools date to early Homo erectus some 1.5 million years ago, suggesting a similar age for language. This paper considers whether the invention of language occurred at only one pre-historic site or at several sites. In other words, did language emerge by monogenesis or polygenesis? Early thinkers believed in monogenesis, against a background of divine creation. Perhaps the best known account is the biblical story of Adam giving names to plants and animals in the Garden of Eden. Similar legends are found among many peoples. Modern linguists too assume monogenesis, but on probabilistic grounds (see, for instance, Southworth and Daswani, 1974, p.314). The argument seems to be that the invention of language is an extremely unlikely event, because symbolization involves abstraction and requires synchronized insight by several individuals; therefore, the probability of occurrence at more than one site must be vanishingly small. We have found no explicit quantitative treatment of this question in the literature, but the underlying logic has to be the multiplication of probabilities. If p is small at one site,then p.p for two sites is smaller still, and so on. This reasoning is false, as we show here. The fallacy lies in the focus on two particular sites rather than consideration of all pairs of sites.} } @inproceedings{furnas06taggingSystems, author={George W. Furnas and Caterina Fake and Luis von Ahn and Joshua Schachter and Scott Golder and Kevin Fox and Marc Davis and Cameron Marlow and Mor Naaman}, title={Why do tagging systems work?}, year={2006}, pages={36--39}, address={New York, NY, USA}, publisher={ACM Press}, booktitle={CHI '06: CHI '06 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems}, doi={10.1145/1125451.1125462}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/furnas06taggingSystems.html}, keywords={tagging}, abstract={The panel will explore the relevance of the emerging tagging systems (Flickr, Del.icio.us, RawSugar and more). Why do they seem to work? What kinds of incentives are required for users to participate? Will tagging survive and scale to mass adoption? What are the behavioral, economic, and social models that underlie each tagging system? What are the dynamics of those systems, and how are they derived from the specific application's design and affordances? We will demand answers to these questions and others from some of the pioneering practitioners and academics in the field. Bring your wireless laptop to participate in a live tagging experiment! The experiment results will be shown and discussed at the end of the panel. To add to the fun, parts of the discussion will be motivated by short video segments.} } @inproceedings{fyfe97developingA, author={C. Fyfe and D. Livingstone}, title={Developing a Community Language}, year={1997}, month={July}, address={Brighton, UK}, booktitle={ECAL97}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/fyfe97developingA.html} } @article{Galantucci05humanCommunication, author={Bruno Galantucci}, title={An Experimental Study of the Emergence of Human Communication Systems}, journal={Cognitive Science}, year={2005}, volume={29}, number={5}, pages={737-767}, doi={10.1207/s15516709cog0000_34}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Galantucci05humanCommunication.html}, abstract={The emergence of human communication systems is typically investigated via 2 approaches with complementary strengths and weaknesses: naturalistic studies and computer simulations. This study was conducted with a method that combines these approaches. Pairs of participants played video games requiring communication. Members of a pair were physically separated but exchanged graphic signals through a medium that prevented the use of standard symbols (e.g., letters). Communication systems emerged and developed rapidly during the games, integrating the use of explicit signs with information implicitly available to players and silent behavior-coordinating procedures. The systems that emerged suggest 3 conclusions: (a) signs originate from different mappings; (b) sign systems develop parsimoniously; (c) sign forms are perceptually distinct, easy to produce, and tolerant to variations.} } @incollection{gardenfors04inbook, author={Peter Gardenfors}, title={Cooperation and the Evolution of Symbolic Communication}, year={2004}, pages={237-256}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gardenfors04inbook.html} } @incollection{grdenfors95languageAnd, author={Peter Gardenfors}, title={Language and the Evolution of Cognition}, year={1995}, publisher={}, booktitle={Lund University Cognitive Studies 41}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/grdenfors95languageAnd.html} } @inproceedings{gardenfors06EELC, author={Peter Gardenfors and Massimo Warglien}, title={Cooperation, Conceptual Spaces and the Evolution of Semantics}, year={2006}, pages={16-30}, editor={P. Vogt and et al.}, booktitle={Symbol Grounding and Beyond: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, doi={10.1007/11880172_2}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gardenfors06EELC.html}, abstract={We start by providing an evolutionary scenario for the emergence of semantics. It is argued that the evolution of anticipatory cognition and theory of mind in the hominids opened up for cooperation about future goals. This cooperation requires symbolic communication. The meanings of the symbols are established via a “meeting of minds.” The concepts in the minds of communicating individuals are modelled as convex regions in conceptual spaces. We then outline a mathematical framework based on fixpoints in continuous mappings between conceptual spaces that can be used to model such a semantics.} } @incollection{garrett06phylogeneticMethods, author={Andrew Garrett}, title={Convergence in the Formation of Indo-European Subgroups: Phylogeny and Chronology}, year={2006}, pages={139-}, chapter={12}, editor={Peter Forster and Colin Renfrew}, publisher={}, booktitle={Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/garrett06phylogeneticMethods.html} } @inproceedings{gasser93theStructure, author={M. Gasser}, title={The Structure-Grounding Problem}, year={1993}, address={NJ: Erlbaum}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gasser93theStructure.html} } @incollection{gellman05languageAndComplexity, author={Murray Gell-Mann}, title={Language and complexity}, year={2005}, month={July}, editor={James W. Minett and William S.-Y. Wang}, publisher={City University of Hong Kong Press}, booktitle={Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gellman05languageAndComplexity.html} } @incollection{gell-mann92complexityAnd, author={Murray Gell-Mann}, title={Complexity and Complex Adaptive Systems}, year={1992}, address={Reading, MA}, editor={Hawkins, John A. and Murray Gell-Mann}, publisher={Addison-Wesley}, booktitle={The Evolution of Human Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gellmann92complexityAnd.html} } @article{gennari89modelsOf, author={J. H. Gennari and P. Langley and D. Fisher}, title={Models of incremental concept formation}, journal={Journal of Artificial Intelligence}, year={1989}, volume={40}, pages={11-61}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gennari89modelsOf.html} } @article{gentner06songbirds, author={Timothy Q. Gentner and Kimberly M. Fenn and Daniel Margoliash and Howard C. Nusbaum}, title={Recursive syntactic pattern learning by songbirds}, journal={Nature}, year={2006}, month={4}, volume={440}, pages={1204-1207}, doi={10.1038/nature04675}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gentner06songbirds.html}, abstract={Humans regularly produce new utterances that are understood by other members of the same language community. Linguistic theories account for this ability through the use of syntactic rules (or generative grammars) that describe the acceptable structure of utterances. The recursive, hierarchical embedding of language units (for example, words or phrases within shorter sentences) that is part of the ability to construct new utterances minimally requires a 'context-free' grammar that is more complex than the 'finite-state' grammars thought sufficient to specify the structure of all non-human communication signals. Recent hypotheses make the central claim that the capacity for syntactic recursion forms the computational core of a uniquely human language faculty. Here we show that European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) accurately recognize acoustic patterns defined by a recursive, self-embedding, context-free grammar. They are also able to classify new patterns defined by the grammar and reliably exclude agrammatical patterns. Thus, the capacity to classify sequences from recursive, centre-embedded grammars is not uniquely human. This finding opens a new range of complex syntactic processing mechanisms to physiological investigation.} } @inproceedings{gershenson04iccs, author={C. Gershenson and F. Heylighen}, title={Protocol Requirements for Self-organizing Artifacts: Towards an Ambient Intelligence}, year={2004}, booktitle={International Conference on Complex Systems ICCS2004}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gershenson04iccs.html}, abstract={We discuss which properties common-use artifacts should have to collaborate without human intervention. We conceive how devices, such as mobile phones, PDAs, and home appliances, could be seamlessly integrated to provide an ``ambient intelligence'' that responds to the users desires without requiring explicit programming or commands. While the hardware and software technology to build such systems already exists, yet there is no protocol to direct and give meaning to their interactions. We propose the first steps in the development of such a protocol, which would need to be adaptive, extensible, and open to the community, while promoting self-organization. We argue that devices, interacting through ``game-like'' moves, can learn to agree about how to communicate, with whom to cooperate, and how to delegate and coordinate specialized tasks. Like this, they may evolve distributed cognition or collective intelligence able to tackle any complex of tasks.} } @article{ghazanfar08neuralDifference, author={Asif A. Ghazanfar}, title={Language evolution: neural differences that make a difference}, journal={Nature Neuroscience}, year={2008}, volume={11}, number={4}, pages={382-384}, doi={10.1038/nn0408-382}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ghazanfar08neuralDifference.html}, abstract={Language is unique to humans, but did it evolve gradually or suddenly, from a chance mutation or as a consequence of a larger brain? Two studies now suggest that language may have arisen gradually from precursors in other primates.} } @incollection{gibson99multipleNeurological, author={Kathleen R. Gibson and Stephen Jessee}, title={Language Evolution and Expansions of Multiple Neurological Processing Areas}, year={1999}, chapter={6}, editor={Barbara J. King}, publisher={School of American Research Press}, booktitle={The Origins of Language: What Nonhuman Primates Can Tell Us}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gibson99multipleNeurological.html} } @inproceedings{gil06evolang, author={David Gil}, title={Early human language was isolating-monocategorial-associational}, year={2006}, pages={91-98}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gil06evolang.html}, abstract={Isolating-Monocategorial-Associational (IMA) Language is language with the following three properties: (a) morphologically isolating, without word-internal morphological structure; (b) syntactically monocategorial, without distinct syntactic categories; and (c) semantically associational, without distinct construction-specific semantic rules, compositional semantics relying instead on the association operator, which says that the meaning of a composite expression is associated with the meanings of its constituents in an underspecified fashion. IMA Language is present in the following five domains: (a) phylogeny: at some stage in evolution, early language was IMA Language; (b) ontogeny: at some stage in acquisition, early child language is IMA Language; (c) semiotics: some artificial languages are IMA Language; (d) typology: some languages are closer than others to IMA Language; and (e) cognition: IMA Language is a feature of general human cognition. This paper presents arguments pertaining to the first of these domains, namely phylogeny, citing evidence from the linguistic behaviour of captive apes which points towards the conclusion that early human language was IMA Language.} } @incollection{givn99generativityAnd, author={Tom Givón}, title={Generativity and Variation: The Notion 'Rule of Grammar' Revisited}, year={1999}, address={Hillsdale, NJ}, editor={B. MacWhinney}, publisher={Lawrence Earlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Emergence of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/givn99generativityAnd.html} } @article{givn98onThe, author={Tom Givón}, title={On the Co-evolution of Language, Mind and Brain}, journal={Evolution of Communication}, year={1998}, month={March}, volume={2}, number={1}, pages={45-116}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/givn98onThe.html} } @inproceedings{gmytrasiewicz02negotiationAs, author={Piotr J. Gmytrasiewicz}, title={Negotiation as a Mechanism for Language Evolution}, year={2002}, address={Bologna, Italy}, booktitle={Proceedings of the First International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gmytrasiewicz02negotiationAs.html} } @inproceedings{gmytrasiewicz00towardsAutomating, author={Piotr J. Gmytrasiewicz and Dhruva Gopal}, title={Towards Automating the Evolution of Linguistic Competence in Artificial Agents}, year={2000}, address={Barcelona, Spain}, booktitle={Agents'2000: Workshop on Agent Communication Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gmytrasiewicz00towardsAutomating.html} } @article{gmytrasiewicz00theEmergence, author={Piotr J. Gmytrasiewicz and Michael N. Huhns}, title={The Emergence of Language Among Autonomous Agents}, journal={IEEE Internet Computing}, year={2000}, volume={4}, number={4}, pages={90-92}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gmytrasiewicz00theEmergence.html} } @inproceedings{gmytrasiewicz02towardAutomated, author={Piotr J. Gmytrasiewicz and Matthew Summers and Dhruva Gopal}, title={Toward Automated Evolution of Agent Communication Languages}, year={2002}, month={January}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 35th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS-35}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gmytrasiewicz02towardAutomated.html} } @article{gold67limit, author={E. Mark Gold}, title={Language identification in the limit}, journal={Information and Control}, year={1967}, volume={10}, number={5}, pages={447-474}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gold67limit.html}, abstract={Language learnability has been investigated. This refers to the following situation: A class of possible languages is specified, together with a method of presenting information to the learner about an unknown language, which is to be chosen from the class. The question is now asked, ``Is the information sufficient to determine which of the possible languages is the unknown language?'' Many definitions of learnability are possible, but only the following is considered here: Time is quantized and has a finite starting time. At each time the learner receives a unit of information and is to make a guess as to the identity of the unknown language on the basis of the information received so far. This process continues forever. The class of languages will be considered learnable with respect to the specified method of information presentation if there is an algorithm that the learner can use to make his guesses, the algorithm having the following property: Given any language of the class, there is some finite time after which the guesses will all be the same and they will be correct.

In this preliminary investigation, a language is taken to be a set of strings on some finite alphabet. The alphabet, is the same for all languages of the class. Several variations of each of the following two basic methods of information presentation are investigated: A text for a language generates the strings of the language in any order such that every string of the language occurs at. least once. An informant for a language tells whether a string is in the language, and chooses the strings in some order such that every string occurs at least once. It was found that the class of context-sensitive languages is learnable from an informant, but that, not even the class of regular languages is learnable from a text.} } @article{goldberg03constructions, author={Adele E. Goldberg}, title={Constructions: a new theoretical approach to language}, journal={Trends in Cognitive Sciences}, year={2003}, month={May}, volume={7}, number={5}, pages={219-224}, doi={10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00080-9}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/goldberg03constructions.html}, abstract={A new theoretical approach to language has emerged in the past 10-15 years that allows linguistic observations about form-meaning pairings, known as 'constructions', to be stated directly. Constructionist approaches aim to account for the full range of facts about language, without assuming that a particular subset of the data is part of a privileged 'core'. Researchers in this field argue that unusual constructions shed light on more general issues, and can illuminate what is required for a complete account of language.} } @incollection{goldberg99theEmergence, author={Adele E. Goldberg}, title={The Emergence of the Semantics of Argument Structure Constructions}, year={1999}, address={Hillsdale, NJ}, editor={B. MacWhinney}, publisher={Lawrence Earlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Emergence of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/goldberg99theEmergence.html} } @book{goldberg95constructionsA, author={A. E. Goldberg}, title={Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure}, year={1995}, address={Chicago}, publisher={University of Chicago Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/goldberg95constructionsA.html} } @article{golder05taggingSystems, author={Scott Golder and Bernardo A. Huberman}, title={Usage patterns of collaborative tagging systems}, journal={Journal of Information Science}, year={2006}, month={April}, volume={32}, number={2}, pages={198--208}, doi={10.1177/0165551506062337}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/golder05taggingSystems.html}, abstract={Collaborative tagging describes the process by which many users add metadata in the form of keywords to shared content. Recently, collaborative tagging has grown in popularity on the web, on sites that allow users to tag bookmarks, photographs and other content. In this paper we analyze the structure of collaborative tagging systems as well as their dynamical aspects. Specifically, we discovered regularities in user activity, tag frequencies, kinds of tags used, bursts of popularity in bookmarking and a remarkable stability in the relative proportions of tags within a given url. We also present a dynamical model of collaborative tagging that predicts these stable patterns and relates them to imitation and shared knowledge.} } @article{goldinmeadow05watchingLanguageGrow, author={Susan Goldin-Meadow}, title={Watching language grow}, journal={PNAS}, year={2005}, month={February}, volume={102}, number={7}, pages={2271-2272}, doi={10.1073/pnas.0500166102}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/goldinmeadow05watchingLanguageGrow.html} } @article{goldinmeadow98spontaneousSignSystems, author={Susan Goldin-Meadow and Carolyn Mylander}, title={Spontaneous sign systems created by deaf children in two cultures}, journal={Nature}, year={1998}, month={1}, volume={391}, number={6664}, pages={279-281}, doi={10.1038/34646}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/goldinmeadow98spontaneousSignSystems.html}, abstract={Deaf children whose access to usable conventional linguistic input, signed or spoken, is severely limited nevertheless use gesture to communicate. These gestures resemble natural language in that they are structured at the level both of sentence and of word. Although the inclination to use gesture may be traceable to the fact that the deaf children's hearing parents, like all speakers, gesture as they talk, the children themselves are responsible for introducing language-like structure into their gestures. We have explored the robustness of this phenomenon by observing deaf children of hearing parents in two cultures, an American and a Chinese culture, that differ in their child-rearing practices and in the way gesture is used in relation to speech. The spontaneous sign systems developed in these cultures shared a number of structural similarities: patterned production and deletion of semantic elements in the surface structure of a sentence; patterned ordering of those elements within the sentence; and concatenation of propositions within a sentence. These striking similarities offer critical empirical input towards resolving the ongoing debate about the 'innateness' of language in human infants.} } @article{goldman07learningToCommunicate, author={Claudia V. Goldman and Martin Allen and Shlomo Zilberstein}, title={Learning to communicate in a decentralized environment}, journal={Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems}, year={2007}, month={August}, volume={15}, number={1}, pages={47-90}, doi={10.1007/s10458-006-0008-9}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/goldman07learningToCommunicate.html}, abstract={Abstract Learning to communicate is an emerging challenge in AI research. It is known that agents interacting in decentralized, stochastic environments can benefit from exchanging information. Multi-agent planning generally assumes that agents share a common means of communication; however, in building robust distributed systems it is important to address potential miscoordination resulting from misinterpretation of messages exchanged. This paper lays foundations for studying this problem, examining its properties analytically and empirically in a decision-theoretic context. We establish a formal framework for the problem, and identify a collection of necessary and sufficient properties for decision problems that allow agents to employ probabilistic updating schemes in order to learn how to interpret what others are communicating. Solving the problem optimally is often intractable, but our approach enables agents using different languages to converge upon coordination over time. Our experimental work establishes how these methods perform when applied to problems of varying complexity.} } @inproceedings{goldman04aamas, author={Claudia V. Goldman and Martin Allen and Shlomo Zilberstein}, title={Decentralized Language Learning Through Acting}, year={2004}, pages={1006-1013}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/goldman04aamas.html}, abstract={This paper presents an algorithm for learning the meaning of messages communicated between agents that interact while acting optimally towards a cooperative goal. Our reinforcement-learning method is based on Bayesian filtering and has been adapted for a decentralized control process. Empirical results shed light on the complexity of the learning problem, and on factors affecting the speed of convergence. Designing intelligent agents able to adapt their mutual interpretation of messages exchanged, in order to improve overall task-oriented performance, introduces an essential cognitive capability that can upgrade the current state of the art in multi-agent and human-machine systems to the next level. Learning to communicate while acting will add to the robustness and flexibility of these systems and hence to a more efficient and productive performance.} } @incollection{golinkoff99emergentCues, author={R. M. Golinkoff and K. Hirsh-Pasek and G. Hollich}, title={Emergent Cues for Early Word Learning.}, year={1999}, address={Hillsdale, NJ}, editor={B. MacWhinney}, publisher={Lawrence Earlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Emergence of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/golinkoff99emergentCues.html} } @article{gomes99diversityScaling, author={M. A. F. Gomes and G. L. Vasconcelos and I. J. Tsang and I. R. Tsang}, title={Scaling relations for diversity of languages}, journal={Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications}, year={1999}, month={September}, volume={271}, number={3-4}, pages={489-495}, doi={10.1016/S0378-4371(99)00249-6}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gomes99diversityScaling.html}, keywords={Diversity; Languages; Fragmentation; Fractals}, abstract={The distribution of living languages is investigated and scaling relations are found for the diversity of languages as a function of the country area and population. These results are compared with data from Ecology and from computer simulations of fragmentation dynamics where similar scalings appear. The language size distribution is also studied and shown to display two scaling regions: (i) one for the largest (in population) languages and (ii) another one for intermediate-size languages. It is then argued that these two classes of languages may have distinct growth dynamics, being distributed on the sets of different fractal dimensions.} } @inproceedings{gong04alife, author={Tao Gong and Jinyun Ke and James W. Minett and William S-Y. Wang}, title={A computational framework to simulate the co-evolution of language and social structure}, year={2004}, address={Boston, MA, U.S.A.}, booktitle={Artificial Life IX}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gong04alife.html}, abstract={In this paper, a multi-agent computational model is proposed to simulate the coevolution of social structure and compositional protolanguage from a holistic signaling system through iterative interactions within a heterogeneous population. We implement an indirect meaning transference based on both linguistic and nonlinguistic information in communications, together with a feedback without direct meaning check. The emergent social structure, triggered by two locally selective strategies, friendship and popularity, has small-world characteristics. The influence of these selective strategies on the emergent language and the emergent social structure are discussed.} } @article{gong04coevolution, author={Tao Gong and James W. Minett and Jinyun Ke and John H. Holland and William S-Y. Wang}, title={Coevolution of lexicon and syntax from a simulation perspective}, journal={Complexity}, year={2005}, month={August}, volume={10}, number={6}, pages={50-62}, doi={10.1002/cplx.20093}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gong04coevolution.html}, keywords={language emergence,multiagent, coevolution, indirect meaning transference}, abstract={Whether simple syntax (in the form of simple word order) can emerge during the emergence of lexicon is studied from a simulation perspective; a multiagent computational model is adopted to trace a lexicon-syntax coevolution through iterative communications. Several factors that may affect this self-organizing process are discussed. An indirect meaning transference is simulated to study the effect of nonlinguistic information in listener's comprehension. Besides the theoretical and empirical argumentations, this computational model, following the Emergentism, demonstrates an adaptation of syntax from some domain-general abilities, which provides an argumentation against the Innatism.} } @inproceedings{gong07culturalTransmission, author={T. Gong and J. W. Minett and W. S-Y. Wang}, title={A Simulative Study of the Roles of Cultural Transmission in Language Evolution}, year={2007}, pages={843-850}, address={Singapore}, booktitle={Proceedings of 2007 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gong07culturalTransmission.html}, abstract={A multi-agent computational model is proposed to simulate language evolution in an acquisition framework. This framework involves many major forms of cultural transmission, and the simulation results of the model systematically examine the role of cultural transmission in language emergence and maintenance. In addition, this study discusses the effects of conventionalization during horizontal transmission on diffusing linguistic innovations, maintaining high levels of linguistic understandability, and triggering inevitable changes in the communal languages across generations. All these reflect that conventionalization could be a self-organizing property of the human communication system that drives language evolution.} } @inproceedings{gong06languageOrigin, author={T. Gong and J. W. Minett and W. S-Y. Wang}, title={Language origin and the effects of individuals' popularity}, year={2006}, pages={3744-3751}, address={Vancouver, CA}, booktitle={Proceedings of 2006 IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gong06languageOrigin.html}, abstract={The emergence of a compositional language with a simple grammar and the effects of individualsâ™ popularity on the phylogeny of language are studied based on a multi-agent computational model. In this model, a bottom-up syntactic development is traced, in which the global syntax in sentences is gradually formed from local sequential information. Assuming that the popularity of individuals follows a power-law distribution, we demonstrate that a common language can emerge efficiently only for certain power-law distributions and that these distributions could also be formed as a result of the language phylogeny.} } @inproceedings{gong06CompositionalityRegularity, author={Tao Gong and James W. Minett and William S-Y. Wang}, title={Computational simulation on the co-evolution of compositionality and regularity}, year={2006}, pages={99-106}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gong06CompositionalityRegularity.html}, abstract={Compositionality and regularity are universals in human languages; in most languages, complex expressions are determined by their structures and their components’ meanings. Based on a multi-agent computational model, the coevolution of compositionality and one type of regularity, word order, is traced during the emergence of compositional language out of holistic signals. The model modifies some questionable aspects in the Iterated Learning Model and Fluid Construction Grammar by considering the conventionalization in horizontal transmission and the gradual formation of syntactic categories which mirror the semantic categories. The model also implements a bottom-up syntactic developmental process, i.e., the global orders for regulating multiple arguments are gradually formed from simple local orders between two categories.} } @inproceedings{gong05culturalDissemination, author={T. Gong and J. W. Minett and W. S-Y. Wang}, title={Computational exploration on language emergence and cultural dissemination}, year={2005}, pages={1629-1636}, address={Edinburgh, UK}, booktitle={Proceedings of 2005 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation}, doi={10.1109/CEC.2005.1554884}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gong05culturalDissemination.html}, abstract={Evolutionary computation is used to explore the emergence of language, focusing particularly on the intrinsic relationship between the lexicon and syntax, and the exogenous relationship between language use and cultural development. A multi-agent model traces a coevolution of the lexicon and syntax, and demonstrates that linguistic and some distance constraint on communications can trigger and maintain cultural heterogeneity. This model also traces an optimization process using evolutionary mechanisms based on local information. Certain mechanisms in this model, such as recurrent pattern extraction, strength-based competition and indirect feedback, can be generalized to study robot learning, optimization and other evolutionary phenomena.} } @article{gong05coevolutionModel, author={T. Gong and W. S-Y. Wang}, title={Computational modeling on language emergence: A coevolution model of lexicon, syntax and social structure}, journal={Language and Linguistics}, year={2005}, volume={6}, number={1}, pages={1-41}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gong05coevolutionModel.html}, keywords={language emergence (phylogenetic), computational modeling, coevolution (lexicon & syntax), coevolution (language & social structure)}, abstract={In this paper, after a brief review of current computational models on language emergence, a multi-agent model is introduced to simulate the emergence of a compositional language from a holistic signaling system, through iterative interactions among heterogeneous agents. A coevolution of lexicon and syntax (in the form of simple word order) is tracked during communications with indirect meaning transference, in which the listener’s comprehension is based on interactions of linguistic and nonlinguistic information, and the feedback is not a direct meaning check. In this model, homonymous and synonymous rules emerge inevitably, and a sufficiently developed communication system is available only when a homonym-avoidance mechanism is adopted. In addition, certain degrees of heterogeneity regarding agent’s natural characteristics and linguistic behaviors do not significantly affect language emergence. Finally, based on theories of complex networks, a preliminary study of social structure’s influence on language emergence is given, and a coevolution of the emergence of language and that of simple social structure is implemented.} } @incollection{gontier06EELCsymbiogenesis, author={Nathalie Gontier}, title={Evolutionary Epistemology and the origin and evolution of language - taking symbiogenesis seriously}, year={2006}, pages={195-226}, editor={Gontier, Nathalie and van Bendegem, Jean Paul and Aerts, Diederik}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Evolutionary Epistemology, Language and Culture - A non-adaptationist, systems theoretical approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gontier06EELCsymbiogenesis.html} } @inproceedings{gontier06EpistemologicalInquiry, author={Nathalie Gontier}, title={An Epistemological Inquiry into the 'What is Language' Question and the 'What Did Language Evolve For' Question}, year={2006}, pages={107-114}, editor={Cangelosi, A. and Smith, A.D.M. and Smith, K.}, publisher={London: World Scientific}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gontier06EpistemologicalInquiry.html}, abstract={Although Hauser, Chomsky and Fitch (HCF/FHC) and Pinker and Jackendoff (PJ/JP) differ in the epistemic questions they ask concerning, respectively, the nature of language (what language is), and the evolution of language (what language evolved for), it will be argued that both questions are part of the same methodological framework. This framework resembles the classical manner in which scientific knowledge is to be obtained while newer epistemological methods are suggested that can complement the study of the characteristics of language and evolutionary transitions that led to language.} } @incollection{gontier06EELCIntroduction, author={Nathalie Gontier}, title={Introduction to evolutionary epistemology, language and culture}, year={2006}, pages={1-29}, editor={Gontier, Nathalie and van Bendegem, Jean Paul and Aerts, Diederik}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Evolutionary Epistemology, Language and Culture - A non-adaptationist, systems theoretical approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gontier06EELCIntroduction.html} } @book{gontier06EELCbook, title={Evolutionary Epistemology, Language and Culture - A non-adaptationist, systems theoretical approach}, year={2006}, address={Dordrecht}, editor={Gontier, Nathalie and van Bendegem, Jean Paul and Aerts, Diederik}, series={Theory and Decision Library A, 39}, publisher={Springer}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gontier06EELCbook.html} } @article{gostoli08lexiconEmergence, author={Umberto Gostoli}, title={A Cognitively Founded Model of the Social Emergence of Lexicon}, journal={Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation}, year={2008}, volume={11}, number={1}, pages={2-}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gostoli08lexiconEmergence.html}, keywords={Social Conventions, Fast and Frugal Heuristic Theory, Emergence of Lexicon, Data Mining, Signaling Games}, abstract={This paper suggests a model of the process through which a set of symbols, initially without any intrinsic meaning, acquires endogenously a conventional and socially shared meaning. This model has two related aspects. The first is the cognitive aspect, represented by the process through which each agent processes the information gathered during the interactions with other agents. In this paper, the agents are endowed with the cognitive skills necessary to categorize the input in a lexicographic way, a categorization process that is implemented by the means of data mining techniques. The second aspect is the social one, represented by the process of reiterate interactions among the agents who compose a population. The framework of this social process is that of evolutionary game theory, with a population of agents who are randomly matched in each period in order to play a game that, in this paper, is a kind of signaling game. The simulations show that the emergence of a socially shared meaning associated to a combination of symbols is, under the assumptions of this model, a statistically inevitable occurrence.} } @article{gostoli07cognitiveLexicon, author={Umberto Gostoli}, title={A Cognitively Founded Model of the Social Emergence of Lexicon}, journal={Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation}, year={2007}, volume={11}, number={1}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gostoli07cognitiveLexicon.html}, keywords={Social Conventions, Fast and Frugal Heuristic Theory, Emergence of Lexicon, Data Mining, Signaling Games}, abstract={This paper suggests a model of the process through which a set of symbols, initially without any intrinsic meaning, acquires endogenously a conventional and socially shared meaning. This model has two related aspects. The first is the cognitive aspect, represented by the process through which each agent processes the information gathered during the interactions with other agents. In this paper, the agents are endowed with the cognitive skills necessary to categorize the input in a lexicographic way, a categorization process that is implemented by the means of data mining techniques. The second aspect is the social one, represented by the process of reiterate interactions among the agents who compose a population. The framework of this social process is that of evolutionary game theory, with a population of agents who are randomly matched in each period in order to play a game that, in this paper, is a kind of signaling game. The simulations show that the emergence of a socially shared meaning associated to a combination of symbols is, under the assumptions of this model, a statistically inevitable occurrence.} } @article{grafen93whyESSsignalling, author={A. Grafen and R.A. Johnstone}, title={Why we need ESS signalling theory}, journal={Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences}, year={1993}, month={May}, volume={340}, number={1292}, pages={245-250}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/grafen93whyESSsignalling.html}, abstract={Evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) models of biological signalling are important because the intimate coevolution of signalling and receiving strategies is complicated. Tentative results from a numerical study of error-prone signalling show the value of formal modelling. Error in perception can create discreteness in the distribution of signals produced, and so observed discreteness in nature may call for no more complicated explanation. Further developments in the theory of signalling may include a link with theories of aggression such as the sequential assessment game. The technical device of a 'scratch space' may allow a natural development of 'two-way' information games in which each contestant plays the roles of signaller and receiver simultaneously. This device may also incidentally derive mental states from purely strategic considerations.} } @article{grassly00jtb, author={N. C. Grassly and A. von Haeseler and David Krakauer}, title={Error, Population Structure and the Origin of Diverse Sign Systems}, journal={Journal of Theoretical Biology}, year={2000}, volume={206}, number={3}, pages={369-378}, doi={10.1006/jtbi.2000.2133}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/grassly00jtb.html}, abstract={Evolutionary models of communication are used to shed some light on the selective pressures involved in the evolution of simple referential signals, and the constraints hindering the emergence of signs. Error-prone communication results from errors in transmission (in which individuals learn the wrong associations) and communication (in which signs are mistaken for one another). We demonstrate how both classes of errors are required to generate diversity and subsequently impose limits on the sign repertoire within a population. We then explore the influence of geographic structuring of a population on the evolution of a shared sign system and the importance of such structure for the maintenance of sign diversity. Deceit tends to erode conventional signs systems thereby reducing signal diversity, we demonstrate that population structure can act as a hedge against deceit, thereby ensuring the persistence of sign systems.} } @article{gray05languageRootsSCIENCE, author={Russell D. Gray}, title={Pushing the Time Barrier in the Quest for Language Roots}, journal={Science}, year={2005}, month={September}, volume={309}, number={5743}, pages={2007-2008}, doi={10.1126/science.1119276}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gray05languageRootsSCIENCE.html}, abstract={The challenge of tracing the history of the world's languages faces a serious problem--words change far too rapidly to reveal deep historical links. In his Perspective, Gray discusses language analyses by Dunn et al. in which a database of structural linguistic features was created and computational methods derived from evolutionary biology were applied. The approach offers new hope for uncovering these ancient connections.} } @article{gray03languageTreeDivergence, author={Russell D. Gray and Quentin D. Atkinson}, title={Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin}, journal={Nature}, year={2003}, month={November}, volume={426}, number={6965}, pages={435-439}, doi={10.1038/nature02029}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gray03languageTreeDivergence.html}, keywords={Linguistics; Genetic engineering; Computational methods; Agriculture; Forestry; Kurgan theory}, abstract={Languages, like genes, provide vital clues about human history. The origin of the Indo-European language family is ``the most intensively studied, yet still most recalcitrant, problem of historical linguistics''. Numerous genetic studies of Indo-European origins have also produced inconclusive results. Here we analyse linguistic data using computational methods derived from evolutionary biology. We test two theories of Indo-European origin: the 'Kurgan expansion' and the 'Anatolian farming' hypotheses. The Kurgan theory centres on possible archaeological evidence for an expansion into Europe and the Near East by Kurgan horsemen beginning in the sixth millennium BP. In contrast, the Anatolian theory claims that Indo-European languages expanded with the spread of agriculture from Anatolia around 8,000-9,500 years BP. In striking agreement with the Anatolian hypothesis, our analysis of a matrix of 87 languages with 2,449 lexical items produced an estimated age range for the initial Indo-European divergence of between 7,800 and 9,800 years BP. These results were robust to changes in coding procedures, calibration points, rooting of the trees and priors in the bayesian analysis.} } @article{greco99languageAnd, author={A. Greco and A. Cangelosi}, title={Language and the acquisition of implicit and explicit knowledge: a pilot study using neural networks}, journal={Cognitive Systems}, year={1999}, volume={5}, number={2}, pages={148-165}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/greco99languageAnd.html} } @unpublished{greco03icann, author={Alberto Greco and Thomas Riga and Angelo Cangelosi}, title={The acquisition of new categories through grounded symbols: An extended connectionist model}, year={2003}, note={submitted to Joint ICANN/ICONIP 2003 Conference, Turkey, June 2003}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/greco03icann.html} } @incollection{greenberg92preliminariesTo, author={Joseph H. Greenberg}, title={Preliminaries to a Systematic Comparison Between Biological and Linguistic Evoltuion}, year={1992}, address={Reading, MA}, editor={Hawkins, John A. and Murray Gell-Mann}, series={SFI Studies in the Sciences of Complexity}, publisher={Addison-Wesley}, booktitle={The Evolution of Human Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/greenberg92preliminariesTo.html} } @article{greenfield91BBS, author={Patricia M. Greenfield}, title={Language, tools, and brain: The ontogeny and phylogeny of hierarchically organized sequential behavior}, journal={Behavioral and Brain Sciences}, year={1991}, volume={14}, number={4}, pages={531-551}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/greenfield91BBS.html} } @inproceedings{Griffiths06iteratedLearning, author={Thomas L. Griffiths and Brian R. Christian and Michael L. Kalish}, title={Revealing priors on category structures through iterated learning}, year={2006}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Griffiths06iteratedLearning.html}, abstract={We present a novel experimental method for identifying the inductive biases of human learners. The key idea behind this method is simple: we use participants’ re- sponses on one trial to generate the stimuli they see on the next. A theoretical analysis of this “iterated learn- ing” procedure, based on the assumption that learners are Bayesian agents, predicts that it should reveal the inductive biases of the learners, as expressed in a prior probability distribution. We test this prediction through two experiments in iterated category learning.} } @article{griffiths07iteratedLearning, author={Thomas L. Griffiths and Michael L. Kalish}, title={Language evolution by iterated learning with Bayesian agents}, journal={Cognitive Science}, year={2007}, volume={31}, number={3}, pages={441-480}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/griffiths07iteratedLearning.html}, abstract={Languages are transmitted from person to person and generation to generation via a process of iterated learning: people learn a language from other people who once learned that language themselves. We analyze the consequences of iterated learning for learning algorithms based on the principles of Bayesian inference, assuming that learners compute a posterior distribution over languages by combining a prior (representing their inductive biases) with the evidence provided by linguistic data. We show that when learners sample languages from this posterior distribution, iterated learning converges to a distribution over languages that is determined entirely by the prior. Under these conditions, iterated learning is a form of Gibbs sampling, a widely-used Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm. The consequences of iterated learning are more complicated when learners choose the language with maximum posterior probability, being affected by both the prior of the learners and the amount of information transmitted between generations. We show that in this case, iterated learning corresponds to another statistical inference algorithm, a variant of the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. These results clarify the role of iterated learning in explanations of linguistic universals and provide a formal connection between constraints on language acquisition and the languages that come to be spoken, suggesting that information transmitted via iterated learning will ultimately come to mirror the minds of the learners.} } @inproceedings{Griffiths05BayesianView, author={Thomas L. Griffiths and Michael L. Kalish}, title={A Bayesian view of language evolution by iterated learning}, year={2005}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 27th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Griffiths05BayesianView.html}, abstract={Models of language evolution have demonstrated how aspects of human language, such as compositionality, can arise in populations of interacting agents. This paper analyzes how languages change as the result of a particular form of interaction: agents learning from one another. We show that, when the learners are rational Bayesian agents, this process of iterated learning converges to the prior distribution over languages assumed by those learners. The rate of convergence is set by the amount of information conveyed by the data seen by each generation; the less informative the data, the faster the process converges to the prior.} } @article{grim01learningTo, author={Patrick Grim and Paul St. Denis and Trina Kokalis}, title={Learning to communicate: The emergence of signaling in spatialized arrays of neural nets}, journal={Adaptive Behavior}, year={2002}, volume={10}, number={1}, pages={45-70}, doi={10.1177/10597123020101003}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/grim01learningTo.html}, keywords={communication; neural nets; learning; evolution; spatialization; philosophy of language}, abstract={We work with a large spatialized array of individuals in an environment of drifting food sources and predators. The behavior of each individual is generated by its simple neural net; individuals arecapable of making one of two sounds and are capable of responding to sounds from their immediate neighbors by opening their mouths or hiding. An individual whose mouth is open in the presence of food is 'fed' and gains points; an individual who fails to hide when a predator is present is 'hurt' by losing points. Opening mouths, hiding, and making sounds each exact an energy cost. There is no direct evolutionary gain for acts of cooperation or 'successful communication' per se.

In such an environment we start with a spatialized array of neural nets with randomized weights. Using standard learning algorithms, our individuals 'train up' on the behavior of successful neighbors at regular intervals. Given that simple setup, will a community of neural nets evolve a simple language for signaling the presence of food and predators? With important qualifications, the answer is yes.'In a simple spatial environment, pursuing individualistic gains and using partial training on successful neighbors, randomized neural nets can learn to communicate.} } @techreport{grim00evolutionOf, author={Patrick Grim and Trina Kokalis and Ali Tafti and Nicholas Kilb}, title={Evolution of Communication with a Spatialized Genetic Algorithm}, year={2000}, institution={Department of Philosophy, SUNY at Stony Brooks}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/grim00evolutionOf.html}, keywords={communication, evolution, spatialization, genetic algorithm, philosophy of language}, abstract={We extend previous work by modeling evolution of communication using a spatialized genetic algorithm which recombines strategies purely locally. Here cellular automata are used as a spatialized environment in which individuals gain points by capturing drifting food items and are 'harmed' if they fail to hide from migrating predators. Our individuals are capable of making one of two arbitrary sounds, heard only locally by their immediate neighbors. They can respond to sounds from their neighbors by opening their mouths or by hiding. By opening their mouths in the presence of food they maximize gains; by hiding when a predator is present they minimize losses. We consider the result a 'natural' template for benefits from communication; unlike a range of other studies, it is here only the recipient of communicated information that immediately benefits. A community of 'perfect communicators' could be expected to make a particular sound when successfully feeding, responding to that same sound from their neighbors by opening their mouths. They could be expected to make a different sound when 'hurt' and respond to that second sound from their neighbors by hiding. Suppose one starts from a small set of 'Adam and Eve' strategies randomized across a cellular automata array, and uses a genetic algorithm which operates purely locally by cross-breeding strategies with their most successful neighbors. Can one, in such an environment, expect evolution of local communities of 'perfect communicators'? With some important qualifications, the answer is 'yes'.} } @techreport{grim99evolutionOf, author={Patrick Grim and Trina Kokalis and Ali Tafti and Nicholas Kilb}, title={Evolution of Communication in Perfect and Imperfect Worlds}, year={1999}, institution={Department of Philosophy, SUNY at Stony Brooks}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/grim99evolutionOf.html}, keywords={communication, computer modeling, stochastic, imperfection, evolution, cooperation}, abstract={We extend previous work on cooperation to some related questions regarding the evolution of simple forms of communication. The evolution of cooperation within the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma has been shown to follow different patterns, with significantly different outcomes, depending on whether the features of the model are classically perfect or stochastically imperfect (Axelrod 1980a, 1980b, 1984, 1985; Axelrod and Hamilton, 1981; Nowak and Sigmund, 1990, 1992; Sigmund 1993). Our results here show that the same holds for communication. Within a simple model, the evolution of communication seems to require a stochastically imperfect world.} } @article{grim06importanceOfSpatialization, author={Patrick Grim and Stephanie Wardach and Vincent Beltrani}, title={Location, location, location: The importance of spatialization in modeling cooperation and communication}, journal={Interaction Studies}, year={2006}, volume={7}, number={1}, pages={43-78}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/grim06importanceOfSpatialization.html}, keywords={altruism; cooperation; evolution of communication; spatialization}, abstract={Most current modeling for evolution of communication still underplays or ignores the role of local action in spatialized environments: the fact that it is immediate neighbors with which one tends to communicate, and from whom one learns strategies or conventions of communication. Only now are the lessons of spatialization being learned in a related field: game-theoretic models for cooperation. In work on altruism, on the other hand, the role of spatial organization has long been recognized under the term `viscosity'.
Here we offer some simple simulations that dramatize the importance of spatialization for studies of both cooperation and communication, in each case contrasting (a) a model dynamics in which strategy change proceeds globally, and (b) a spatialized model dynamics in which interaction and strategy change both operate purely locally. Local action in a spatialized model clearly favors the emergence of cooperation. In the case of communication, spatialized models allow communication to arise and flourish where the global dynamics more typical in the literature make it impossible.
Simulations make a dramatic case for spatialized modeling, but analysis proves difficult. In a final section we outline some of the surprises of spatial dynamics but also some of the complexity facing attempts at deeper analysis.} } @inproceedings{grudin91languageEvolution, author={Jonathan Grudin and Donald A. Norman}, title={Language Evolution and Human-Computer Interaction}, year={1991}, month={May}, address={Hillsdale, NJ}, publisher={Erlbaum}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/grudin91languageEvolution.html}, abstract={Many of the issues that confront designers of interactive computer systems also appear in natural language evolution. Natural languages and human-computer interfaces share as their primary mission the support of extended ''dialogues'' between responsive entities. Because in each case one participant is a human being, some of the pressures operating on natural languages, causing them to evolve in order to better support such dialogue, also operate on human-computer ''languages'' or interfaces. This does not necessarily push interfaces in the direction of natural language - since one entity in this dialogue is not a human, this is not to be expected. Nonetheless, by discerning where the pressures that guide natural language evolution also appear in human-computer interaction, we can contribute to the design of computer systems and obtain a new perspective on natural languages.} } @incollection{gupta99theEmergence, author={P. Gupta and G. S. Dell}, title={The Emergence of Language From Serial Order and Procedural Memory}, year={1999}, address={Hillsdale, NJ}, editor={B. MacWhinney}, publisher={Lawrence Earlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Emergence of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/gupta99theEmergence.html} } @article{hare95learningAnd, author={M. Hare and J. L. Elman}, title={Learning and morphological change}, journal={Cognition}, year={1995}, month={July}, volume={56}, number={1}, pages={61-98}, doi={10.1016/0010-0277(94)00655-5}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hare95learningAnd.html}, abstract={An account is offered to change over time in English verb morphology, based on a connectionist approach to how morphological knowledge is acquired and used. A technique is first described that was developed for modeling historical change in connectionist networks, and that technique is applied to model English verb inflection as it developed from the highly complex past tense system of Old English towards that of the modern language, with one predominant ``regular'' inflection and a small number of irregular forms. The model relies on the fact that certain input-output mappings are easier than others to learn in a connectionist network. Highly frequent patterns, or those that share phonological regularities with a number of others, are learned more quickly and with lower error than low-frequency, highly irregular patterns. A network is taught a data set representative of the verb classes of Old English, but learning is stopped before reaching asymptote, and the output of this network is used as the teacher of a new net. As a result, the errors in the first network were passed on to become part of the data set of the second. Those patterns that are hardest to learn led to the most errors, and over time are ``regularized'' to fit a more dominant pattern. The results of the networks simulations were highly consistent with the major historical developments. These results are predicted from well-understood aspects of network dynamics, which therefore provide a rationale for the shape of the attested changes.} } @incollection{harms04inbook, author={William F. Harms}, title={Primitive Content, Translation, and the Emergence of Meaning in Animal Communication}, year={2004}, pages={31-48}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/harms04inbook.html} } @incollection{harnad02symbolGrounding, author={S. Harnad}, title={Symbol Grounding and the Origin of Language}, year={2002}, pages={143-158}, editor={Scheutz, M.}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Computationalism: New Directions}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/harnad02symbolGrounding.html}, abstract={Many special problems crop up when evolutionary theory turns, quite naturally, to the question of the adaptive value and causal role of consciousness in human and nonhuman organisms. One problem is that -- unless we are to be dualists, treating it as an independent nonphysical force -- consciousness could not have had an independent adaptive function of its own, over and above whatever behavioral and physiological functions it ``supervenes'' on, because evolution is completely blind to the difference between a conscious organism and a functionally equivalent (Turing Indistinguishable) nonconscious ``Zombie'' organism: In other words, the Blind Watchmaker, a functionalist if ever there was one, is no more a mind reader than we are. Hence Turing-Indistinguishability = Darwin-Indistinguishability. It by no means follows from this, however, that human behavior is therefore to be explained only by the push-pull dynamics of Zombie determinism, as dictated by calculations of ``inclusive fitness'' and ``evolutionarily stable strategies.'' We are conscious, and, more important, that consciousness is piggy-backing somehow on the vast complex of unobservable internal activity -- call it ``cognition'' -- that is really responsible for generating all of our behavioral capacities. Hence, except in the palpable presence of the irrational (e.g., our sexual urges) where distal Darwinian factors still have some proximal sway, it is as sensible to seek a Darwinian rather than a cognitive explanation for most of our current behavior as it is to seek a cosmological rather than an engineering explanation of an automobile's behavior. Let evolutionary theory explain what shaped our cognitive capacity (Steklis and Harnad 1976; Harnad 1996, but let cognitive theory explain our resulting behavior.} } @article{harnad90theSymbol, author={Stevan Harnad}, title={The Symbol Grounding Problem}, journal={Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena}, year={1990}, volume={42}, pages={335--346}, doi={10.1016/0167-2789(90)90087-6}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/harnad90theSymbol.html}, abstract={There has been much discussion recently about the scope and limits of purely symbolic models of the mind and about the proper role of connectionism in cognitive modeling. This paper describes the ``symbol grounding problem'': How can the semantic interpretation of a formal symbol system be made intrinsic to the system, rather than just parasitic on the meanings in our heads? How can the meanings of the meaningless symbol tokens, manipulated solely on the basis of their (arbitrary) shapes, be grounded in anything but other meaningless symbols? The problem is analogous to trying to learn Chinese from a Chinese/Chinese dictionary alone. A candidate solution is sketched: Symbolic representations must be grounded bottom-up in nonsymbolic representations of two kinds: (1) ``iconic representations'' , which are analogs of the proximal sensory projections of distal objects and events, and (2) ``categorical representations'' , which are learned and innate feature-detectors that pick out the invariant features of object and event categories from their sensory projections. Elementary symbols are the names of these object and event categories, assigned on the basis of their (nonsymbolic) categorical representations. Higher-order (3) ``symbolic representations'' , grounded in these elementary symbols, consist of symbol strings describing category membership relations (e.g., ``An X is a Y that is Z'').

Connectionism is one natural candidate for the mechanism that learns the invariant features underlying categorical representations, thereby connecting names to the proximal projections of the distal objects they stand for. In this way connectionism can be seen as a complementary component in a hybrid nonsymbolic/symbolic model of the mind, rather than a rival to purely symbolic modeling. Such a hybrid model would not have an autonomous symbolic ``module,'' however; the symbolic functions would emerge as an intrinsically ``dedicated'' symbol system as a consequence of the bottom-up grounding of categories' names in their sensory representations. Symbol manipulation would be governed not just by the arbitrary shapes of the symbol tokens, but by the nonarbitrary shapes of the icons and category invariants in which they are grounded.} } @incollection{harnad76induction, author={S. Harnad}, title={Induction, evolution and accountability}, year={1976}, pages={58--60}, editor={S. R. Harnad and H. D. Steklis and J. Lancaster}, publisher={}, booktitle={Origins and Evolution of Language and Speech. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 280}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/harnad76induction.html} } @book{harnad76editedbook, author={S. Harnad and H. D. Steklis and J. Lancaster}, title={Origins and Evolution of Language and Speech}, year={1976}, publisher={New York Academy of Sciences}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/harnad76editedbook.html}, abstract={Proceedings of NY Academy of Sciences Conference on Evolutionary Origins of Language} } @inproceedings{harman03phonologicalChange, author={Lee Hartman}, title={Modeling Phonological Change}, year={2003}, pages={105-114}, booktitle={Proceedings of Language Evolution and Computation Workshop/Course at ESSLLI}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/harman03phonologicalChange.html} } @incollection{hashimoto01theConstructive, author={Takashi Hashimoto}, title={The constructive approach to the dynamical view of language}, year={2002}, pages={307-324}, address={London}, chapter={14}, editor={Angelo Cangelosi and Domenico Parisi}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Simulating the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hashimoto01theConstructive.html} } @inproceedings{hashimoto99modelingCategorization, author={T. Hashimoto}, title={Modeling Categorization Dynamics through Conversation by Constructive Approach}, year={1999}, pages={730-734}, editor={Floreano, D. and Nicoud, J-D and Mondada, F.}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={ECAL99}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hashimoto99modelingCategorization.html} } @inproceedings{hashimoto98developmentOf, author={T. Hashimoto}, title={Development of Meaning Structure by Usage-based Word Relationships}, year={1998}, pages={662--665}, editor={Masanori Sugisaka}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics (AROB 3rd'98)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hashimoto98developmentOf.html}, keywords={Usage-based viewpoint; Constructive approach; Evolutionary linguistics; Word similarity; Word clusters} } @incollection{hashimoto98dynamicsOf, author={T. Hashimoto}, title={Dynamics of Internal and Global Structure through Linguistic Interactions}, year={1998}, volume={1534}, pages={124--139}, address={Berlin}, publisher={Springer-Verlag}, booktitle={Multi-agent systems and Agent-Based Simulation}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hashimoto98dynamicsOf.html} } @inproceedings{hashimoto97usageBased, author={T. Hashimoto}, title={Usage-based Structuralization of Relationships between Words}, year={1997}, pages={483--492}, editor={P. Husbands and I. Harvey}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={ECAL97}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hashimoto97usageBased.html} } @phdthesis{hashimoto96evolutionOf, author={T. Hashimoto}, title={Evolution of Code and Communication in Dynamical Networks}, year={1996}, school={Graduate School of Arts and Science, University of Tokyo}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hashimoto96evolutionOf.html} } @article{hashimoto96emergenceOf, author={T. Hashimoto and T. Ikegami}, title={Emergence of net-grammar in communicating agents}, journal={Biosystems}, year={1996}, volume={38}, number={1}, pages={1-14}, doi={10.1016/0303-2647(95)01563-9}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hashimoto96emergenceOf.html}, keywords={Net-grammar; Algorithmic evolution; Module-type evolution; Evolution of language; Symbolic grammar systems}, abstract={Evolution of symbolic language and grammar is studied in a network model. Language is expressed by words, i.e. strings of symbols, which are generated by agents with their own symbolic grammar system. Agents communicate with each other by deriving and accepting words via rewriting rule set. They are ranked according to their communicative effectiveness: an agent which can derive less frequent and less acceptable words and accept words in less computational time will have higher scores. They can evolve by mutational processes, which change rewriting rules in their symbolic grammars. Complexity and diversity of words increase in the course of time. The emergence of modules and loop structure enhances the evolution. On the other hand, ensemble structure lead to a net-grammar, restricting individual grammars and their evolution.} } @inproceedings{hashimoto95evolutionOf, author={T. Hashimoto and T. Ikegami}, title={Evolution of Symbolic Grammar Systems}, year={1995}, pages={812-823}, editor={F. Moran and et al.}, booktitle={ECAL95}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hashimoto95evolutionOf.html} } @inproceedings{hashimoto95communicationNetwork, author={T. Hashimoto and T. Ikegami}, title={Communication Network of Symbolic Grammar Systems}, year={1995}, pages={595--598}, address={Singapore}, editor={Y. Aizawa and et al.}, publisher={World Scientific}, booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Dynamical Systems and Chaos}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hashimoto95communicationNetwork.html} } @book{hauser97theEvolution, author={Marc D. Hauser}, title={The Evolution of Communication}, year={1997}, publisher={MIT Press/BradfordBooks}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hauser97theEvolution.html} } @article{hauser07evolutionaryLinguistics, author={Marc D. Hauser and David Barner and Tim O'Donnell}, title={Evolutionary Linguistics: A New Look at an Old Landscape}, journal={Language Learning and Development}, year={2007}, volume={3}, number={2}, pages={101-132}, doi={10.1080/15475440701225394}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hauser07evolutionaryLinguistics.html}, abstract={This article explores the evolution of language, focusing on insights derived from observations and experiments in animals, guided by current theoretical problems that were inspired by the generative theory of grammar, and carried forward in substantial ways to the present by psycholinguists working on child language acquisition. We suggest that over the past few years, there has been a shift with respect to empirical studies of animals targeting questions of language evolution. In particular, rather than focus exclusively on the ways in which animals communicate, either naturally or by means of artificially acquired symbol systems, more recent work has focused on the underlying computational mechanisms subserving the language faculty and the ability of nonhuman animals to acquire these in some form. This shift in emphasis has brought biologists studying animals in closer contact with linguists studying the formal aspects of language, and has opened the door to a new line of empirical inquiry that we label evolingo. Here we review some of the exciting new findings in the evolingo area, focusing in particular on aspects of semantics and syntax.With respect to semantics, we suggest that some of the apparently distinctive and uniquely linguistic conceptual distinctions may have their origins in nonlinguistic conceptual representations; as one example, we present data on nonhuman primates and their capacity to represent a singular–plural distinction in the absence of language. With respect to syntax, we focus on both statistical and rule-based problems, especially the most recent attempts to explore different layers within the Chomsky hierarchy; here, we discuss work on tamarins and starlings, highlighting differences in the patterns of results as well as differences in methodology that speak to potential issues of learnability. We conclude by highlighting some of the exciting questions that lie ahead, as well as some of the methodological challenges that face both comparative and developmental studies of language evolution.} } @article{hauser02science, author={Marc D. Hauser and Noam Chomsky and W. Tecumseh Fitch}, title={The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?}, journal={Science}, year={2002}, month={11}, volume={298}, pages={1569-1579}, doi={10.1126/science.298.5598.1569}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hauser02science.html}, abstract={We argue that an understanding of the faculty of language requires substantial interdisciplinary cooperation. We suggest how current developments in linguistics can be pro.tably wedded to work in evolutionary biology, anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience. We submit that a distinction should be made between the faculty of language in the broad sense (FLB)and in the narrow sense (FLN). FLB includes a sensory-motor system, a conceptual-intentional system, and the computational mechanisms for recursion, providing the capacity to generate an in.nite range of expressions from a finite set of elements. We hypothesize that FLN only includes recursion and is the only uniquely human component of the faculty of language. We further argue that FLN may have evolved for reasons other than language, hence comparative studies might look for evidence of such computations outside of the domain of communication (for example, number, navigation, and social relations).} } @incollection{hauser03whatAre, author={Marc D. Hauser and W. T. Fitch}, title={What are the uniquely human components of the language faculty?}, year={2003}, editor={M.H. Christiansen and S. Kirby}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Evolution: The States of the Art}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hauser03whatAre.html} } @article{hauser03music, author={Marc D. Hauser and Josh McDermott}, title={The evolution of the music faculty: a comparative perspective}, journal={Nature Neuroscience}, year={2003}, month={July}, volume={6}, number={7}, pages={663-668}, doi={10.1038/nn1080}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hauser03music.html}, abstract={We propose a theoretical framework for exploring the evolution of the music faculty from a comparative perspective. This framework addresses questions of phylogeny, adaptive function, innate biases and perceptual mechanisms. We argue that comparative studies can make two unique contributions to investigations of the origins of music. First, musical exposure can be controlled and manipulated to an extent not possible in humans. Second, any features of music perception found in nonhuman animals must not be part of an adaptation for music, and must rather be side effects of more general features of perception or cognition. We review studies that use animal research to target specific aspects of music perception (such as octave generalization), as well as studies that investigate more general and shared systems of the mind/brain that may be relevant to music (such as rhythm perception and emotional encoding). Finally, we suggest several directions for future work, following the lead of comparative studies on the language faculty.} } @incollection{hawkins92innatenessAnd, author={John A. Hawkins}, title={Innateness and Function in Language Universals}, year={1992}, address={Reading, MA}, editor={Hawkins, John A. and Murray Gell-Mann}, publisher={Addison-Wesley}, booktitle={The Evolution of Human Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hawkins92innatenessAnd.html} } @book{hawkins-Gell-mann-1992-editedbook, title={The Evolution of Human Languages}, year={1992}, editor={Hawkins, John A. and Murray Gell-Mann}, publisher={Addison-Wesley}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hawkinsGellmann1992editedbook.html} } @inproceedings{hayes05informationAgents, author={C. Hayes and P. Avesani and M. Cova}, title={Language Games: Learning Shared Concepts among Distributed Information Agents}, year={2005}, booktitle={IJCAI-05 Workshop: Multi-Agent Information Retrieval and Recommender Systems}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hayes05informationAgents.html}, abstract={Early agent research recognised that co-operating agents require access to unambiguous, semantic description of the same concept, entity or object. In fact, agent-based research on this problem anticipates many of the current initiatives of the Semantic Web project. The proposed solution involves developing a domain-specific ontology that can be mapped to other ontologies as required. In this paper we describe an alternative approach which allows autonomous agents to index shared objects without requiring ex-ante agreement on an ontology. Using a process of distributed negotiation, each agent builds a lexicon of the problem-solving competences of other agents. We present an overview of our work using this approach in three domains: a web services scenario, a multi-case-based agent approach and finally, Tagsocratic, a blog-indexing service. We then describe our future work on several open issues related to this research.} } @inproceedings{hazlehurst_dotsSprinkles, author={Brian Hazlehurst}, title={Dots, sprinkles, and flecks: sonar talk and the distributed cognition model of mind}, year={1996}, booktitle={American Anthropological Association Meetings 1996}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hazlehurst_dotsSprinkles.html}, abstract={The cognitive revolution of the 1950's spawned development of the Turing Machine model of Mind (TMM) entailing both the formalism and practice of casting human cognition in the image of a digital computer. With the TMM, the mechanism of knowing (processing over internal knowledge states) could be integrated with the content of what is known (the mental products of histories of social living). This integration promoted the division of labor among psychologists and anthropologists which persists in many modern studies of mind and culture. This paper presents an alternative model of mind -- the Distributed Cognition model of Mind (DCM) -- based upon a reconstruction of the natures of, and relationships between, culture and cognition. The DCM is founded upon the notions that (1) cognition is built out of interactions among structures, (2) these interactions (instances of processes which employ and create structures) are not limited to events internal to individuals, but distribute across diverse media, social space, and time, and (3) culture is itself such a process, generating many of the structures and processes constituting cognition and human intelligence. The model is supported by data collected during ethnographic fieldwork among fishermen of an island community off the west coast of Sweden. Data analysis demonstrates the negotiated, distributed, and experientially grounded nature of language employed to communicate about sonar images of herring which mediate fishermen's understandings and practice.} } @article{hutchins98propositionsEmergence, author={Brian Hazlehurst and Edwin Hutchins}, title={The Emergence of Propositions from the Co-ordination of Talk and Action in a Shared World}, journal={Language and Cognitive Processes}, year={1998}, month={June}, volume={13}, number={2-3}, pages={373-424}, doi={10.1080/016909698386564}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hutchins98propositionsEmergence.html}, abstract={We present a connectionist model that demonstrates how propositional structure can emerge from the interactions among the members of a community of simple cognitive agents. We first describe a process in which agents coordinating their actions and verbal productions with each other in a shared world leads to the development of propositional structures. We then present a simulation model which implements this process for generating propositions from scratch. We report and discuss the behaviour of the model in terms of its ability to produce three properties of propositions: (1) a coherent lexicon characterised by shared form-meaning mappings; (2) conventional structure in the sequences of forms; (3) the prediction of spatial facts. We show that these properties do not emerge when a single individual learns the task alone and conclude that the properties emerge from the demands of the communication task rather than from anything inside the individual agents. We then show that the shared structural principles can be described as a grammar, and discuss the implications of this demonstration for theories concerning the origins of the structure of language.} } @article{healey07graphicalLanguageGames, author={Patrick G. T. Healey and Nik Swoboda and Ichiro Umata and James King}, title={Graphical language games: Interactional constraints on representational form}, journal={Cognitive Science}, year={2007}, month={MAR-APR}, volume={31}, number={2}, pages={285-309}, doi={10.1080/15326900701221363}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/healey07graphicalLanguageGames.html}, abstract={The emergence of shared symbol systems is considered to be a pivotal moment in human evolution and human development. These changes are normally explained by reference to changes in people's internal cognitive processes. We present 2 experiments which provide evidence that changes in the external, collaborative processes that people use to communicate can also affect the structure and organization of symbol systems independently of cognitive change. We propose that mutual-modifiability--opportunities for people to edit or manipulate each other's contributions--is a key constraint on the emergence of complex symbol systems. We discuss the implications for models of language development and the origins of compositionality.} } @incollection{heggarty06phylogeneticMethods, author={Paul Heggarty}, title={Interdisciplinary Indiscipline? Can Phylogenetic Methods Meaningfully be Applied to Language Data and to Dating Language?}, year={2006}, pages={183-}, chapter={16}, editor={Peter Forster and Colin Renfrew}, publisher={}, booktitle={Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/heggarty06phylogeneticMethods.html} } @incollection{heine02onThe, author={Bernd Heine and Tania Kuteva}, title={On the Evolution of Grammatical Forms}, year={2002}, address={Oxford}, chapter={18}, editor={Alison Wray}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={The Transition to Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/heine02onThe.html} } @inproceedings{hinzen06evolang, author={Wolfram Hinzen}, title={Minimalist foundations of language evolution: on the question of why language is the way it is}, year={2006}, pages={115-122}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hinzen06evolang.html}, abstract={I describe and assess the Minimalist Program (MP) as an approach to the evolution of language. The MP is less about evolution than explanation, but if its attempt to vindicate a certain idea of 'design perfection' was successful, a deeper level of explanation would be achieved than historical narrative and functional explanation affords, and the evolution problem would be solved along the way. Arguably, a minimalist methodology is also a necessary component in any explanatory approach to language evolution, no matter its theoretical orientation. While these are clear virtues, I question the MP's central explanatory claim, that language can be understood as an optimal solution to the problem of satisfying interface conditions imposed by pre-linguistic cognitive systems.} } @article{charles60theOrigin, author={Charles F. Hockett}, title={The origin of speech}, journal={Scientific American}, year={1960}, volume={203}, pages={88-96}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/charles60theOrigin.html}, abstract={Man is the only animal that can communicate by means of abstract symbols. Yet this ability shares many features with communication in other animals, and has arisen from these more primitive systems.} } @inproceedings{hoefler06whyAmbiguousSyntax, author={Stefan Hoefler}, title={Why has ambiguous syntax emerged?}, year={2006}, pages={123-130}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hoefler06whyAmbiguousSyntax.html}, abstract={Ambiguity is a defining property of natural language distinguishing it from artificial languages. It would seem to be dysfunctional, and therefore its ubiquity in language poses an evolutionary puzzle. This paper discusses the implications of a typical iterated learning model on the conditions under which syntactic ambiguity emerges and stabilises in language. It contrasts the purely nativist stance that language imperfections such as syntactic ambiguity are artifacts arising from internal constraints of the genetically determined language faculty with the view that they are frozen accidents persisting because they are easily learnt.} } @article{holden04speechOrigin, author={Constance Holden}, title={The Origin of Speech}, journal={Science}, year={2004}, month={February}, volume={303}, number={5662}, pages={1316-1319}, doi={10.1126/science.303.5662.1316}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/holden04speechOrigin.html}, abstract={How did the remarkable ability to communicate in words first evolve? Researchers probing the neurological basis of language are focusing on seemingly unrelated abilities such as mimicry and movement.} } @incollection{holden06phylogeneticMethods, author={Clare J. Holden and Russell D. Gray}, title={Rapid Radiation, Borrowing and Dialect Continua in the Bantu Languages}, year={2006}, pages={19-}, chapter={2}, editor={Peter Forster and Colin Renfrew}, publisher={}, booktitle={Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/holden06phylogeneticMethods.html} } @incollection{holland05languageAcquisition, author={John H. Holland}, title={Language acquisition as a complex adaptive system}, year={2005}, month={July}, editor={James W. Minett and William S.-Y. Wang}, publisher={City University of Hong Kong Press}, booktitle={Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/holland05languageAcquisition.html} } @article{holman96quantitative, author={Eric W. Holman}, title={Quantitative properties of the evolution and classification of languages}, journal={Journal of Classification}, year={1996}, month={March}, volume={13}, number={1}, pages={27-56}, doi={10.1007/BF01202581}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/holman96quantitative.html}, keywords={Phylogenetic tree, Cladistics, Language evolution, Birth and death process, Evolutionary rates}, abstract={Statistical analyses of a published phylogenetic classification of languages show some properties attributable to taxonomic methods and others that reflect the nature of linguistic evolution. The inferred phylogenetic tree is less well resolved and more asymmetric at the highest taxonomic ranks, where the tree is constructed mainly by phenetic methods. At lower ranks, where cladistic methods are more prevalent, the asymmetry of well resolved parts of the tree is consistent with a stochastic birth and death process in which languages originate and become extinct at constant rates, although poorly resolved parts of the tree are still more asymmetric than predicted. Other tests applied to a sample of historically recorded languages reveal substantial fluctuations in the rates of origination and extinction, with both rates temporarily reduced when languages enter the historical record. For languages in general, the average origination rate is estimated to be only slightly higher than the average extinction rate, which in turn corresponds to an average lifetime of about 500 years or less.} } @techreport{honkela03SOM, author={T. Honkela and J. Winter}, title={Simulating language learning in community of agents using self-organizing maps}, year={2003}, institution={Helsinky University of Technology, Computer and Information Science Report A71}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/honkela03SOM.html} } @article{hopper87emergentGrammar, author={Paul Hopper}, title={Emergent grammar}, journal={Berkeley Linguistics Conference (BLS)}, year={1987}, volume={13}, pages={139-157}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hopper87emergentGrammar.html} } @article{hull02speciesLanguages, author={D. L. Hull}, title={Species, Languages and the Comparative Method}, journal={Selection}, year={2002}, month={November}, volume={3}, number={1}, pages={17-28}, doi={10.1556/Select.3.2002.1.3}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hull02speciesLanguages.html}, keywords={trees, trees, Selection, phylogeny, homology, homoplasy, hybridism, cladograms, Lamarckian inheritance}, abstract={The evolution of species and languages are compared with respect to the distinction between homologies and homoplasies (or analogies), the prevalence of hybridism, the contrast between scenarios, trees and cladograms, the metaphysical nature of species and languages, and the sense in which the evolution of languages is or is not Lamarckian.} } @article{hunley07geneticCoevolution, author={K.L. Hunley and G.S. Cabana and D.A. Merriwether and J.C. Long}, title={A formal test of linguistic and genetic coevolution in native Central and South America}, journal={American Journal of Physical Anthropology}, year={2007}, month={January}, volume={132}, number={4}, pages={622-631}, doi={10.1002/ajpa.20542}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hunley07geneticCoevolution.html}, keywords={mtDNA; model fitting; Native American language classifications}, abstract={This paper investigates a mechanism of linguistic and genetic coevolution in Native Central and South America. This mechanism proposes that a process of population fissions, expansions into new territories, and isolation of ancestral and descendant groups will produce congruent language and gene trees. To evaluate this population fissions mechanism, we collected published mtDNA sequences for 1,381 individuals from 17 Native Central and South American populations. We then tested the hypothesis that three well-known language classifications also represented the genetic structure of these populations. We rejected the hypothesis for each language classification. Our tests revealed linguistic and genetic correspondence in several shallow branches common to each classification, but no linguistic and genetic correspondence in the deeper branches contained in two of the language classifications. We discuss the possible causes for the lack of congruence between linguistic and genetic structure in the region, and describe alternative mechanisms of linguistic and genetic correspondence and their predictions.} } @phdthesis{hurd97phd, author={P. L. Hurd}, title={Game theoretical perspectives on conflict and biological communication}, year={1997}, school={Stockholm University}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurd97phd.html}, abstract={This thesis investigates communication between animals with conflicting interests. Particular attention is paid to conventional signalling, in which signals are not inherently costly and information is inferred by convention. This type of signalling is emphasised for two reasons: firstly it is communication in its purest sense, and secondly it seems to more accurately reflect the properties of many biological signals. The costs which maintain the evolutionary stability of communication are of great interest because of the apparent benefit to be gained through the use of misleading signals, such as bluffs. I argue that these stabilising costs emerge from the manner in which receivers respond to signals, rather than being inherent to the signals themselves.

The theoretical papers in this thesis begin with the most basic signalling game and proceed towards a more general understanding of conventional signalling. I begin by investigating the importance of signal cost in the simplest possible model of communication, the Action-Response game. I demonstrate that the signals used do not have to be costly to be reliable, even when the signaller and receiver are in a state of conflict. I then consider the effect of adding costs to signals in a game in which reliable conventional signalling already exists, and demonstrate that the costly signals will be used by the weaker, not stronger, signallers. This demonstrates a stabilising mechanism fundamentally different from that of the handicap hypothesis, with its stabilisation through signal cost. Finally, I identify the conditions other than cost which are necessary for conventional signalling to be evolutionarily stable. These conditions relate to the information which both signaller and receiver must gain over the course of an interaction. Most models used to investigate signalling cannot account for behaviour seen in more complicated biological interactions because they are too simple to produce results other than that of the handicap prediction.

The other work included in this thesis addresses issues raised by the models. I review the literature on threat display use by birds, and present evidence that these displays are conventional signals. The stability of conventional signalling rests upon the existence of some common interest within a larger conflict between signaller and receiver. I present a clear example of communication attributable to common interest between fighting opponents. Cichlids of the species Nannacara anomala use a distinct colour signal, the Medial Line display, to coordinate another agonistic behaviour, tail-beating. It appears that both individuals benefit from the clearer assessment of relative fighting ability that this coordination affords. These N. anomala colour displays are quite conspicuous. It has been assumed that when common interest exists, signals will be very subtle, whereas when signaller and receiver are in conflict, signals will be exaggerated and conspicuous. Using an evolving neural-network model, I demonstrate that selection for exaggerated signals may exist even when the signaller and receiver have complete common interests.} } @article{hurd97jtb, author={P. L. Hurd}, title={Is signalling of fighting ability costlier for weaker individuals?}, journal={Journal of Theoretical Biology}, year={1997}, volume={184}, pages={83-88}, doi={10.1006/jtbi.1996.0246}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurd97jtb.html}, abstract={Using a simple model of signaling of fighting ability, I demonstrate that; (1) conventional, cost-free, signals of fighting ability can be an ESS, (2) signals with significant costs can be used at ESS as long as they are used to indicate weakness rather than strength, (3) that if a set of signals is used to indicate a set of fighting abilities through their costs, they must decrease in cost for stronger signalers. The reason for this is that individuals of higher fighting ability have less to gain by avoiding escalated contests, and are thus more sensitive to signal costs. These results are of particular relevance to badges of status and other simultaneous signals used to settle contests over minor resources} } @article{hurd95communicationGame, author={P. L. Hurd}, title={Communication in discrete action-response games}, journal={Journal of Theoretical Biology}, year={1995}, volume={174}, number={2}, pages={217-222}, doi={10.1006/jtbi.1995.0093}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurd95communicationGame.html}, abstract={I present a simple game, the Basic Action-Response game, which allows investigation of the claim that signals must be costly to be reliable. The Basic Action-Response game is the simplest communication game possible, by investigating its parameters we are able to define clearly ``conflict'', ``handicap'', ``communication'' and other relevant concepts. I explore the conditions on the magnitude of the stabilizing cost and handicap that must hold in order to maintain the evolutionary stability of signalling. It will be demonstrated that stable communication need not make use of costly signals at ESS, not even ``on average'', and that ``negative handicaps'' can be stable as long as the stabilizing cost is large enough.} } @incollection{hurford_inselbox, author={J. Hurford}, title={The Evolution of Language}, year={to appear}, editor={Paul Insel and Don Ross}, publisher={Prentice-Hall}, booktitle={Discovering Biology}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford_inselbox.html} } @article{hurford05nounPhrases, author={J. Hurford}, title={The Origin of Noun Phrases: Reference, Truth, and Communication}, journal={Lingua}, year={2007}, month={March}, volume={117}, number={3}, pages={527-542}, doi={10.1016/j.lingua.2005.04.004}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford05nounPhrases.html}, keywords={Evolution; Grammar; Bipartite structure; Topic; Comment}, abstract={This paper argues for an alternative answer to Carstairs-McCarthy's (1999) question ``Why do all languages distinguish between NPs and sentences?'' While agreeing on basic philosophical points with Carstairs-McCarthy, such as the lack of a distinction between truth and reference independent of grammar, I argue that the S/NP distinction has its roots in the basic communicative distinction between Topic and Comment. In the very earliest mental processes, long antedating language, binary structure can be found, with components that one can associate with the functions of identifying or locating an object and representing some information about it. When private thought went public, the earliest messages in any code with rudimentary syntax were of similar bipartite structure, with one part conveying information presumed to be already known to the hearer, and identifying the object that the message is about. The other part of the bipartite message conveyed information presumed to be new to the hearer. This bipartite structure, with its concomitant distinction between types of expression that could fulfil the respective roles, was central enough to the main function of public language, namely communication, that it was never eroded away, and is the basis of the bipartite structure found universally in languages today.} } @article{hurford06packingStrategy, author={J. Hurford}, title={A performed practice explains a linguistic universal: Counting gives the Packing Strategy}, journal={Lingua}, year={2007}, month={May}, volume={117}, number={5}, pages={773-783}, doi={10.1016/j.lingua.2006.03.002}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford06packingStrategy.html}, keywords={Numerals; Packing Strategy; Universals; Counting; Performance; Grammar}, abstract={A strong constraint on the arithmetical combinations allowed in compound numerals, called the Packing Strategy, applies very widely to numeral systems across the world. A previous attempt to explain the existence of the strong universal constraint, in terms of a gradual socio-historical process of standardization, will not scale up to higher-valued numerals. It is proposed that the real explanation for the Packing Strategy is that it reflects two natural principles applied in the practical task of counting objects. These two principles, `Go as far as you can with the resources you have', and `Minimize the number of entities you are dealing with', are not specific to the counting task, but are of more general application to practical tasks.} } @inproceedings{hurford06ProtoProposition, author={J. Hurford}, title={Proto-propositions}, year={2006}, pages={131-138}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford06ProtoProposition.html}, abstract={Before the evolution of languages as public conventional communication systems, pre-humans had somewhat complex private mental schemes for representing the external world. What is known about human and some animal vision suggests that proposition-like cognitive structures existed for the mental representation of perceived scenes before the advent of complex language. The structures traditionally adopted by formal Logic can be modified to conform to known constraints on the visual representation of scenes. While this modification slightly reduces the expressive power of representations (in that the meanings of some complex sentences cannot naturally be represented), it provides a unified, ontologically parsimonious, primitive notation for cognitive representations, suitable for later recruitment by complex syntactic language. The most basic semantic elements later mapped onto sentences are all present in the prelinguistic mental representation, which reflects the workings of the visual attention system} } @article{hurford06recentDevelopmentsEvoLang, author={J. Hurford}, title={Recent Developments in the Evolution of Language}, journal={Cognitive Systems}, year={2006}, volume={7}, number={1}, pages={23-32}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford06recentDevelopmentsEvoLang.html}, abstract={The last quarter of the 20th century saw a surge in research in the evolution of language, and this activity continues to grow and extend its influence in the present century. This article is a personal review of some conclusions that can be deemed to have been established in that period. Many of these modern conclusions had ancient precursors as speculative hypotheses with little empirical backing. Modern empirical research in a range of fields has driven foundations deeper, and careful theoretical work has begun to weave a more consistent network of ideas across disciplines. Many mysteries remain, but some clear outlines of the evolutionary bases of humans? most distinctive capacity have begun to emerge. Often the clearer outlines have revealed more complex problems than was vaguely suspected earlier. Three propositions have been selected here, and each will be briefly discussed in a separate section. The three propositions are: 'Language' is not a single monolithic behaviour; Animals have rich conceptual systems; Primates are not necessarily the closest to human-like capacities.} } @incollection{hurford05computerModelling, author={J. Hurford}, title={Computer Modelling Widens the Focus of Language Study}, year={2005}, editor={Tallerman, M.}, publisher={Oxford: Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution}, note={Introduction to part IV: ``Learnability and Diversity: How did Languages Emerge and Diverge?''}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford05computerModelling.html} } @incollection{hurford_LanguageBeyond, author={J. Hurford}, title={Language beyond Our Grasp: What Mirror Neurons Can, and Cannot, Do for the Evolution of Language}, year={2004}, pages={297-313}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford_LanguageBeyond.html} } @article{hurford04humanUniqueness, author={J. Hurford}, title={Human uniqueness, learned symbols and recursive thought}, journal={European Review}, year={2004}, volume={12}, number={4}, pages={551-565}, doi={10.1017/S106279870400047X}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford04humanUniqueness.html}, abstract={Human language is qualitatively different from animal communication systems in at least two separate ways. Human languages contain tens of thousands of arbitrary learned symbols (mainly words). No other animal communication system involves learning the component symbolic elements afresh in each individual's lifetime, and certainly not in such vast numbers. Human language also has complex compositional syntax. The meanings of our sentences are composed from the meanings of the constituent parts (e.g. the words). This is obvious to us, but no other animal communication system (with honeybees as an odd but distracting exception) puts messages together in this way. A recent theoretical claim that the sole distinguishing feature of human language is recursion is discussed, and related to these features of learned symbols and compositional syntax. It is argued that recursive thought could have existed in prelinguistic hominids, and that the key step to language was the innovative disposition to learn massive numbers of arbitrary symbols} } @incollection{hurford_evolutionOf, author={J. Hurford}, title={Linguistic Evolution: Cognitive Preadaptations}, year={2004}, address={Chicago}, editor={Philipp Strazny}, publisher={Fitzroy Dearborn}, booktitle={Encyclopedia of Linguistics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford_evolutionOf.html} } @inproceedings{hurford03ECAL, author={J. Hurford}, title={Why Synonymy is Rare: Fitness is in the Speaker}, year={2003}, pages={442-451}, booktitle={ECAL03}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford03ECAL.html}, abstract={Pure synonymy is rare. By contrast, homonymy is common in languages. Human avoidance of synonymy is plausibly innate, as theorists of differing persuasions have claimed. Innate dispositions to synonymy and homonymy are modelled here, in relation to alternative roles of speaking and hearing in determining fitness.

In the computer model, linguistic signs are acquired via different genetically determined strategies, variously (in)tolerant to synonymy or homonymy. The model defines communicative success as the probability of a speaker getting a message across to a hearer; interpretive success is the probability of a hearer correctly interpreting a speaker's signal. Communicative and interpretive success are compared as bases for reproductive fitness. When communicative success is the basis for fitness, a genotype evolves which is averse to synonymy, while tolerating homonymy. Conversely, when interpretive success is the basis for fitness, a genotype evolves which is averse to homonymy, while tolerating synonymy.} } @incollection{hurford03languageMosaic, author={J. Hurford}, title={The Language Mosaic and its Evolution}, year={2003}, editor={M.H. Christiansen and S. Kirby}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Evolution: The States of the Art}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford03languageMosaic.html}, abstract={The human capacity for language and the structures of individual languages can best be understood from an evolutionary perspective. Both the biological capacity and languages owe their shape to events far back in the past. Biological steps toward language-readiness involved preadaptations for modern phonetics, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Once humans were language-ready, ever more complex language systems could grow, relatively fast, by cultural transmission, generation after generation. This latter process is profitably studied by grammaticalization theory and computer modelling.} } @article{hurford01theNeural, author={J. Hurford}, title={The Neural Basis of Predicate-Argument Structure}, journal={Behavioral and Brain Sciences}, year={2003}, note={HTML version is a more reliable source (more recent) than a postscript version.}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford01theNeural.html} } @incollection{hurford02theRoles, author={J. Hurford}, title={The Roles of Expression and Representation in Language Evolution}, year={2002}, address={Oxford}, chapter={15}, editor={Alison Wray}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={The Transition to Language}, note={HTML version is a more reliable source (more recent) than a postscript version.}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford02theRoles.html} } @incollection{hurford02expression, author={J. Hurford}, title={Expression/induction models of language evolution: dimensions and issues}, year={2002}, month={March}, chapter={10}, editor={Ted Briscoe}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Linguistic Evolution through Language Acquisition: Formal and Computational Models}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford02expression.html} } @incollection{hurford01protothoughtHad, author={J. Hurford}, title={Protothought had no logical names}, year={2001}, pages={117-130}, address={Mouton, Berlin}, editor={Jürgen Trabant and Sean Ward}, publisher={}, booktitle={New Essays on the Origins of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford01protothoughtHad.html} } @article{hurford01randomBoolean, author={J. Hurford}, title={Random Boolean Nets and Features of Language}, journal={IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation}, year={2001}, volume={5}, number={2}, pages={111-116}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford01randomBoolean.html}, keywords={Language acquisition, complexity, poverty of stimulus, random Boolean nets, language learnability, language diversity, Chomsky, Kauffman, linguistic parameters, chaos}, abstract={Describes an attempt to cast several abstract properties of natural languages in the framework of Kauffman's (1993, 1995) random Boolean nets (RBN). The properties are complexity, interconnectedness, stability, diversity, and underdeterminedness. A language is modeled as a Boolean net attractor. (Groups of) net nodes are linguistic principles or parameters as posited by Chomskyan theory, according to which the language learner sets parameters to appropriate values on the basis of very limited experience of the language. The setting of one parameter can have a complex effect on the settings of others. A RBN is generated to find an attractor. A state from this attractor is degraded, which represents the degenerate input of language to the learner, and this state is then input to a net with the same connectivity and activation functions as the original net to see whether it converges on the same attractor. Many nets degenerate into attractors representing complete uncertainty. Others settle at intermediate levels of uncertainty, and some manage to overcome the incompleteness of input and converge on attractors identical to that from which the original inputs were (de)generated. Finally, an attempt was made to select a population of such successful nets, using a genetic algorithm where fitness was correlated with an ability to acquire several different languages faithfully. This has so far proved impossible, supporting the Chomskyan suggestion that the human language acquisition capacity is not the outcome of natural selection.} } @incollection{hurford00theEmergence, author={J. Hurford}, title={The Emergence of Syntax}, year={2000}, pages={219-230}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Chris Knight and James R. Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford00theEmergence.html} } @incollection{hurford00socialTransmission, author={J. Hurford}, title={Social transmission favours linguistic generalization}, year={2000}, pages={324-352}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Chris Knight and James R. Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford00socialTransmission.html} } @incollection{hurford99functionalInnateness, author={J. Hurford}, title={Functional Innateness: explaining the critical period for language acquisition}, year={1999}, pages={341-363}, address={John Benjamins, Amsterdam}, editor={Michael Darnell and Edith Moravscik and Frederick Newmeyer and Michael Noonan and Kathleen Wheatley}, publisher={}, booktitle={Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics, Volume II: Case Studies}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford99functionalInnateness.html} } @incollection{hurford99theEvolution, author={J. Hurford}, title={The Evolution of Language and Languages}, year={1999}, pages={173-193}, editor={Robin Dunbar and Chris Knight and Camilla Power}, publisher={Edinburgh University Press}, booktitle={The Evolution of Culture}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford99theEvolution.html} } @incollection{hurford99artificiallyGrowing, author={J. Hurford}, title={Artificially growing a numeral system}, year={1999}, pages={7-41}, editor={Jadranka Gvozdanovic}, publisher={}, booktitle={Numeral Types and Changes Worldwide}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford99artificiallyGrowing.html} } @inproceedings{hurford99languageLearning, author={J. Hurford}, title={Language Learning from Fragmentary Input}, year={1999}, pages={121-129}, booktitle={Proceedings of the AISB'99 Symposium on Imitation in Animals and Artifacts}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford99languageLearning.html} } @incollection{hurford98introductionThe, author={J. Hurford}, title={Introduction: The emergence of syntax}, year={1998}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford98introductionThe.html} } @article{hurford98bookreview, author={Jim Hurford}, title={Review of ``The Symbolic Species: The co-evolution of language and the human brain'', by Terrence Deacon, 1997}, journal={The Times Literary Supplement}, year={1998}, month={October}, pages={34}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford98bookreview.html} } @incollection{hurford92anApproach, author={J. Hurford}, title={An Approach to the Phylogeny of the Language Faculty}, year={1992}, pages={273-303}, address={Reading, MA}, editor={Hawkins, John A. and Murray Gell-Mann}, publisher={Addison-Wesley}, booktitle={The Evolution of Human Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford92anApproach.html} } @article{hurford91theEvolution, author={J. Hurford}, title={The Evolution of the Critical Period for Language Acquisition}, journal={Cognition}, year={1991}, volume={40}, number={3}, pages={159-201}, doi={10.1016/0010-0277(91)90024-X}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford91theEvolution.html}, abstract={Evidence suggests that there is a critical, or at least a sensitive, period for language acquisition, which ends around puberty. The existence of this period is explained by an evolutionary model which assumes that (a) linguistic ability is in principle (if not in practice) measurable, and (b) the amount of language controlled by an individual conferred selective advantage on it. In this model, the language faculty is seen as adaptive, favoured by natural selection, while the critical period for language acquisition itself is not an adaptation, but arises from the interplay of genetic factors influencing life-history characters in relation to language acquisition. The evolutionary model is implemented on a computer and simulations of populations evolving under various plausible, if idealized, conditions result in clear critical period effects, which end around puberty.} } @incollection{hurford90nativist, author={J. Hurford}, title={Nativist and functional explanations in language acquisition}, year={1990}, pages={85-136}, address={Foris, Dordrecht}, editor={I. M. Roca}, publisher={}, booktitle={Logical Issues in Language Acquisition}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford90nativist.html} } @article{hurford90beyondThe, author={J. Hurford}, title={Beyond the Roadblock in Linguistic Evolution Studies}, journal={Behavioral and Brain Sciences}, year={1990}, volume={13}, number={4}, pages={736-737}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford90beyondThe.html} } @article{hurford89biologicalEvolution, author={J. Hurford}, title={Biological evolution of the Saussurean sign as a component of the language acquisition device}, journal={Lingua}, year={1989}, volume={77}, number={2}, pages={187-222}, doi={10.1016/0024-3841(89)90015-6}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford89biologicalEvolution.html}, abstract={Most linguistic theories assume lexicon entries which incorporate the idea of the Saussurean sign, a bidirectional mapping between a phonological form and some representation of a concept. This Sign, like grammars generally, is unbiased with respect to perception or production, and provides part of the cognitive map which speakers use both in speaking and in interpreting the utterances of others. This bidirectionality of the Sign, or code, is a design feature of human language although workable communication does not necessarily incorporate such a feature.

Part of the Language Acquisition Device is a mechanism which mentally constructs such a bidirectional mapping, on the basis of observed samples of communicative behaviour (transmission and reception). This basic aspect of the LAD presumably evolved because of its superiority over other conceivable mechanisms for acquiring a basis for communicative behaviour from a sampling of observed transmission and reception data.

Three conceivable strategies for acquiring the basis of communicative behaviour, here labelled the Imitator, Calculator, and Saussurean strategies, are defined as functions from samplings of observed behaviour to acquired behaviour patterns. Essentially, the Imitator imitates the transmission and reception patterns in the observed sample; the Calculator constructs optimal reception responses to the transmissions in the observed sample and optimal transmission responses to receptions in the observed sample; the Saussurean imitates the transmission behaviour in the sample, but shapes his reception behaviour to mirror the acquired transmission behaviour, thus internalizing the equivalent of a set of bidirectional Saussurean signs. Extensive simulations of populations endowed with these innate strategies show the Saussurean strategy to be a winner in evolutionary terms; it produces individuals who communicate more successfully than individuals endowed with the other two strategies.} } @book{hurford87LanguageAndNumber, author={J. Hurford}, title={Language and Number: the emergence of a cognitive system}, year={1987}, address={Oxford}, publisher={Basil Blackwell}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford87LanguageAndNumber.html} } @article{kirby97evolutionMight, author={Jim Hurford and Sam Joseph and Simon Kirby and Alastair Reid}, title={Evolution might select constructivism}, journal={Behavioral and Brain Sciences}, year={1997}, volume={20}, pages={567-568}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby97evolutionMight.html}, abstract={There is evidence for increase, followed by decline, in synaptic numbers during development. Dendrites do not function in isolation. A constructive neuronal process may underpin a selectionist cognitive process. The environment shapes both ontogeny and phylogeny. Phylogenetic natural selection and neural selection are compatible. Natural selection can yield both constructivist and selectionist solution to adaptuive problems.} } @incollection{hurford99coEvolution, author={J. Hurford and S. Kirby}, title={Co-Evolution of Language Size and the Critical Period}, year={1999}, pages={39-63}, editor={David Birdsong}, publisher={Lawrence Erlbaum}, booktitle={Second Language Acquisition and the Critical Period Hypothesis}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford99coEvolution.html} } @book{hurford-etal-1998-editedbook, title={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, year={1998}, editor={Hurford, J. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight, C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurfordetal1998editedbook.html} } @incollection{hutchins01autoOrganization, author={Edwin Hutchins and Brian Hazlehurst}, title={Auto-Organization and Emergence of Shared Language Structure}, year={2002}, pages={279-306}, address={London}, chapter={13}, editor={Angelo Cangelosi and Domenico Parisi}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Simulating the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hutchins01autoOrganization.html} } @incollection{hutchins95howTo, author={E. Hutchins and B. Hazlehurst}, title={How to invent a lexicon: the development of shared symbols in interaction}, year={1995}, address={London}, editor={G. N. Gilbert and R. Conte}, publisher={UCL Press}, booktitle={Artificial Societies: The computer simulation of social life}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hutchins95howTo.html}, abstract={In this paper, we elaborate upon the framework by considering more explicitly the problem of creating shared symbolic structure. A lexicon is (among other things) a set of public structures for denoting or implicating shared meanings. In other words, the existence of a lexicon requires the sharing of forms and meanings -- and mappings between these -- among members of an interacting population of agents. Leaving aside cosmic and theological events which could create such an outcome, how could a lexicon come to be? The solution provided here is based upon a convergence of agents' schemes for classifying visual phenomena. All agents have a capacity for such classification, but convergence upon a singular scheme is shaped by the constraints for consensus when employing the scheme in interaction with other agents.} } @inproceedings{hutchins92alife, author={Edwin Hutchins and Brian Hazlehurst}, title={Learning in the Cultural Process}, year={1992}, pages={689--706}, editor={C. Langton and C. Taylor and D. Farmer and S. Rasmussen}, publisher={Addison-Wesley}, booktitle={Artificial Life II}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hutchins92alife.html}, abstract={In this paper, we introduce a framework for simulating cultural process. The general idea is to simulate a world in which learning agents create external structures which mediate their behavior. This simulation demonstrates the simple (but very important) concept that such a system is capable, through generations of time, of producing agents endowed with cognitive powers that are not attainable in the lifetime of any individual agent. We argue that such an outcome is possible without effecting the genetic organization of individuals. However, we also argue that the cultural process is capable of guiding both learning and phylogenetic evolution, which leaves open the possiblity of genetic organization tracking cultural process.} } @article{itoh04isingModel, author={Yoshiaki Itoh and Sumie Ueda}, title={The Ising model for changes in word ordering rules in natural languages}, journal={Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena}, year={2004}, month={11}, volume={198}, number={3-4}, pages={333-339}, doi={10.1016/j.physd.2004.09.006}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/itoh04isingModel.html}, keywords={Ising model; Word ordering rules; Languages}, abstract={The order of 'noun and adposition' is an important parameter of word ordering rules in the world's languages. The seven parameters, 'adverb and verb' and others, depend strongly on the 'noun and adposition'. Japanese as well as Korean, Tamil and several other languages seem to have a stable structure of word ordering rules, while Thai and other languages, which have the opposite word ordering rules to Japanese, are also stable in structure. It seems therefore that each language in the world fluctuates between these two structures like the Ising model for finite lattice.} } @inproceedings{iwahashi06robotsEELC, author={Naoto Iwahashi}, title={Robots That Learn Language: Developmental Approach to Human-Machine Conversations}, year={2006}, pages={143-167}, editor={P. Vogt and et al.}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Symbol Grounding and Beyond: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, doi={10.1007/11880172_12}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/iwahashi06robotsEELC.html}, abstract={This paper describes a machine learning method that enables robots to learn the capability of linguistic communication from scratch through verbal and nonverbal interaction with users. The method focuses on two major problems that should be pursued to realize natural human-machine conversation: a scalable grounded symbol system and belief sharing. The learning is performed in the process of joint perception and joint action with a user. The method enables the robot to learn beliefs for communication by combining speech, visual, and behavioral reinforcement information in a probabilistic framework. The beliefs learned include speech units like phonemes or syllables, a lexicon, grammar, and pragmatic knowledge, and they are integrated in a system represented by a dynamical graphical model. The method also enables the user and the robot to infer the state of each other’s beliefs related to communication. To facilitate such inference, the belief system held by the robot possesses a structure that represents the assumption of shared beliefs and allows for fast and robust adaptation of it through communication with the user. This adaptive behavior of the belief systems is modeled by the structural coupling of the belief systems held by the robot and the user, and it is performed through incremental online optimization in the process of interaction. Experimental results reveal that through a practical, small number of learning episodes with a user, the robot was eventually able to understand even fragmental and ambiguous utterances, act upon them, and generate utterances appropriate for the given situation. This work discusses the importance of properly handling the risk of being misunderstood in order to facilitate mutual understanding and to keep the coupling effective.} } @inproceedings{jack05languageAcquisitionGame, author={Kris Jack}, title={Introducing a Scene Building Game to Model Early First Language Acquisition}, year={2005}, address={Manchester, England}, booktitle={The 8th Annual CLUK Research Colloquium}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jack05languageAcquisitionGame.html}, abstract={This paper introduces a game which, when used in conjunction with a language learning algorithm, exhibits features of natural language production found to occur in young children. The game enables a rich and complex set of training data to be generated and acts as a quantifiable measure of linguistic ability, both for human and simulated players.} } @inproceedings{jack06syllablesToSyntax, author={Kris Jack and Chris Reed and Annalu Waller}, title={From Syllables to Syntax: Investigating Staged Linguistic Development through Computational Modelling}, year={2006}, address={Sheridan}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, note={accepted and under revision}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jack06syllablesToSyntax.html}, abstract={A new model of early language acquisition is introduced. The model demonstrates the staged emergence of lexical and syntactic acquisition. For a period, no linguistic activity is present. The emergence of first words signals the onset of the holophrastic stage that continues to mature without syntactic activity. Syntactic awareness eventually emerges as the result of multiple lexically-based insights. No mechanistic triggers are employed throughout development.} } @inproceedings{jack04emergentSyntax, author={Kris Jack and Chris Reed and Annalu Waller}, title={A Computational Model of Emergent Syntax: Supporting the Natural Transition from the One-word Stage to the Two-Word Stage}, year={2004}, address={Geneva}, booktitle={Working Notes of the Coling2004 Workshop on Psycho-Computational Models of Human Language Acquisition}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jack04emergentSyntax.html}, abstract={This paper introduces a system that simulates the transition from the one-word stage to the two-word stage in child language production. Two-word descriptions are syntactically generated and compete against one-word descriptions from the outset. Two-word descriptions become dominant as word combinations are repeatedly recognised, forming syntactic categories; resulting in an emergent simple syntax. The system demonstrates a similar maturation as children as evidenced by phenomena such as overextensions and mismatching, and the use of one-word descriptions being replaced by two-word descriptions over time.} } @book{jackendoff02, author={Ray Jackendoff}, title={Foundations of Language: Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution}, year={2002}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jackendoff02.html} } @article{jackendoff99possibleStages, author={Ray Jackendoff}, title={Possible stages in the evolution of the language capacity}, journal={Trends in Cognitive Sciences}, year={1999}, volume={3}, number={7}, pages={272-279}, doi={10.1016/S1364-6613(99)01333-9}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jackendoff99possibleStages.html}, keywords={Language; Syntax; Evolution; Symbols; Semantic relationships}, abstract={Much current discussion of the evolution of language has concerned the emergence of a stage in which single vocal or gestural signals were used symbolically. Assuming the existence of such a stage, the present review decomposes the emergence of modern language into nine partially ordered steps, each of which contributes to precision and variety of expression. Bickerton's proposed `protolanguage' falls somewhere in the middle of this succession. In addition to the by-now accepted evidence from language learning, language disorders, and ape language experiments, modern languages provide evidence of these stages of evolution through the presence of detectable `fossils' in vocabulary and grammar.} } @article{jackendoff_pinker05ReplytoFitchHauserChomsky52, author={Ray Jackendoff and Steven Pinker}, title={The nature of the language faculty and its implications for evolution of language (Reply to Fitch, Hauser, and Chomsky)}, journal={Cognition}, year={2005}, month={September}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jackendoff_pinker05ReplytoFitchHauserChomsky52.html}, abstract={In a continuation of the conversation with Fitch, Chomsky, and Hauser on the evolution of language, we examine their defense of the claim that the uniquely human, language-specific part of the language faculty (the ``narrow language faculty'') consists only of recursion, and that this part cannot be considered an adaptation to communication. We argue that their characterization of the narrow language faculty is problematic for many reasons, including its dichotomization of cognitive capacities into those that are utterly unique and those that are identical to nonlinguistic or nonhuman capacities, omitting capacities that may have been substantially modified during human evolution. We also question their dichotomy of the current utility versus original function of a trait, which omits traits that are adaptations for current use, and their dichotomy of humans and animals, which conflates similarity due to common function and similarity due to inheritance from a recent common ancestor. We show that recursion, though absent from other animals' communications systems, is found in visual cognition, hence cannot be the sole evolutionary development that granted language to humans. Finally, we note that despite Fitch et al.'s denial, their view of language evolution is tied to Chomsky's conception of language itself, which identifies combinatorial productivity with a core of ``narrow syntax.'' An alternative conception, in which combinatoriality is spread across words and constructions, has both empirical advantages and greater evolutionary plausibility.} } @article{jager07EGTtypology, author={Gerhard Jager}, title={Evolutionary game theory and typology: A case study}, journal={Language}, year={2007}, month={MAR}, volume={83}, number={1}, pages={74-109}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jager07EGTtypology.html}, abstract={This article deals with the typology of the case marking of semantic core roles. The competing economy considerations of hearer (disambiguation) and speaker (minimal effort) are formalized in terms of EVOLUTIONARY GAME THEORY. It is shown that the case-marking patterns that are attested in the languages of the world are those that are evolutionarily stable for different relative weightings of speaker economy and hearer economy, given the statistical patterns of language use that were extracted from corpora of naturally occurring conversations.} } @inproceedings{jager06convexMeaning, author={Gerhard Jager}, title={Convex meanings and evolutionary stability}, year={2006}, pages={139-144}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jager06convexMeaning.html}, abstract={Gardenfors (2000) argues that natural denotations of natural language predicates are convex regions in a conceptual space. Using techniques from evolutionary game theory, the paper shows that this convexity criterion is a consequence of the evolutionary dynamics of language use.} } @inproceedings{jager03ESSLLI, author={Gerhard Jager}, title={Simulating language change with Functional OT}, year={2003}, pages={52-61}, address={Vienna}, editor={Simon Kirby}, booktitle={Proceedings of Language Evolution and Computation Workshop/Course at ESSLLI}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jager03ESSLLI.html} } @inproceedings{jager03gameAndTypology, author={Gerhard Jager}, title={Evolutionary Game Theory and Linguistic Typology: A Case Study}, year={2003}, address={ILLC, University of Amsterdam}, editor={P. Dekker}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 14th Amsterdam Colloquium}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jager03gameAndTypology.html} } @unpublished{jager02userManual, author={Gerhard Jager}, title={evolOT: Software for simulating language evolution using Stochastic Optimality Theory User's manual}, year={2002}, note={Software User's Manual}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jager02userManual.html} } @article{jager07languageStructure, author={Gerhard Jager and Robert van Rooij}, title={Language structure: psychological and social constraints}, journal={Synthese}, year={2007}, month={NOV}, volume={159}, number={1}, pages={99-130}, doi={10.1007/s11229-006-9073-5}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jager07languageStructure.html}, keywords={language universals; evolution; Game theory}, abstract={In this article we discuss the notion of a linguistic universal, and possible sources of such invariant properties of natural languages. In the first part, we explore the conceptual issues that arise. In the second part of the paper, we focus on the explanatory potential of horizontal evolution. We particularly focus on two case studies, concerning Zipf's Law and universal properties of color terms, respectively. We show how computer simulations can be employed to study the large scale, emergent, consequences of psychologically and psychologically motivated assumptions about the working of horizontal language transmission.} } @inproceedings{jain95teamLearning, author={Sanjay Jain and Arun Sharma}, title={Team learning of formal languages}, year={1995}, address={Tahoe City, CA}, editor={Diana Gordon}, booktitle={Working Notes of the ICML'95 Workshop on Agents that Learn from Other Agents}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jain95teamLearning.html} } @inproceedings{jansen03aisb, author={Bart Jansen and Bart de Vylder and Bart de Boer and Tony Belpaeme}, title={Emerging shared action categories in robotic agents through imitation}, year={2003}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Imitation in Animals and Artifacts}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jansen03aisb.html}, abstract={In this paper we present our work on developing a shared repertoire of action categories through imitation. A population of robotic agents invents and shares a repertoire of actions by engaging in imitative interactions. We present an experimental set-up which enables us to investigate what properties agents should have in order to achieve this. Among these properties are: being able to determine the other’s actions from visual observation and doing incremental unsupervised categorisation of actions.} } @inproceedings{jeffreys06evolang, author={Mark Jeffreys}, title={Natural-language 'cheap talk' enables coordination on a social-dilemma game in a culturally homogeneous population}, year={2006}, pages={145-151}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jeffreys06evolang.html}, abstract={ChickenHawk is a social-dilemma game in which the only way to win is to play ''Hawk'' against ''Chicken.'' The purpose of the game is to distinguish between uncoordinated and coordinated self-sacrifice. In a test of four signaling conditions with players who belong to a culturally homogeneous population, a 'cheap talk' condition led to efficient coordination, whereas signaling opportunities engaging social reputation and allowing eye-contact without speech yielded poorly coordinated altruistic behavior. The implications are: (1) without language, mere willingness to cooperate on a social dilemma is insufficient for coordinating intentions, and (2) given a sufficiently cohesive social group, language can coordinate inequitable, altruistic sacrifices of modest but real material incentives, even where fully anonymous defection is an option.} } @book{jenkins04edited-book, title={Variation and universals in biolinguistics}, year={2004}, editor={Lyle Jenkins}, publisher={Elsevier}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jenkins04editedbook.html} } @inproceedings{jenkins97biolinguistics, author={Lyle Jenkins}, title={Biolinguistics - Structure, development and evolution of language}, year={1997}, booktitle={The 40th Anniversary of Generativism: Proceedings of electronic conference December}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jenkins97biolinguistics.html} } @inproceedings{jenkins03ECAL, author={Tudor Jenkins}, title={A Noisy Way to Evolve Signaling Behaviour}, year={2003}, pages={452-461}, booktitle={ECAL03}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jenkins03ECAL.html}, abstract={This paper looks at the way signaling behaviour can arise within a population of evolving agents involved in complex task domains where problem-solving behaviours need to be developed and integrated with appropriate signaling strategies. A method is proposed to overcome the difficulties of evolving separate yet compatible parts required by transmitters and receivers that serve no function but communication. The validity of this method is supported by a series of experiments. These not only succeed in evolving agents capable of controlling and enhancing complex behaviours through signaling but also demonstrate how bigger search spaces with more signal channels than might be needed can lead to faster adaptation.} } @inproceedings{jim01howCommunication, author={Kam-Chuen Jim and C. Lee Giles}, title={How communication can improve the performance of multi-agent systems}, year={2001}, month={May}, booktitle={Proceedings of the fifth international conference on Autonomous agents}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jim01howCommunication.html}, abstract={We analyze a general model of multi-agent communication in which all agents learn to communicate simultaneously to a message board. We show that the communicating multi-agent system is equivalent to a Mealy finite state machine whose states are determined by the agents' usage of the learned language. Increasing the language size increases the number of possible states in the Mealy machine, and can improve the performance of the multi-agent system. We introduce the term \em semantic density to describe the average number of meanings assigned to each word of a language. Using semantic density, a simple rule is presented that provides a pessimistic estimate of the minimum language size that should be used for any multi-agent problem in which the agents communicate simultaneously. Simulations on a version of the predator-prey pursuit problem, a simplified version of problems seen in warfare scenarios, validate these predictions. The communicating predators evolved using a genetic algorithm perform significantly better than all previous work on similar preys.} } @article{jim00talkingHelps, author={Kam-Chuen Jim and C. Lee Giles}, title={Talking Helps: Evolving Communicating Agents for the Predator-Prey Pursuit Problem}, journal={Artificial Life}, year={2000}, volume={6}, number={3}, pages={237--254}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/jim00talkingHelps.html}, abstract={We analyze a general model of multi-agent communication in which all agents communicate simultaneously to a message board. A genetic algorithm is used to evolve multi-agent languages for the predator agents in a version of the predator-prey pursuit problem. We show that the resulting behavior of the communicating multi-agent system is equivalent to that of a Mealy finite state machine whose states are determined by the agents’ usage of the evolved language. Simulations show that the evolution of a communication language improves the performance of the predators. Increasing the language size (and thus increasing the number of possible states in the Mealy machine) improves the performance even further. Furthermore, the evolved communicating predators perform significantly better than all previous work on similar prey. We introduce a method for incrementally increasing the language size, which results in an effective coarse-to-fine search that significantly reduces the evolution time required to find a solution. We present some observations on the effects of language size, experimental setup, and prey difficulty on the evolved Mealy machines. In particular, we observe that the start state is often revisited, and incrementally increasing the language size results in smaller Mealy machines. Finally, a simple rule is derived that provides a pessimistic estimate on the minimum language size that should be used for any multi-agent problem.} } @inproceedings{johansson06evolangGrammar, author={Sverker Johansson}, title={Working backwards from modern language to proto-grammar}, year={2006}, pages={160-167}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/johansson06evolangGrammar.html}, abstract={The possibilities for a stepwise evolution of grammar are evaluated through an analysis of which components of modern human grammar are removable, and in what order, while still leaving a functional communication system. It is found that recursivity is a prime candidate for being a late evolutionary addition, with flexibility and hierarchical rules coming next. Furthermore, it is argued that recursivity need not be the unitary infinite-loop concept of formal grammars, but can evolve in several smaller steps.} } @inproceedings{johansson06evolangTime, author={Sverker Johansson}, title={Constraining the time when language evolved}, year={2006}, pages={152-159}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/johansson06evolangTime.html}, abstract={The precise timing of the emergence of language in human prehistory cannot be resolved. But the available evidence is sufficient to constrain it to some degree. This is a review and synthesis of the available evidence, leading to the conclusion that the time when speech became important for our ancestors can be constrained to be not less than 500,000 years ago, thus excluding several popular theories involving a late transition to speech.} } @inproceedings{joyce03iccm, author={D. Joyce and L. Richards and A. Cangelosi and K.R. Coventry}, title={On the foundations of perceptual symbol systems: Specifying embodied representations via connectionism}, year={2003}, pages={147-152}, address={Universitatsverlag Bamberg}, editor={F. Detje and D. Dorner and H. Schaub}, booktitle={The Logic of Cognitive Systems. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Cognitive Modeling}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/joyce03iccm.html} } @article{juergens06languageEvolver, author={Elmar Juergens and Markus Pizka}, title={The Language Evolver Lever: Tool Demonstration}, journal={Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science}, year={2006}, month={Oct}, volume={164}, number={2}, pages={55-60}, doi={10.1016/j.entcs.2006.10.004}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/juergens06languageEvolver.html}, keywords={domain specific languages; bottom-up language development; language evolution; coupled transformation}, abstract={Since many domains are constantly evolving, the associated domain specific languages (DSL) inevitably have to evolve too, to retain their value. But the evolution of a DSL can be very expensive, since existing words of the language (i.e. programs) and tools have to be adapted according to the changes of the DSL itself. In such cases, these costs seriously limit the adoption of DSLs. This paper presents Lever, a tool for the evolutionary development of DSLs. Lever aims at making evolutionary changes to a DSL much cheaper by automating the adaptation of the DSL parser as well as existing words and providing additional support for the correct adaptation of existing tools (e.g. program generators). This way, Lever simplifies DSL maintenance and paves the ground for bottom-up DSL development.} } @article{juola03languageChange, author={Patrick Juola}, title={The Time Course of Language Change}, journal={Computers and the Humanities}, year={2003}, month={February}, volume={37}, number={1}, pages={77-96}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/juola03languageChange.html}, keywords={information theory, KL-distance, language change, linguistic distance, mathematics of language}, abstract={This paper presents a numeric and information theoretic model for the measuring of language change, without specifying the particular type of change. It is shown that this measurement is intuitively plausible and that meaningful measurements can be made from as few as 1000 characters. This measurement technique is extended to the task of determining the ``rate'' of language change based on an examination of brief excerpts from the National Geographic Magazine and determining both their linguistic distance from one another as well as the number of years of temporal separation. A statistical analysis of these results shows, first, that language change can be measured, and second, that the rate of language change has not been uniform, and that in particular, the period 1939–1948 had particularly slow change, while 1949–1958 and 1959–1968 had particularly rapid changes.} } @inproceedings{kaiser96learningBasisMAS, author={M. Kaiser and R. Dillmann and O. Rogalla}, title={Communication as the Basis for Learning in Multi-Agent Systems}, year={1996}, address={Budapest, Hungary}, booktitle={ECAI-96 Workshop on Learning in Distributed AI Systems}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kaiser96learningBasisMAS.html}, abstract={This paper discusses the significance of communication between individual agents that are embedded into learning Multi-Agent Systems. For several learning tasks occurring within a Multi-Agent System, communication activities are investigated and the need for a mutual understanding of agents participating in the learning process is made explicit. Thus, the need for a common ontology to exchange learning-related information is shown. Building this ontology is an additional learning task that is not only extremely important, but also extremely difficult. We propose a solution that is motivated by the human ability to understand each other even in the absence of a common language by using alternative communication channels, such as gestures.} } @article{kalampokis07vocabularyOnNetworks, author={Alkiviadis Kalampokis and Kosmas Kosmidis and Panos Argyrakis}, title={Evolution of vocabulary on scale-free and random networks}, journal={Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications}, year={2007}, month={Jun}, volume={379}, number={2}, pages={665-671}, doi={10.1016/j.physa.2006.12.048}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kalampokis07vocabularyOnNetworks.html}, keywords={language evolution; scale-free networks; Monte Carlo simulations}, abstract={We examine the evolution of the vocabulary of a group of individuals (linguistic agents) on a scale-free network, using Monte Carlo simulations and assumptions from evolutionary game theory. It is known that when the agents are arranged in a two-dimensional lattice structure and interact by diffusion and encounter, then their final vocabulary size is the maximum possible. Knowing all available words is essential in order to increase the probability to 'survive' by effective reproduction. On scale-free networks we find a different result. It is not necessary to learn the entire vocabulary available. Survival chances are increased by using the vocabulary of the 'hubs' (nodes with high degree). The existence of the 'hubs' in a scale-free network is the source of an additional important fitness generating mechanism. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.} } @article{kalish07iteratedLearning, author={Michael L. Kalish and Thomas L. Griffiths and Stephan Lewandowsky}, title={Iterated learning: Intergenerational knowledge transmission reveals inductive biases}, journal={Psychonomic Bulletin and Review}, year={2007}, month={APR}, volume={14}, number={2}, pages={288-294}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kalish07iteratedLearning.html}, abstract={Cultural transmission of information plays a central role in shaping human knowledge. Some of the most complex knowledge that people acquire, such as languages or cultural norms, can only be learned from other people, who themselves learned from previous generations. The prevalence of this process of âœiterated learningâ as a mode of cultural transmission raises the question of how it affects the information being transmitted. Analyses of iterated learning under the assumption that the learners are Bayesian agents predict that this process should converge to an equilibrium that reflects the inductive biases of the learners. An experiment in iterated function learning with human participants confirms this prediction, providing insight into the consequences of intergenerational knowledge transmission and a method for discovering the inductive biases that guide human inferences.} } @inproceedings{kanj06evolutionReconstructing, author={Iyad A. Kanj and Luay Nakhleh and Ge Xia}, title={Reconstructing Evolution of Natural Languages: Complexity and Parameterized Algorithms}, year={2006}, pages={299-308}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 12th Annual International Computing and Combinatorics Conference (COCOON 2006)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kanj06evolutionReconstructing.html}, abstract={In a recent article, Nakhleh, Ringe and Warnow introduced perfect phylogenetic networks --a model of language evolution where languages do not evolve via clean speciation-- and formulated a set of problems for their accurate reconstruction. Their new methodology assumes networks, rather than trees, as the correct model to capture the evolutionary history of natural languages. They proved the NP-hardness of the problem of testing whether a network is a perfect phy- logenetic one for characters exhibiting at least three states, leaving open the case of binary characters, and gave a straightforward brute-force parameterized algorithm for the problem of running time O(3k n), where k is the number of bidirectional edges in the network and n is its size. In this paper, we first establish the NP-hardness of the binary case of the problem. Then we provide a more efficient parameterized algorithm for this case running in time O(2k n 2). The presented algorithm is very simple, and utilizes some structural results and elegant operations developed in this paper that can be useful on their own in the design of heuristic algorithms for the problem. The analysis phase of the algorithm is very elegant using amortized techniques to show that the upper bound on the running time of the algorithm is much tighter than the upper bound obtained under a conservative worst-case scenario assumption. Our results bear significant impact on reconstructing evolutionary histories of languages --particularly from phonological and morphological character data, most of which exhibit at most two states (i.e., are binary), as well as on the design and analysis of parameterized algorithms.} } @article{Kaplan05distributedCoordination, author={Frederic Kaplan}, title={Simple models of distributed co-ordination}, journal={Connection Science}, year={2005}, month={December}, volume={17}, number={3-4}, pages={249-270}, doi={10.1080/09540090500177596}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Kaplan05distributedCoordination.html}, keywords={Self-organizing communication stystems, Scaling laws, Markov chains, Stochastic games, Polya processes}, abstract={Distributed co-ordination is the result of dynamical processes enabling independent agents to co-ordinate their actions without the need of a central co-ordinator. In the past few years, several computational models have illustrated the role played by such dynamics for self-organizing communication systems. In particular, it has been shown that agents could bootstrap shared convention systems based on simple local adaptation rules. Such models have played a pivotal role for our understanding of emergent language processes. However, only few formal or theoretical results have been published about such systems. Deliberately simple computational models are discussed in this paper in order to make progress in understanding the underlying dynamics responsible for distributed co-ordination and the scaling laws of such systems. In particular, the paper focuses on explaining the convergence speed of those models, a largely under-investigated issue. Conjectures obtained through empirical and qualitative studies of these simple models are compared with results of more complex simulations and discussed in relation to theoretical models formalized using Markov chains, game theory and Polya processes.} } @inproceedings{kaplan00talking, author={Frédéric Kaplan}, title={Talking aibo: First experimentation of verbal interactions with an autonomous four-legged robot}, year={2000}, booktitle={Proceedings of the CELE-Twente workshop on interacting agents}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kaplan00talking.html} } @inproceedings{kaplan00semioticSchemata, author={F. Kaplan}, title={Semiotic schemata: Selection units for linguistic cultural evolution}, year={2000}, editor={Bedau, M and McCaskill, J. and Packard, N. and Rasmussen, S.}, publisher={The MIT Press}, booktitle={Artificial Life VII}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kaplan00semioticSchemata.html} } @inproceedings{kaplan98aNew, author={F. Kaplan}, title={A New Approach to Class Formation in Multi-Agent Simulations of Language Evolution}, year={1998}, editor={Demazeau, Y.}, publisher={IEEE Computer Society}, booktitle={ICMAS98}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kaplan98aNew.html} } @inproceedings{kaplan98anArchitecture, author={F. Kaplan and L. Steels and A. McIntyre}, title={An architecture for evolving robust shared communication systems in noisy environments}, year={1998}, address={Tokyo}, booktitle={Proceedings of Sony Research Forum 1998}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kaplan98anArchitecture.html}, keywords={multi-agent systems, simulation, language games, evolutionary linguistics, naming games,agents} } @inproceedings{kawamura99antsWar, author={Hidenori Kawamura and Masahito Yamamoto and Keiji Suzuki and Azuma Ohuchi}, title={Ants War with Evolutive Pheromone Style Communication}, year={1999}, pages={639-643}, address={Berlin}, editor={D. Floreano and J.-D. Nicoud and F. Mondada}, publisher={Springer-Verlag}, booktitle={ECAL99}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kawamura99antsWar.html} } @article{kay98theHypoglossal, author={Richard F. Kay and Matt Cartmill and Michelle Balow}, title={The Hypoglossal Canal and the Origin of Human Vocal Behavior}, journal={PNAS}, year={1998}, month={April}, volume={95}, number={9}, pages={5417-5419}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kay98theHypoglossal.html}, abstract={The mammalian hypoglossal canal transmits the nerve that supplies the muscles of the tongue. This canal is absolutely and relatively larger in modern humans than it is in the African apes (Pan and Gorilla). We hypothesize that the human tongue is supplied more richly with motor nerves than are those of living apes and propose that canal size in fossil hominids may provide an indication about the motor coordination of the tongue and reflect the evolution of speech and language. Canals of gracile Australopithecus, and possibly Homo habilis, fall within the range of extant Pan and are significantly smaller than those of modern Homo. The canals of Neanderthals and an early ‘‘modern’’ Homo sapiens (Skhul 5), as well as of African and European middle Pleistocene Homo (Kabwe and Swanscombe), fall within the range of extant Homo and are significantly larger than those of Pan troglodytes. These anatomical findings suggest that the vocal capabilities of Neanderthals were the same as those of humans today. Furthermore, the vocal abilities of Australopithecus were not advanced significantly over those of chimpanzees whereas those of Homo may have been essentially modern by at least 400,000 years ago. Thus, human vocal abilities may have appeared much earlier in time than the first archaeological evidence for symbolic behavior} } @inproceedings{kazakov04EA, author={Dimitar Kazakov and Mark Bartlett}, title={Social Learning through Evolution of Language}, year={2004}, pages={397-408}, address={Marseilles, France}, editor={Pierre Liardet and et al.}, booktitle={Artificial Evolution: 6th International Conference}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kazakov04EA.html}, abstract={This paper presents an approach to simulating the evolution of language in which communication is viewed as an emerging phenomenon with both genetic and social components. A model is presented in which a population of agents is able to evolve a shared grammatical language from a purely lexical one, with critical elements of the faculty of language developed as a result of the need to navigate in and exchange information about the environment.} } @unpublished{ke07complexNetworkLanguage, author={Jinyun Ke}, title={Complex networks and human language}, year={2007}, note={}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ke07complexNetworkLanguage.html}, abstract={This paper introduces how human languages can be studied in light of recent development of network theories. There are two directions of exploration. One is to study networks existing in the language system. Various lexical networks can be built based on different relationships between words, being semantic or syntactic. Recent studies have shown that these lexical networks exhibit small-world and scale-free features. The other direction of exploration is to study networks of language users (i.e. social networks of people in the linguistic community), and their role in language evolution. Social networks also show small-world and scale-free features, which cannot be captured by random or regular network models. In the past, computational models of language change and language emergence often assume a population to have a random or regular structure, and there has been little discussion how network structures may affect the dynamics. In the second part of the paper, a series of simulation models of diffusion of linguistic innovation are used to illustrate the importance of choosing realistic conditions of population structure for modeling language change. Four types of social networks are compared, which exhibit two categories of diffusion dynamics. While the questions about which type of networks are more appropriate for modeling still remains, we give some preliminary suggestions for choosing the type of social networks for modeling.} } @phdthesis{ke04phd, author={Jinyun Ke}, title={Self-organization and Language Evolution: System, Population and Individual}, year={2004}, school={Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ke04phd.html}, abstract={This thesis proposes a framework adopting the self-organization theory for the study of language evolution. Self-organization explains collective behaviors and evolution with the observation that the patterns at the global level in a complex system are often properties spontaneously emergent from the numerous local interactions among the individual components, and they cannot be understood by only examining the individual components.

Language can be viewed as such emergent properties instead of products from some innate blueprint in humans. We highlight the importance of recognizing language at two distinctive but inter-dependent levels of existence, i.e. in the idiolect and in the communal language, and a self-organizing process existing at each of the two levels. It is necessary to clarify what phenomena are properties of the idiolects, and what properties are the collective behaviors at the population level.

In linguistics, however, very often an abstract language system is taken as the object of analysis. This level of analysis disregards the distinction between idiolect and communal language, and neglects the heterogeneous nature of language at both levels. As a consequence, explanations for observed patterns based on this abstract level of analysis are often inadequate. However, this is a necessary step for linguists to identify interesting phenomena in the first place. At this abstract level of analysis, the self-organization framework can also be applied. It is assumed that the abstract language system self-organizes. A study on homophony in languages is taken as an example to illustrate the analysis at this level. It is shown that the existence of homophony reflects several self-organization characteristics in a dynamic process of language evolution, such as the predictable degree of homophony, the disyllabification in Chinese dialects, the differentiation of homophone pairs in grammatical class.

We are further interested in how the self-organization is implemented. To answer this question, we need to look into the idiolects in this self-organizing process, to know how the idiolects are formed and affect each other. Language change provides an informative window in addressing these issues. Language change is the result of the collective behaviors of idiolects, even as it affects the idiolects. The heterogeneity among idiolects is exposed to the greatest extent in on-going changes.

An on-going sound change in Cantonese is taken as a case study to scrutinize the heterogeneity in the self-organizing processes. The fieldwork data reveal a large degree of variation both in the population (VT-I) and in the set of words (VT-II). Another type of variation (VT-III) is highlighted, that is, a word may also show variation within one single speaker. But this VT-III within speakers only exists in a proportion, but not all, of the words subject to the change. Also we find that if a speaker has some words consistently in the unchanged state and some words in the changed state, then this speaker must have some other words in the variation state. Most speakers show the existence of VT-III, but they vary in degree. The observed individual differences in the degree of VT-III suggest that the large heterogeneity may be not only accounted for by the variability of linguistic input, but also by individuals' different learning styles. We hypothesize two types of lexical learning styles, i.e. probabilistic and categorical learning. These differences in learning styles suggest that when we examine the agent's internal properties in the self-organization framework, it is not only necessary to examine the commonalities among agents, but also the differences among them.

In addition to empirical studies, this thesis employs computational modeling as a major tool for investigation, as modeling provides effective ways to test hypotheses beyond empirical studies, and suggests new questions. After a brief review of the modeling studies in the field, some models developed in this thesis for language origin and language change are reported.

The first model is to simulate the emergence of a consistent vocabulary from a set of random mappings between meanings and forms. It emphasizes the importance of implementing the actual process of interaction among agents, and the cumulative effect on agents' linguistic behaviors. The model suggests that the Saussurean sign with identical speaking and listening mappings may not be a biological predisposition from natural selection, but rather a result from the process of language learning and use. The process exhibits a phase transition from a long period of small oscillation to an abrupt convergence. Such phase transition is often observed in self-organizing systems.

The second model simulates language change as innovation diffusion, and examines the effects of various factors, including some concerning properties of agents and some affecting agents' interactions. By comparing the outcome under different conditions, the model illustrates the importance of incorporating realistic assumptions, such as finite population size, age-dependent propensity to change, different learning environment in a social network, etc. The model compares the dynamics of language change in different types of network structures and shows that in non-regular networks, the rate of innovation diffusion increases little as population size increases. The model also tests the effect of the two types of hypothesized learning styles, and shows that in a population with the presence of probabilistic learners, an innovation with a small advantage will easily spread into the population and lead to a change. This may explain why language changes are so frequent.

This thesis demonstrates that both empirical and modeling studies on language evolution can greatly benefit from adopting a self-organization framework. The convergence and interplay of the two lines of exploration, i.e. biological bases in agents and the long term effect of interactions among them, should bring us a deeper understanding of how language has evolved and is evolving.} } @article{ke08languageAndSocialNetwork, author={J-Y. Ke and T. Gong and W. S-Y. Wang}, title={Language change and social networks}, journal={Communications in Computational Physics}, year={2008}, volume={3}, number={4}, pages={935-949}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ke08languageAndSocialNetwork.html}, keywords={Language change, social network, agent-based modeling}, abstract={Social networks play an important role in determining the dynamics and outcome of language change. Early empirical studies only examine small-scale local social networks, and focus on the relationship between the individual speakers' linguistic behaviors and their characteristics in the network. In contrast, computer models can provide an efficient tool to consider large-scale networks with different structures and discuss the long-term effect of individuals' learning and interaction on language change. This paper presents an agent-based computer model which simulates language change as a process of innovation diffusion, to address the threshold problem of language change. In the model, the population is implemented as a network of agents with age differences and different learning abilities, and the population is changing, with new agents born periodically to replace old ones. Four typical types of networks and their effect on the diffusion dynamics are examined. When the functional bias is sufficiently high, innovations always diffuse to the whole population in a linear manner in regular and small-world networks, but diffuse quickly in a sharp S-curve in random and scale-free networks. The success rate of diffusion is higher in regular and small-world networks than in random and scale-free networks. In addition, the model shows that as long as the population contains a small number of statistical learners who can learn and use both linguistic variants statistically according to the impact of these variants in the input, there is a very high probability for linguistic innovations with only small functional advantage to overcome the threshold of diffusion.} } @article{ke06emergentist, author={Jinyun Ke and John H. Holland}, title={Language Origin from an Emergentist Perspective}, journal={Applied Linguistics}, year={2006}, volume={27}, number={4}, pages={691-716}, doi={10.1093/applin/aml033}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ke06emergentist.html}, abstract={In recent decades, there has been a surge of interest in the origin of language across a wide range of disciplines. Emergentism provides a new perspective to integrate investigations from different areas of study. This paper discusses how the study of language acquisition can contribute to the inquiry, in particular when computer modeling is adopted as the research methodology. An agent-based model is described as an illustration, which simulates how word order in a language could have emerged at the very beginning of language origin. Two important features of emergence, heterogeneity and nonlinearity, are demonstrated in the model, and their implications for applied linguistics are discussed.} } @article{ke02complexity, author={Jinyun Ke and James W. Minett and Ching-pong Au and William S-Y. Wang}, title={Self-organization and selection in the emergence of vocabulary}, journal={Complexity}, year={2002}, volume={7}, number={3}, pages={41-54}, doi={10.1002/cplx.10030}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ke02complexity.html}, keywords={language evolution, emergence, vocabulary, self-organization, selection}, abstract={Human language may have started from a consistent set of mappings between meanings and signals. These mappings, referred to as the early vocabulary, are considered to be the results of conventions established among the agents of a population. In this study, we report simulation models for investigating how such conventions can be reached. We propose that convention is essentially the product of self-organization of the population through interactions among the agents; and that cultural selection is another mechanism that speeds up the establishment of convention. Whereas earlier studies emphasized either one or the other of these two mechanisms, our focus is to integrate them into one hybrid model. The combination of these two complementary mechanisms, i.e. self-organization and cultural selection, provides a plausible explanation for cultural evolution which progresses with high transmission rate. Furthermore, we observe that as the vocabulary tends to convergence there is a uniform tendency to exhibit a sharp phase transition.} } @article{ke_GAModelSound, author={Jinyun Ke and Mieko Ogura and William S-Y. Wang}, title={Modeling evolution of sound systems with genetic algorithm}, journal={Computational Linguistics}, year={2003}, volume={29}, number={1}, pages={1-18}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ke_GAModelSound.html}, abstract={In this study, optimization models using Genetic Algorithms are proposed to study the conguration of vowels and tone systems. Similar to previous explanatory models that have been used to study vowel systems, certain criteria, which are assumed to be the principles governing the structure of sound systems, are used to predict optimal vowels and tone systems. In most of the earlier studies only one criterion has been considered. When two criteria are considered, they are often combined into one scalar function. The GA model proposed for the study of tone systems uses a Pareto-ranking method which is highly applicable for dealing with optimization problems having multiple criteria. For optimization of tone systems, perceptual contrast and markedness complexity are considered simultaneously. Although the consistency between the predicted systems and the observed systems is not as significant as those obtained for vowel systems, further investigation along this line is promising.} } @unpublished{ke06languageDevelopmentNetwork, author={Jinyun Ke and Y. Yao}, title={Analyzing language development from a network approach}, year={2006}, note={}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ke06languageDevelopmentNetwork.html}, abstract={In this paper we propose some new measures of language development using network analyses, which is inspired by the recent surge of interests in network studies of many real-world systems. Children's and care-takers' speech data from a longitudinal study are represented as a series of networks, word forms being taken as nodes and collocation of words as links. Measures on the properties of the networks, such as size, connectivity, hub and authority analyses, etc., allow us to make quantitative comparison so as to reveal different paths of development. For example, the asynchrony of development in network size and average degree suggests that children cannot be simply classified as early talkers or late talkers by one or two measures. Children follow different paths in a multi-dimensional space. They may develop faster in one dimension but slower in another dimension. The network approach requires little preprocessing of words and analyses on sentence structures, and the characteristics of words and their usage emerge from the network and are independent of any grammatical presumptions. We show that the change of the two articles 'the' and 'a' in their roles as important nodes in the network reflects the progress of children's syntactic development: the two articles often start in children's networks as hubs and later shift to authorities, while they are authorities constantly in the adult's networks. The network analyses provide a new approach to study language development, and at the same time language development also presents a rich area for network theories to explore.} } @book{keller94book, author={Rudi Keller}, title={On language change: The invisible hand in language}, year={1994}, publisher={Routledge, London}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/keller94book.html} } @article{kello04tics, author={Christopher T. Kello}, title={Characterizing the evolutionary dynamics of language}, journal={Trends in Cognitive Sciences}, year={2004}, volume={8}, number={9}, pages={392-394}, doi={10.1016/j.tics.2004.07.004}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kello04tics.html}, abstract={In a recent article Mitchener and Nowak present a model of the evolutionary dynamics of language. The model exhibits regular and chaotic oscillations in changes to the proportions of grammars spoken in a population over the course of evolution. These oscillations are within the purview of evolutionary game theory, but they suggest the lack of an evolutionarily stable strategy. Implications for self-organization across scales of adaptation are discussed.} } @book{kenneally07firstWordBOOK, author={Christine Kenneally}, title={The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language}, year={2007}, publisher={Viking Adult}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kenneally07firstWordBOOK.html} } @incollection{kessler06phylogeneticMethods, author={Brett Kessler and Annukka Lehtonen}, title={Multilateral Comparison and Significance Testing of the Indo-Uralic Question}, year={2006}, pages={33-}, chapter={3}, editor={Peter Forster and Colin Renfrew}, publisher={}, booktitle={Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kessler06phylogeneticMethods.html} } @article{kim95anEvolutionary, author={Yong-Gwan Kim and Joel Sobel}, title={An evolutionary approach to pre-play communication}, journal={Econometrica}, year={1995}, month={May}, volume={63}, pages={1181-1193}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kim95anEvolutionary.html} } @incollection{king99viewedFromUp, author={Barbara J. King}, title={Viewed from Up Close: Monkeys, Apes, and Language-Origins Theories}, year={1999}, chapter={2}, editor={Barbara J. King}, publisher={School of American Research Press}, booktitle={The Origins of Language: What Nonhuman Primates Can Tell Us}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/king99viewedFromUp.html} } @incollection{king99introduction, author={Barbara J. King}, title={Introduction: Primatological Perspectives on Language}, year={1999}, chapter={1}, editor={Barbara J. King}, publisher={School of American Research Press}, booktitle={The Origins of Language: What Nonhuman Primates Can Tell Us}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/king99introduction.html} } @inproceedings{king02tapirThe, author={Gary W. King and Marc S. Atkin and David Westbrook and Paul R. Cohen}, title={Tapir: the Evolution of an Agent Control Language}, year={2002}, address={Bologna, Italy}, booktitle={Proceedings of the First International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/king02tapirThe.html} } @incollection{kiparsky76historical, author={P. Kiparsky}, title={Historical linguistics and the origin of language}, year={1976}, editor={S. R. Harnad and H. D. Steklis and J. Lancaster}, publisher={}, booktitle={Origins and Evolution of Language and Speech. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 280}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kiparsky76historical.html} } @incollection{kirby07iteratedLearning, author={S. Kirby}, title={The evolution of meaning-space structure through iterated learning}, year={2007}, pages={253-268}, editor={Lyon, C. and Nehaniv, C. and Cangelosi, A.}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Emergence of Communication and Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby07iteratedLearning.html}, abstract={In order to persist, language must be transmitted from generation to generation through a repeated cycle of use and learning. This process of iterated learning has been explored extensively in recent years using computational and mathematical models. These models have shown how compositional syntax provides language with a stability advantage and that iterated learning can induce linguistic adaptation. This paper presents an extension to previous idealised models to allow linguistic agents flexibility and choice in how they construct the semantics of linguistic expressions. This extension allows us to examine the complete dynamics of mixed compositional and holistic languages, look at how semantics can evolve culturally, and how communicative contexts impact on the evolution of meaning structure.} } @incollection{kirby07evolutionLanguage, author={S. Kirby}, title={The evolution of language}, year={2007}, pages={669-681}, editor={Dunbar, R. and Barrett, L.}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby07evolutionLanguage.html} } @article{kirby02naturalLanguage, author={Simon Kirby}, title={Natural Language from Artificial Life}, journal={Artificial Life}, year={2002}, volume={8}, number={2}, pages={185--215}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby02naturalLanguage.html}, keywords={Artificial Life, Language Evolution, Computer Simulation}, abstract={This paper aims to show that linguistics, in particular the study of the lexico-syntactic aspects of language, provides fertile ground for artificial life modelling. A survey of the models that have been developed over the last decade and a half is presented to demonstrate that ALife techniques have a lot to offer an explanatory theory of language. It is argued that this is because much of the structure of language is determined by the interaction of three complex adaptive systems: learning, culture and biological evolution. Computational simulation, informed by theoretical linguistics, is an appropriate response to the challenge of explaining real linguistic data in terms of the processes that underpin human language.} } @incollection{kirby02learningBottlenecks, author={S. Kirby}, title={Learning, Bottlenecks and the Evolution of Recursive Syntax}, year={2002}, chapter={6}, editor={Ted Briscoe}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Linguistic Evolution through Language Acquisition: Formal and Computational Models}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby02learningBottlenecks.html} } @article{kirby01spontaneousEvolution, author={S. Kirby}, title={Spontaneous evolution of linguistic structure: an iterated learning model of the emergence of regularity and irregularity}, journal={IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation}, year={2001}, volume={5}, number={2}, pages={102-110}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby01spontaneousEvolution.html}, keywords={cultural selection, evolution, grammar induction, iterated learning, language}, abstract={A computationally implemented model of the transmission of linguistic behavior over time is presented. In this iterated learning model (ILM), there is no biological evolution, natural selection, nor any measurement of the success of the agents at communicating (except for results-gathering purposes). Nevertheless, counter to intuition, significant evolution of linguistic behavior is observed. From an initially unstructured communication system (a protolanguage), a fully compositional syntactic meaning-string mapping emerges. Furthermore, given a nonuniform frequency distribution over a meaning space and a production mechanism that prefers short strings, a realistic distribution of string lengths and patterns of stable irregularity emerges, suggesting that the ILM is a good model for the evolution of some of the fundamental features of human language.} } @incollection{kirby00syntaxWithout, author={S. Kirby}, title={Syntax without Natural Selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners}, year={2000}, pages={303-323}, editor={C. Knight}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby00syntaxWithout.html}, keywords={evolution, iterated learning, computer simulation, language evolution, syntax, selection} } @inproceedings{kirby99learningBottlenecks, author={S. Kirby}, title={Learning, Bottlenecks and Infinity: a working model of the evolution of syntactic communication}, year={1999}, editor={K. Dautenhahn and C. Nehaniv}, booktitle={Proceedings of the AISB'99 Symposium on Imitation in Animals and Artifacts}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby99learningBottlenecks.html} } @book{kirby99functionSelection2, author={S. Kirby}, title={Function, Selection and Innateness: the Emergence of Language Universals}, year={1999}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, note={The full-text is only a sample (chapter 1: A Puzzle of Fit).}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby99functionSelection2.html} } @inproceedings{kirby99syntaxOut, author={S. Kirby}, title={Syntax out of Learning: the cultural evolution of structured communication in a population of induction algorithms}, year={1999}, pages={694-703}, editor={D. Floreano and J.-D. Nicoud and F. Mondada}, booktitle={ECAL99}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby99syntaxOut.html} } @techreport{kirby98languageEvolution, author={S. Kirby}, title={Language evolution without natural selection: From vocabulary to syntax in a population of learners}, year={1998}, institution={Language Evolution and Computation Research Unit, University of Edinburgh}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby98languageEvolution.html}, keywords={language evolution, computer simulation} } @incollection{kirby98fitnessAnd, author={S. Kirby}, title={Fitness and the selective adaptation of language}, year={1998}, pages={359-383}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby98fitnessAnd.html}, keywords={language evolution, universals, natural selection, formalism, functionalism} } @article{kirby97competingMotivations, author={S. Kirby}, title={Competing motivations and emergence: explaining implicational hierarchies}, journal={Language Typology}, year={1997}, volume={1}, number={1}, pages={5--32}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby97competingMotivations.html} } @phdthesis{kirby99functionSelection, author={S. Kirby}, title={Function, Selection and Innateness: the Emergence of Language Universals}, year={1996}, school={Department of Linguistics, University of Edinburgh}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby99functionSelection.html}, abstract={A central topic for linguistic theory is the degree to which the communicative function of language influences its form. In particular many so-called functional explanations argue that cross-linguistic constraints can be explained with reference to pressures imposed by processing. In apparent opposition to this is the innatist stance which claims that universals are properties imposed by an autonomous language module. This thesis approaches the issues raised by this conflict by examining the nature of the link between processing and universals. The starting point for the work, then, is not the discovery of new universals nor new explanations, but the question ``exactly how do processing theories that have been proposed give rise to the universals that they claim to explain?'' Careful investigation of this problem proves to be fruitful in highlighting the roles of innateness and function in explaining universals.

The methodology chosen involves computational simulations of language as a complex adaptive system, in which language universals appear as emergent properties of the dynamics of the system and the influence of processing on use. This influence is characterised as a differential selection of competing variant forms. The simulation approach is first used to demonstrate the plausibility of a recent parsing explanation for word order universals. An extension of the model to deal with hierarchical universals relating to relative clauses leads to the conclusion that current explanations of hierarchies in general are incomplete. Instead, it is argued that implicational hierarchies are the result of competing processing pressures, in particular between morphological and parsing complexity.

Further examination of relative clause processing and universals leads to an apparent flaw in the approach put forward. It is noted that not all processing pressures appear to show up as universals, challenging the explanatory adequacy of the functional explanations. Instead, it is shown that a complete characterisation of language as an adaptive system requires there to be an innate, autonomous syntactic component to language. This leads to the conclusion that universals arise from the interaction of processing constraints and constraints imposed on the adaptive process by an innate language acquisition device. Moreover, the possibility of processing directly influencing this innate faculty without violating its autonomy is investigated with reference to recent work on the biological evolution of language.

This thesis therefore espouses a perspective on the explanation of language universals in which processing complexity and autonomous syntactic constraints have crucial and complementary roles.} } @incollection{kirby03fromLanguage, author={Simon Kirby and Morten H. Christiansen}, title={From language learning to language evolution}, year={2003}, editor={M.H. Christiansen and S. Kirby}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Evolution: The States of the Art}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby03fromLanguage.html} } @article{kirby07innatenessCulturePNAS, author={Simon Kirby and Mike Dowman and Thomas L. Griffiths}, title={Innateness and culture in the evolution of language}, journal={PNAS}, year={2007}, volume={104}, number={12}, pages={5241-5245}, doi={10.1073/pnas.0608222104}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby07innatenessCulturePNAS.html}, keywords={cultural transmission,iterated learning,Bayesian learning,nativism}, abstract={Human language arises from biological evolution, individual learning, and cultural transmission, but the interaction of these three processes has not been widely studied. We set out a formal framework for analyzing cultural transmission, which allows us to investigate how innate learning biases are related to universal properties of language. We show that cultural transmission can magnify weak biases into strong linguistic universals, undermining one of the arguments for strong innate constraints on language learning. As a consequence, the strength of innate biases can be shielded from natural selection, allowing these genes to drift. Furthermore, even when there is no natural selection, cultural transmission can produce apparent adaptations. Cultural transmission thus provides an alternative to traditional nativist and adaptationist explanations for the properties of human languages.} } @incollection{kirby01theEmergence, author={S. Kirby and J. Hurford}, title={The Emergence of Linguistic Structure: An overview of the Iterated Learning Model}, year={2002}, pages={121-148}, address={London}, chapter={6}, editor={Angelo Cangelosi and Domenico Parisi}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Simulating the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby01theEmergence.html} } @inproceedings{kirby97learningCulture, author={S. Kirby and J. Hurford}, title={Learning, culture and evolution in the origin of linguistic constraints}, year={1997}, pages={493-502}, editor={P. Husbands and I. Harvey}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={ECAL97}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby97learningCulture.html}, keywords={artificial life, language evolution, culture, language acquisition} } @techreport{kirby97theEvolution, author={S. Kirby and J. Hurford}, title={The evolution of incremental learning: language, development and critical periods}, year={1997}, institution={Language Evolution and Computation Research Unit, University of Edinburgh}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby97theEvolution.html}, keywords={critical period, language acquisition, language evolution, computer simulation} } @article{kirby95neuralPreconditions, author={S. Kirby and J. Hurford}, title={Neural preconditions for proto-language}, journal={Behavioral and Brain Sciences}, year={1995}, volume={18}, number={1}, pages={193-194}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kirby95neuralPreconditions.html} } @article{ksb03UG, author={S. Kirby and K. Smith and H. Brighton}, title={From UG to Universals: linguistic adaptation through iterated learning}, journal={Studies in Language}, year={2004}, volume={28}, number={3}, pages={587-607}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ksb03UG.html}, abstract={What constitutes linguistic evidence for Universal Grammar (UG)? The principal approach to this question equates UG on the one hand with language universals on the other. Parsimonious and general characterizations of linguistic variation are assumed to uncover features of UG. This paper reviews a recently developed evolutionary approach to language that casts doubt on this assumption: the Iterated Learning Model (ILM). We treat UG as a model of our prior learning bias, and consider how languages may adapt in response to this bias. By dealing directly with populations of linguistic agents, the ILM allows us to study the adaptive landscape that particular learning biases result in. The key result from this work is that the relationship between UG and language structure is non-trivial.} } @incollection{kit05lexicalLearning, author={Chunyu Kit}, title={Unsupervised Lexical Learning As Inductive Inference via Compression}, year={2005}, month={July}, editor={James W. Minett and William S.-Y. Wang}, publisher={City University of Hong Kong Press}, booktitle={Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kit05lexicalLearning.html}, abstract={This paper presents a learning-via-compression approach to unsupervised acquisition of word forms with no a priori knowledge. Following the basic ideas in Solomonoff’s theory of inductive inference and Rissanen’s MDL framework, the learning is formulated as a process of inferring regularities, in the form of string patterns (i.e., words), from a given set of data. A segmentation algorithm is designed to segment each input utterance into a sequence of word candidates giving an optimal sum of description length gain (DLG). The learning model has a lexical refinement module to exploit this algorithm to derive finer-grained word candidates recursively until no more compression effect is available. Experimental results on an infant-directed speech corpus show that this approach reaches a state-of-art performance in terms of precision and recall of both words and word boundaries} } @article{kingspor97, author={V. Klingspor and J. Demiris and M. Kaiser}, title={Human-Robot Communication and Machine Learning}, journal={Applied Artificial Intelligence Journal}, year={1997}, volume={11}, pages={719-746}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kingspor97.html} } @article{Kniemeyer04graphGrammar, author={Ole Kniemeyer and Gerhard H. Buck-Sorlin and Winfried Kurth}, title={A Graph Grammar Approach to Artificial Life}, journal={Artificial Life}, year={2004}, month={Fall}, volume={10}, number={4}, pages={413-431}, doi={10.1162/1064546041766451}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Kniemeyer04graphGrammar.html}, keywords={Graph grammars, L systems, genotype-phenotype mapping, morphogenesis, models of evolution}, abstract={We present the high-level language of relational growth grammars (RGGs) as a formalism designed for the specification of ALife models. RGGs can be seen as an extension of the well-known parametric Lindenmayer systems and contain rule-based, procedural, and object-oriented features. They are defined as rewriting systems operating on graphs with the edges coming from a set of user-defined relations, whereas the nodes can be associated with objects. We demonstrate their ability to represent genes, regulatory networks of metabolites, and morphologically structured organisms, as well as developmental aspects of these entities, in a common formal framework. Mutation, crossing over, selection, and the dynamics of a network of gene regulation can all be represented with simple graph rewriting rules. This is demonstrated in some detail on the classical example of Dawkins’ biomorphs and the ABC model of flower morphogenesis: other applications are briefly sketched. An interactive program was implemented, enabling the execution of the formalism and the visualization of the results.} } @inproceedings{knight06evolang, author={Chris Knight}, title={Language co-evolved with the rule of law}, year={2006}, pages={168-175}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/knight06evolang.html}, abstract={Many scholars assume a connection between the evolution of language and that of distinctively human group-level morality. Unfortunately, such thinkers frequently downplay a central implication of modern Darwinian theory, which precludes the possibility of innate psychological mechanisms evolving to benefit the group at the expense of the individual. Group level moral regulation is indeed central to sexual, social and political life in all known hunter-gatherer communities. The production of speech acts would be impossible without such regulation. The challenge, therefore, is to explain on a Darwinian basis how life could have become subject to the rule of law. Only then will we have an appropriate social framework in which to contextualize our models of how language may have evolved.} } @incollection{knight02languageAnd, author={Chris Knight}, title={Language and Revolutionary Consciousness}, year={2002}, address={Oxford}, chapter={7}, editor={Alison Wray}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={The Transition to Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/knight02languageAnd.html} } @incollection{knight00introductionThe, author={C. Knight}, title={Introduction -- The evolution of cooperative communication}, year={2000}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Chris Knight and James R. Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/knight00introductionThe.html} } @incollection{knight00playAs, author={C. Knight}, title={Play as a precursor of phonology and syntax}, year={2000}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Chris Knight and James R. Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/knight00playAs.html} } @incollection{knight99sex_and_language, author={Chris Knight}, title={Sex and Language as Pretend Play}, year={1999}, pages={228-247}, chapter={12}, editor={Robin Dunbar and Chris Knight and Camilla Power}, publisher={Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh}, booktitle={The Evolution of Culture}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/knight99sex_and_language.html} } @incollection{knight98introductionGrounding, author={C. Knight}, title={Introduction: Grounding language function in social cognition}, year={1998}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/knight98introductionGrounding.html} } @incollection{knight98ritual, author={C. Knight}, title={Ritual/speech co-evolution: A 'selfish gene' solution to the problem of deception}, year={1998}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/knight98ritual.html} } @book{knight-etal-2000-editedbook, title={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, year={2000}, editor={Chris Knight and Jim Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/knightetal2000editedbook.html} } @inproceedings{knoester07ECAL, author={David B. Knoester and Philip K. McKinley and Benjamin Beckmann and Charles Ofria}, title={Directed Evolution of Communication and Cooperation in Digital Organisms}, year={2007}, pages={384-394}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={ECAL07}, doi={10.1007/978-3-540-74913-4_39}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/knoester07ECAL.html}, keywords={digital evolution, communication, cooperative behavior, natural selection, mutation, autonomic computing, biologically-inspired computing}, abstract={This paper describes a study in the use of digital evolution to produce cooperative communication behavior in a population of digital organisms. The results demonstrate that digital evolution can produce organisms capable of distributed problem solving through interactions between members of the population and their environment. Specifically, the organisms cooperate to distribute among the population the largest value sensed from the environment. These digital organisms have no 'built-in' ability to perform this task; each population begins with a single organism that has only the ability to self-replicate. Over thousands of generations, random mutations and natural selection produce an instruction sequence that realizes this behavior, despite continuous turnover in the population.} } @inproceedings{kobele03groundingAsLearning, author={Gregory M. Kobele and Jason Riggle and Travis C. Collier and Yoosook Lee and Ying Lin and Yuan Yao and Charles E. Taylor and Edward P. Stabler}, title={Grounding As Learning}, year={2003}, pages={87-94}, address={Vienna}, editor={Simon Kirby}, booktitle={Proceedings of Language Evolution and Computation Workshop/Course at ESSLLI}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kobele03groundingAsLearning.html} } @incollection{kohler98theDevelopment, author={K. J. Kohler}, title={The development of sound systems in human language}, year={1998}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kohler98theDevelopment.html} } @incollection{komarova06populationDynamicsLanguage, author={N.L. Komarova}, title={Population dynamics of human language: a complex system}, year={2006}, pages={89-98}, publisher={The National Academy Press}, booktitle={Frontiers of engineering: reports on leading-edge engineering from the 2005 symposium}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/komarova06populationDynamicsLanguage.html} } @article{komarova04replicatorMutator, author={Natalia L. Komarova}, title={Replicator-mutator equation, universality property and population dynamics of learning}, journal={Journal of Theoretical Biology}, year={2004}, month={September}, volume={230}, number={2}, pages={227-239}, doi={10.1016/j.jtbi.2004.05.004}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/komarova04replicatorMutator.html}, keywords={Evolution of language; Quasi-species; Error threshold}, abstract={Replicator-mutator equation is used to describe the dynamics of complex adaptive systems in population genetics, biochemistry and models of language learning. We study 'localized', or 'coherent', solutions, which are especially relevant in the context of learning and correspond to the existence of a predominant language in the population. There is a coherence threshold for learning fidelity, above which coherent communication can be maintained. We prove the following surprising universality property of coherence threshold: for typical realizations of random coefficients in the fitness matrix, the value of the coherence threshold does not depend on the size of the system.} } @article{komarova01buildingThe, author={Natalia L. Komarova and Marc D. Hauser}, title={Building the tower of babble}, journal={Trends in Cognitive Sciences}, year={2001}, volume={5}, number={10}, pages={412-413}, note={This is a meeting report of The Language Learning and Evolution Workshop held at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, USA, 17-19 May 2001.}, doi={10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01768-X}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/komarova01buildingThe.html} } @article{komarova07evolutionaryModelsOfColor, author={Natalia L. Komarova and Kimberly A. Jameson and Louis Narens}, title={Evolutionary models of color categorization based on discrimination}, journal={Journal of Mathematical Psychology}, year={2007}, month={December}, volume={51}, number={6}, pages={359-382}, doi={10.1016/j.jmp.2007.06.001}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/komarova07evolutionaryModelsOfColor.html}, abstract={Specifying the factors that contribute to the universality of color categorization across individuals and cultures is a longstanding and still controversial issue in psychology, linguistics, and anthropology. The present article approaches this issue through the simulated evolution of color lexicons. It is shown that the combination of a minimal perceptual psychology of discrimination, simple pragmatic constraints involving communication, and simple learning rules are enough to evolve color naming systems. Implications of this result for psychological theories of color categorization and the evolution of color naming systems in human societies are discussed.} } @article{komarova04optimizing, author={N. L. Komarova and P. Niyogi}, title={Optimizing the mutual intelligibility of linguistic agents in a shared world}, journal={Artificial Intelligence}, year={2004}, month={April}, volume={154}, number={1-2}, pages={1-42}, doi={10.1016/j.artint.2003.08.005}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/komarova04optimizing.html}, keywords={Linguistic agents; Optimal communication; Language learning; Language evolution; Game theory; Multi-agent systems}, abstract={We consider the problem of linguistic agents that communicate with each other about a shared world. We develop a formal notion of a language as a set of probabilistic associations between form (lexical or syntactic) and meaning (semantic) that has general applicability. Using this notion, we define a natural measure of the mutual intelligibility, F(L,L'), between two agents, one using the language L and the other using L'. We then proceed to investigate three important questions within this framework: (1) Given a language L, what language L' maximizes mutual intelligibility with L? We find surprisingly that L' need not be the same as L and we present algorithms for approximating L' arbitrarily well. (2) How can one learn to optimally communicate with a user of language L when L is unknown at the outset and the learner is allowed a finite number of linguistic interactions with the user of L? We describe possible algorithms and calculate explicit bounds on the number of interactions needed. (3) Consider a population of linguistic agents that learn from each other and evolve over time. Will the community converge to a shared language and what is the nature of such a language? We characterize the evolutionarily stable states of a population of linguistic agents in a game-theoretic setting. Our analysis has significance for a number of areas in natural and artificial communication where one studies the design, learning, and evolution of linguistic communication systems.} } @article{komarova01theEvolutionary, author={N. L. Komarova and P. Niyogi and M. A. Nowak}, title={The evolutionary dynamics of grammar acquisition}, journal={Journal of Theoretical Biology}, year={2001}, volume={209}, number={1}, pages={43-59}, doi={10.1006/jtbi.2000.2240}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/komarova01theEvolutionary.html}, abstract={Grammar is the computational system of language. It is a set of rules that specifies how to construct sentences out of words. Grammar is the basis of the unlimited expressibility of human language. Children acquire the grammar of their native language without formal education simply by hearing a number of sample sentences. Children could not solve this learning task if they did not have some pre-formed expectations. In other words, children have to evaluate the sample sentences and choose one grammar out of a limited set of candidate grammars. The restricted search space and the mechanism which allows to evaluate the sample sentences is called universal grammar. Universal grammar cannot be learned; it must be in place when the learning process starts. In this paper, we design a mathematical theory that places the problem of language acquisition into an evolutionary context. We formulate equations for the population dynamics of communication and grammar learning. We ask how accurate children have to learn the grammar of their parents' language for a population of individuals to evolve and maintain a coherent grammatical system. It turns out that there is a maximum error tolerance for which a predominant grammar is stable. We calculate the maximum size of the search space that is compatible with coherent communication in a population. Thus, we specify the conditions for the evolution of universal grammar.} } @article{komarova03languageDynamics, author={N. L. Komarova and M. A. Nowak}, title={Language dynamics in finite populations}, journal={Journal of Theoretical Biology}, year={2003}, number={3}, pages={445-457}, doi={10.1006/jtbi.2003.3199}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/komarova03languageDynamics.html}, abstract={Any mechanism of language acquisition can only learn a restricted set of grammars. The human brain contains a mechanism for language acquisition which can learn a restricted set of grammars. The theory of this restricted set is universal grammar (UG). UG has to be sufficiently specific to induce linguistic coherence in a population. This phenomenon is known as ``coherence threshold''. Previously, we have calculated the coherence threshold for deterministic dynamics and infinitely large populations. Here, we extend the framework to stochastic processes and finite populations. If there is selection for communicative function (selective language dynamics), then the analytic results for infinite populations are excellent approximations for finite populations; as expected, finite populations need a slightly higher accuracy of language acquisition to maintain coherence. If there is no selection for communicative function (neutral language dynamics), then linguistic coherence is only possible for finite populations.} } @incollection{komarova03learningLanguage, author={N. L. Komarova and M. A. Nowak}, title={Language, Learning, and Evolution}, year={2003}, editor={M.H. Christiansen and S. Kirby}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Evolution: The States of the Art}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/komarova03learningLanguage.html} } @incollection{komarova01populationDynamics, author={N. L. Komarova and M. A. Nowak}, title={Population dynamics of grammar acquisition}, year={2002}, pages={149-164}, address={London}, chapter={7}, editor={Angelo Cangelosi and Domenico Parisi}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Simulating the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/komarova01populationDynamics.html} } @article{komarova01naturalSelection, author={N. L. Komarova and M. A. Nowak}, title={Natural selection of the critical period for language acquisition}, journal={Proceedings of The Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences}, year={2001}, volume={268}, number={1472}, pages={1189-1196}, doi={10.1098/rspb.2001.1629}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/komarova01naturalSelection.html}, keywords={universal grammar; language evolution; game theory; evolutionary dynamics; learning; fitness}, abstract={The language acquisition period in humans lasts about 13 years. After puberty it becomes increasingly difficult to learn a language. We explain this phenomenon by using an evolutionary framework. We present a dynamical system describing competition between language acquisition devices, which differ in the length of the learning period. There are two selective forces that play a role in determining the critical learning period: (i) having a longer learning period increases the accuracy of language acquisition; (ii) learning is associated with certain costs that affect fitness. As a result, there exists a limited learning period which is evolutionarily stable. This result is obtained analytically by means of a Nash equilibrium analysis of language acquisition devices. Interestingly, the evolutionarily stable learning period does not maximize the average fitness of the population.} } @article{komarova01theEvolutionary2, author={N. L. Komarova and M. A. Nowak}, title={The evolutionary dynamics of the lexical matrix}, journal={Bulletin of Mathematical Biology}, year={2001}, volume={63}, number={3}, pages={451-485}, doi={10.1006/bulm.2000.0222}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/komarova01theEvolutionary2.html}, abstract={The lexical matrix is an integral part of the human language system. It provides the link between word form and word meaning. A simple lexical matrix is also at the center of any animal communication system, where it defines the associations between form and meaning of animal signals. We study the evolution and population dynamics of the lexical matrix. We assume that children learn the lexical matrix of their parents. This learning process is subject to mistakes: (i) children may not acquire all lexical items of their parents (incomplete learning); and (ii) children might acquire associations between word forms and word meanings that differ from their parents' lexical items (incorrect learning). We derive an analytic framework that deals with incomplete learning. We calculate the maximum error rate that is compatible with a population maintaining a coherent lexical matrix of a given size. We calculate the equilibrium distribution of the number of lexical items known to individuals. Our analytic investigations are supplemented by numerical simulations that describe both incomplete and incorrect learning, and other extensions.} } @article{kosmidis05twoInteractingSpecies, author={Kosmas Kosmidis and John M. Halley and Panos Argyrakis}, title={Language evolution and population dynamics in a system of two interacting species}, journal={Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications}, year={2005}, month={August}, volume={353}, pages={595-612}, doi={10.1016/j.physa.2005.02.038}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kosmidis05twoInteractingSpecies.html}, abstract={We use Monte Carlo simulations and assumptions from evolutionary game theory in order to study the evolution of words and the population dynamics of a system made of two interacting species which initially speak two different languages. The species are characterized by their identity, vocabulary, and have different initial fitness, i.e. reproduction capability. We investigate how different initial fitness affects the vocabulary of the species or the population dynamics by leading to a permanent populational advantage. We further find that the spatial distributions of the species may cause the system to exhibit pattern formation or segregation. We show that an initial fitness advantage, even though very quickly balanced, leads to better spatial arrangement and enhances survival probabilities of the species. In most cases the system will arrive at a final state where both languages coexist. However, in cases where one species greatly outnumbers the other in population and fitness, then only one species survives with its 'final' language having a slightly richer vocabulary than its initial language. Thus, our results offer an explanation for the existence and origin of synonyms in spoken languages.} } @article{kosmidis05statisticalMechanics, author={Kosmas Kosmidis and Alkiviadis Kalampokis and Panos Argyrakis}, title={Statistical Mechanical Approach to Human Language}, journal={Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications}, year={2006}, month={July}, volume={366}, pages={495-502}, doi={10.1016/j.physa.2005.10.039}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kosmidis05statisticalMechanics.html}, keywords={Language; Zipf law; Statistical physics; Language evolution}, abstract={We use the formulation of equilibrium statistical mechanics in order to study some important characteristics of language. Using a simple expression for the Hamiltonian of a language system, which is directly implied by the Zipf law, we are able to explain several characteristic features of human language that seem completely unrelated, such as the universality of the Zipf exponent, the vocabulary size of children, the reduced communication abilities of people suffering from schizophrenia, etc. While several explanations are necessarily only qualitative at this stage, we have, nevertheless, been able to derive a formula for the vocabulary size of children as a function of age, which agrees rather well with experimental data.} } @article{kosmidis06languageTimeSeriesAnalysis, author={Kosmas Kosmidis and Alkiviadis Kalampokis and Panos Argyrakis}, title={Language time series analysis}, journal={Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications}, year={2006}, month={October}, volume={370}, number={2}, pages={808-816}, doi={10.1016/j.physa.2006.02.042}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kosmidis06languageTimeSeriesAnalysis.html}, abstract={We use the detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) and the Grassberger-Proccacia analysis (GP) methods in order to study language characteristics. Despite that we construct our signals using only word lengths or word frequencies, excluding in this way huge amount of information from language, the application of GP analysis indicates that linguistic signals may be considered as the manifestation of a complex system of high dimensionality, different from random signals or systems of low dimensionality such as the Earth climate. The DFA method is additionally able to distinguish a natural language signal from a computer code signal. This last result may be useful in the field of cryptography.} } @article{krakauer01selectiveImitation, author={David Krakauer}, title={Selective imitation for a private sign system}, journal={Journal of Theoretical Biology}, year={2001}, month={November}, volume={213}, number={2}, pages={145-157}, doi={10.1006/jtbi.2001.2408}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/krakauer01selectiveImitation.html}, abstract={A distinctive feature of all human languages is the diverse and arbitrary nature of the sign (signifier). This can be interpreted as stating that the mapping between signals and referents is established by convention rather than by functional constraints. This property of the sign provides for a great deal of linguistic flexibility and is a key component of symbolic communication. Game theoretic models to describe signal imitation are investigated with a view to understanding how non-arbitrary (indexical) animal-style signals might 'evolve' culturally into diverse, arbitrary signs. I explore the evolutionary hypothesis that private, arbitrary signs emerge as a result of selective imitation within a socially structured population. Once arbitrary signs have emerged, they contribute towards greater assortative interactions among individuals using a shared sign system. In natural populations, the models for imitation will very often be close kin. Hence, kinship provides one mechanism for the creation of true symbols. An imitation-structured population can support many more sign systems than an equivalent non-structured population and is one in which symbols become the dominant force in assortative interactions.} } @article{krakauer95animalCommunication, author={D. Krakauer and R.A. Johnstone}, title={The evolution of exploitation and honesty in animal communication: a model using artificial neural networks}, journal={Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences}, year={1995}, month={May}, volume={348}, number={1325}, pages={355-361}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/krakauer95animalCommunication.html}, abstract={Conflicts of interest arise between signaller and receiver in most kinds of biological communication. Some authors have argued that this conflict is likely to give rise to deceit and exploitation, as receivers lag behind in the coevolutionary 'arms race' with signallers. Others have argued that such manipulation is likely to be short-lived and that receivers can avoid being deceived by paying attention to signals that are costly and hence 'unfakeable.' These two views have been hard to reconcile. Here, we present results from simulations of signal evolution using artificial neural networks, which demonstrate that honesty can coexist with a degree of exploitation. Signal cost ensures that receivers are able to obtain some honest information, but is unable to prevent exploitative signalling strategies from gaining short-term benefits. Although any one receiver bias that is open to exploitation will subsist for only a short period of time once signallers begin to take advantage of it, new preferences of this kind are constantly regenerated through selection and random drift. Hidden preferences and sensory exploitation are thus likely to have an enduring influence on the evolution of honest, costly signals. At the same time, honesty and cost are prerequisites for the evolution of exploitation. When signalling is cost-free, selection cannot act to maintain honesty, and receivers rapidly evolve to ignore signals. This leads to a reduction in the extent of hidden preference, and a consequent loss of potential for exploitation.} } @article{krakauer95honestSignalling, author={D. Krakauer and M. Pagel}, title={Spatial structure and the evolution of honest cost-free signalling}, journal={Proceedings of The Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences}, year={1995}, volume={260}, pages={365-372}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/krakauer95honestSignalling.html}, abstract={Models of animal signalling stress that among unrelated individuals the transfer of honest information normally requires that signals are costly, and costly in a way related to the true information revealed by the signal. In the absence of such a cost, `cheats', that lie about their states or needs, are able to evolve and exploit the preferences of receivers. We show here that spatial constraints imposed on the interactions between signallers and receivers favour honest signalling even in the absence of any costs: `islands' of honesty coexist in `seas' of dishonesty. The extent to which honest or dishonest strategies are favoured, is shown to depend upon the relative payoffs from signalling and receiving. As the receiving component of fitness becomes greater than the signalling component of fitness, as might be true in `life-dinner' type interactions, honesty is increasingly favoured. In addition, in spatial populations, honesty can be favoured locally even when the mean global payoffs to honesty are lower than the mean payoffs to dishonesty. Our model provides a general framework for analysing signals in spatially structured populations and might therefore apply to signalling in both natural and cultural situations.} } @article{kroch89reflexesGrammar, author={A. Kroch}, title={Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change}, journal={Language Variation and Change}, year={1989}, volume={1}, pages={199-244}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kroch89reflexesGrammar.html} } @article{krug98stringFrequency, author={M. Krug}, title={String frequency: a cognitive motivating factor in coalescence, language processing and linguistic change}, journal={Journal of English Linguistics}, year={1998}, volume={26}, pages={286-320}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/krug98stringFrequency.html} } @article{kuhl04earlyLangAcq, author={Patricia K. Kuhl}, title={Early language acquisition: cracking the speech code}, journal={Nature Reviews Neuroscience}, year={2004}, month={November}, volume={5}, number={11}, pages={831-843}, doi={10.1038/nrn1533}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kuhl04earlyLangAcq.html}, abstract={Infants learn language with remarkable speed, but how they do it remains a mystery. New data show that infants use computational strategies to detect the statistical and prosodic patterns in language input, and that this leads to the discovery of phonemes and words. Social interaction with another human being affects speech learning in a way that resembles communicative learning in songbirds. The brain's commitment to the statistical and prosodic patterns that are experienced early in life might help to explain the long-standing puzzle of why infants are better language learners than adults. Successful learning by infants, as well as constraints on that learning, are changing theories of language acquisition.} } @article{Kuhn05recurrentNeuralNetworks, author={Simone Kuhn and Holk Cruse}, title={Static mental representations in recurrent neural networks for the control of dynamic behavioural sequences}, journal={Connection Science}, year={2005}, month={December}, volume={17}, number={3-4}, pages={343-360}, doi={10.1080/09540090500177638}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Kuhn05recurrentNeuralNetworks.html}, keywords={Mental representations, Recurrent neural networks, Learning; Action-based model, Simple language}, abstract={What enables an organism to perform behaviour we would call cognitive and adaptive, like language? Here, it is argued that an essential prerequisite is the ability to build up mental representations of external situations to uncouple the behaviour from direct environmental control. Such representations can be realized by building up cell assemblies. The recurrent neural network presented to cope with this task has been used for generation of action but can also be utilized as a basis for mental representations due to its attractor characteristics. In this context, a new learning algorithm (Dynamic Delta Rule) is proposed, which leads to a self-organized weight distribution yielding stable states on the one hand and which, on the other hand, only activates subpopulations of larger networks that code for the respective situation. In a second step, ways are shown of how the static information of these internal models can be transformed into time-dependent behavioural sequences.} } @article{kvasnicka99alife, author={Vladimir Kvasnicka and Jiri Pospichal}, title={An Emergence of Coordinated Communication in Populations of Agents}, journal={Artificial Life}, year={1999}, volume={5}, number={4}, pages={319-342}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/kvasnicka99alife.html}, keywords={genetic algorithms, coordinated communication, emergence, agent, Darwinian evolution, Baldwin effect, Dawkins, memes}, abstract={The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that coordinated communication spontaneously emerges in a population composed of agents that are capable of specific cognitive activities. Internal states of agents are characterized by meaning vectors. Simple neural networks composed of one layer of hidden neurons perform cognitive activities of agents. An elementary communication act consists of theollowing: (a) two agents are selected, where one of them is declared the speaker and the other the listener; (b) the speaker codes a selected meaning vector onto a sequence of symbols and sends it to the listener as a message; and finally, (c) the listener decodes this message into a meaning vector and adapts his or her neural network such that the differences between speaker and listener meaning vectors are decreased. A Darwinian evolution enlarged by ideas from the Baldwin effect and DawkinsÕmemes is simulated by a simple version of an evolutionary algorithm without crossover. The¿ent fitness is determined by success of the mutual pairwise communications. It is demonstrated that agents in the course of evolution gradually do a better job of decoding received messages (they are closer to meaning vectors of speakers) and all agents gradually start to use the same vocabulary for the common communication. Moreover, if agent meaning vectors contain regularities, then these regularities are manifested also in messages created by agent speakers, that is, similar parts of meaning vectors are coded by similar symbol substrings. This observation is considered a manifestation of the emergence of a grammar system in the common coordinated communication.} } @article{lachlan03, author={R. F. Lachlan and M. W. Feldman}, title={Evolution of cultural communication systems: the coevolution of cultural signals and genes encoding learning preferences}, journal={Journal of Evolutionary Biology}, year={2003}, month={November}, volume={16}, number={6}, pages={1084-1095}, doi={10.1046/j.1420-9101.2003.00624.x}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lachlan03.html}, abstract={In several communication systems that rely on social learning, such as bird song, and possibly human language, the range of signals that can be learned is limited by perceptual biases - predispositions - that are presumably based on genes. In this paper, we examine the coevolution of such genes with the culturally transmitted communication traits themselves, using deterministic population genetic models. We argue that examining how restrictive genetic predispositions are is a useful way of examining the evolutionary origin and maintenance of learning. Under neutral cultural evolution, where no cultural trait has any inherent advantage over another, there is selection in favour of less restrictive genes (genes that allow a wider range of signals to recognized). In contrast, cultural conformity (where the most common cultural trait is favoured) leads to selection in favour of more restrictive genes.} } @article{lachmann01costAnd, author={M. Lachmann and S. Szamado and C. T. Bergstrom}, title={Cost and conflict in animal signals and human language}, journal={PNAS}, year={2001}, month={November}, volume={98}, number={23}, pages={13189-13194}, doi={10.1073/pnas.231216498}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lachmann01costAnd.html}, abstract={The costly signaling hypothesis proposes that animal signals are kept honest by appropriate signal costs. We show that to the contrary, signal cost is unnecessary for honest signaling even when interests conflict. We illustrate this principle by constructing examples of cost-free signaling equilibria for the two paradigmatic signaling games of Grafen (1990) and Godfray (1991). Our findings may explain why some animal signals use cost to ensure honesty whereas others do not and suggest that empirical tests of the signaling hypothesis should focus not on equilibrium cost but, rather, on the cost of deviation from equilibrium. We use these results to apply costly signaling theory to the low-cost signals that make up human language. Recent game theoretic models have shown that several key features of language could plausibly arise and be maintained by natural selection when individuals have coincident interests. In real societies, however, individuals do not have fully coincident interests. We show that coincident interests are not a prerequisite for linguistic communication, and find that many of the results derived previously can be expected also under more realistic models of society.} } @article{lai01FOXP2, author={C.S.L. Lai and S.E. Fisher and J.A. Hurst and F. Vargha-Khadem and A.P. Monaco}, title={A forkhead-domain gene is mutated in a severe speech and language disorder}, journal={Nature}, year={2001}, volume={413}, pages={519-523}, doi={10.1038/35097076}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lai01FOXP2.html}, abstract={Individuals affected with developmental disorders of speech and language have substantial difficulty acquiring expressive and/or receptive language in the absence of any profound sensory or neurological impairment and despite adequate intelligence and opportunity. Although studies of twins consistently indicate that a significant genetic component is involved, most families segregating speech and language deficits show complex patterns of inheritance, and a gene that predisposes individuals to such disorders has not been identified. We have studied a unique three-generation pedigree, KE, in which a severe speech and language disorder is transmitted as an autosomal-dominant monogenic trait. Our previous work mapped the locus responsible, SPCH1, to a 5.6-cM interval of region 7q31 on chromosome 7 (ref. 5). We also identified an unrelated individual, CS, in whom speech and language impairment is associated with a chromosomal translocation involving the SPCH1 interval. Here we show that the gene FOXP2, which encodes a putative transcription factor containing a polyglutamine tract and a forkhead DNA-binding domain, is directly disrupted by the translocation breakpoint in CS. In addition, we identify a point mutation in affected members of the KE family that alters an invariant amino-acid residue in the forkhead domain. Our findings suggest that FOXP2 is involved in the developmental process that culminates in speech and language.} } @inproceedings{lakkaraju06SAB, author={Kiran Lakkaraju and Les Gasser}, title={The Complexity of Finding an Optimal Policy for Language Convergence}, year={2006}, pages={804-815}, editor={Nolfi, S. and et al.}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={SAB06}, doi={10.1007/11840541_66}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lakkaraju06SAB.html}, abstract={An important problem for societies of natural and artificial animals is to converge upon a similar language in order to communicate. We call this the language convergence problem. In this paper we study the complexity of finding the optimal (in terms of time to convergence) algorithm for language convergence. We map the language convergence problem to instances of a Decentralized Partially Observable Markov Decision Process to show that the complexity can vary from P-complete to NEXP-complete based on the scenario being studied.} } @article{land77adamSmith, author={Stephen K. Land}, title={Adam Smith's ``Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages''}, journal={Journal of the History of Ideas}, year={1977}, volume={38}, number={4}, pages={677-690}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/land77adamSmith.html} } @book{langacker99grammarAnd, author={Ronald W. Langacker}, title={Grammar and Conceptualization}, year={1999}, publisher={Walter De Gruyter}, note={Cognitive Linguistics Research, 14}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/langacker99grammarAnd.html} } @book{langacker87foundationsOf, author={Ronald W. Langacker}, title={Foundations of cognitive grammar: Theoretical Prerequisites}, year={1987}, address={Stanford, CA}, publisher={Stanford University Press}, note={Vol 1, 1987(Hardcover), 1999(Paperback)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/langacker87foundationsOf.html} } @article{lansing07languageAndGene, author={J. Stephen Lansing and Murray P Cox and Sean S Downey and Brandon M Gabler and Brian Hallmark and Tatiana M Karafet and Peter Norquest and John W Schoenfelder and Herawati Sudoyo and Joseph C Watkins and Michael F Hammer}, title={Coevolution of languages and genes on the island of Sumba, eastern Indonesia}, journal={PNAS}, year={2007}, month={Oct}, volume={104}, number={41}, pages={16022--16026}, doi={10.1073/pnas.0704451104}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lansing07languageAndGene.html}, abstract={Numerous studies indicate strong associations between languages and genes among human populations at the global scale, but all broader scale genetic and linguistic patterns must arise from processes originating at the community level. We examine linguistic and genetic variation in a contact zone on the eastern Indonesian island of Sumba, where Neolithic Austronesian farming communities settled and began interacting with aboriginal foraging societies approximately 3,500 years ago. Phylogenetic reconstruction based on a 200-word Swadesh list sampled from 29 localities supports the hypothesis that Sumbanese languages derive from a single ancestral Austronesian language. However, the proportion of cognates (words with a common origin) traceable to Proto-Austronesian (PAn) varies among language subgroups distributed across the island. Interestingly, a positive correlation was found between the percentage of Y chromosome lineages that derive from Austronesian (as opposed to aboriginal) ancestors and the retention of PAn cognates. We also find a striking correlation between the percentage of PAn cognates and geographic distance from the site where many Sumbanese believe their ancestors arrived on the island. These language-gene-geography correlations, unprecedented at such a fine scale, imply that historical patterns of social interaction between expanding farmers and resident hunter-gatherers largely explain community-level language evolution on Sumba. We propose a model to explain linguistic and demographic coevolution at fine spatial and temporal scales.} } @inproceedings{lanyon06evolang, author={Susan J. Lanyon}, title={A saltationist approach for the evolution of human cognition and language}, year={2006}, pages={176-183}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lanyon06evolang.html}, abstract={The debate over the evolution of an innate language capacity seems to divide into two principle camps. The neo-Darwinian approach generally argues that human psychological modules, in- cluding the language faculty, must have arisen gradually and incrementally having been honed by natural selection. Thus Pinker, when theorizing about language evolution, sees ''no reason to doubt that the principle explanation is the same as for any other complex instinct or organ, Darwin's theory of natural selection'' (Pinker, 1994, 333). However, as Knight et al. (2000) have pointed out, little attention has been paid by the neo-Darwinian approach to address the causes of the emergence of novelty. The saltationist approach gleans much of its evidence from the archaeological and paleontological record, which is interpreted as unsupportive of the neo-Darwinian paradigm. Jackendoff (1999) accuses those who do not accept that language arose gradually through natural selection as having been ''forced to devalue evolutionary argu- mentation''. Jackendoff's concern seems to stem from the view that there is only one way that evolution can proceed, through gradual change driven by natural selection. My concern is for the neglect of the vast amount of evidence supporting the theory that modern humans did not emerged in a gradual, step-wise fashion, so there is no reason to believe that cognition and lan- guage evolved in this manner. Here I argue that hominins evolved through major evolutionary leaps, which may have numbered only two or three significant mutation 'events'. Neoteny (the retention of infant or juvenile growth rates) appears to have been a major force in the evolu- tion of our primate ancestors and this process can explain the sudden emergence of many of the traits that define what it means to be human. Further evidence from the fossil and archaeological record supports a 'sudden' emergence of human cognition and language.} } @inproceedings{lee05grammarStructureECAL, author={Yoosook Lee and Travis C. Collier and Gregory M. Kobele and Edward P. Stabler and Charles E. Taylor}, title={Grammar Structure and the Dynamics of Language Evolution}, year={2005}, month={September}, pages={624-633}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={ECAL05}, doi={10.1007/11553090_63}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lee05grammarStructureECAL.html}, abstract={The complexity, variation, and change of languages make evident the importance of representation and learning in the acquisition and evolution of language. For example, analytic studies of simple language in unstructured populations have shown complex dynamics, depending on the fidelity of language transmission. In this study we extend these analysis of evolutionary dynamics to include grammars inspired by the principles and parameters paradigm. In particular, the space of languages is structured so that some pairs of languages are more similar than others, and mutations tend to change languages to nearby variants. We found that coherence emerges with lower learning fidelity than predicted by earlier work with an unstructured language space.} } @inproceedings{lee05populationStructure, author={Yoosook Lee and Travis C. Collier and Charles E. Taylor and Edward P. Stabler}, title={The role of population structure in language evolution}, year={2005}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lee05populationStructure.html}, abstract={The question of language evolution is of interest to linguistics, biology and recently, engineering communicating networks. Previous work on these problems has focused mostly on a fully-connected population. We are extending this study to structured populations, which are generally more realistic and offer rich opportunities for linguistic diversification. Our work focuses on the convergence properties of a spatially structured population of learners acquiring a language from one another. We investigate several metrics, including mean language coherence and the critical learning fidelity threshold.} } @article{lenaerts05orthogonalApproach, author={Tom Lenaerts and Bart Jansen and Karl Tuyls and Bart de Vylder}, title={The evolutionary language game: An orthogonal approach}, journal={Journal of Theoretical Biology}, year={2005}, month={August}, volume={235}, number={4}, pages={566-582}, doi={10.1016/j.jtbi.2005.02.009}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lenaerts05orthogonalApproach.html}, keywords={Language acquisition; Cultural evolution; Horizontal transmission; Evolutionary dynamics}, abstract={Evolutionary game dynamics have been proposed as a mathematical framework for the cultural evolution of language and more specifically the evolution of vocabulary. This article discusses a model that is mutually exclusive in its underlying principals with some previously suggested models. The model describes how individuals in a population culturally acquire a vocabulary by actively participating in the acquisition process instead of passively observing and communicate through peer-to-peer interactions instead of vertical parent-offspring relations. Concretely, a notion of social/cultural learning called the naming game is first abstracted using learning theory. This abstraction defines the required cultural transmission mechanism for an evolutionary process. Second, the derived transmission system is expressed in terms of the well-known selection-mutation model defined in the context of evolutionary dynamics. In this way, the analogy between social learning and evolution at the level of meaning-word associations is made explicit. Although only horizontal and oblique transmission structures will be considered, extensions to vertical structures over different genetic generations can easily be incorporated. We provide a number of simplified experiments to clarify our reasoning.} } @article{levin95biosystems, author={M. Levin}, title={The evolution of understanding: a genetic algorithm model of the evolution of communication}, journal={Biosystems}, year={1995}, volume={36}, number={3}, pages={167-78}, doi={10.1016/0303-2647(95)01557-2}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/levin95biosystems.html}, keywords={Evolution of communication; Genetic algorithm; Self-organization}, abstract={Much animal communication takes place via symbolic codes, where each symbol's meaning is fixed by convention only and not by intrinsic meaning. It is unclear how understanding can arise among individuals utilizing such arbitrary codes, and specifically, whether evolution unaided by individual learning is sufficient to produce such understanding. Using a genetic algorithm implemented on a computer, I demonstrate that a significant though imperfect level of understanding can be achieved by organisms through evolution alone. The population as a whole settles on one particular scheme of coding/decoding information (there are no separate dialects). Several features of such evolving systems are explored and it is shown that the system as a whole is stable against perturbation along many different kinds of ecological parameters.} } @inproceedings{levy06SOM_EELC, author={Simon D. Levy and Simon Kirby}, title={Evolving Distributed Representations for Language with Self-Organizing Maps}, year={2006}, pages={57-71}, editor={P. Vogt and et al.}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Symbol Grounding and Beyond: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, doi={10.1007/11880172_5}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/levy06SOM_EELC.html}, abstract={We present a neural-competitive learning model of language evolution in which several symbol sequences compete to signify a given propositional meaning. Both symbol sequences and propositional meanings are represented by high-dimensional vectors of real numbers. A neural network learns to map between the distributed representations of the symbol sequences and the distributed representations of the propositions. Unlike previous neural network models of language evolution, our model uses a Kohonen Self-Organizing Map with unsupervised learning, thereby avoiding the computational slowdown and biological implausibility of back-propagation networks and the lack of scalability associated with Hebbian-learning networks. After several evolutionary generations, the network develops systematically regular mappings between meanings and sequences, of the sort traditionally associated with symbolic grammars. Because of the potential of neural-like representations for addressing the symbol-grounding problem, this sort of model holds a good deal of promise as a new explanatory mechanism for both language evolution and acquisition.} } @mastersthesis{lewin02ms, author={Michael Lewin}, title={Concept Formation and Language Sharing: Combining Steels' Language Games with Simple Competitive Learning}, year={2002}, school={University of Sussex}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lewin02ms.html}, abstract={Following on from the work of Luc Steels, this paper presents a model of Concept Formation and the subsequent use of Language Games to share those concepts in a society of artificial agents.

The system is naturally driven towards stability due to two important mechanisms. In the Concept Formation stage, Simple Competitive Learning results in the formation of normative categories due to the identification of naturally occurring clusters of input data. In the Language Sharing stage, the preference for words that are frequently used creates a positive feedback loop towards linguistic coherence.

The model can be seen as an extension to Steels' work because it makes an important generalisation. In Steels' model, all inputs are one-dimensional and categories are formed and refined by repeatedly bisecting the space. In this model the Input Space can have any dimension and is partitioned into categories of different shapes which are not fixed.

The nature of the Input Space is deliberately very general - any number of dimensions and distribution of data can be specified. Consequently the model can be applied to any categorisation situation and is relevant to both scientific research and commercial applications.

This paper begins by imitating the model used by Steels and then goes on to show the importance of a ``forgetting mechanism'' in order to improve communicative success. Higher dimensional spaces are then considered and the effect of various parameters on communicative success is examined. In particular, the importance of choosing the number of objects in the Language Game correctly is explained. Finally, agents' adaptability to a foreign environment is investigated by mixing two distinct populations.} } @inproceedings{lewin03ecal, author={Michael Lewin and Emmet Spier}, title={Language Games with Mixed Populations}, year={2003}, pages={462-471}, booktitle={ECAL03}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lewin03ecal.html}, abstract={This paper presents an adaptation of Luc Steels's model of Category Formation and Language Sharing. The simple competitive learning algorithm is proposed as a more general means of creating categories from real-world perception. The model is shown to achieve high levels of coherence and to be very robust when two distinct populations are mixed together, with both populations learning each other's words.} } @incollection{lewontin98theEvolution, author={Richard C. Lewontin}, title={The evolution of cognition: Questions we will never answer}, year={1998}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={D. Scarborough and S. Sternberg}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={An invitation to cognitive science, Volume 4: Methods, models, and conceptual issues}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lewontin98theEvolution.html} } @article{li04earlyLexicalDevelopment, author={Ping Li and Igor Farkas and Brian MacWhinney}, title={Early lexical development in a self-organizing neural network}, journal={Neural Networks}, year={2004}, volume={17}, number={8-9}, pages={1345-1362}, doi={10.1016/j.neunet.2004.07.004}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/li04earlyLexicalDevelopment.html}, keywords={Language acquisition,Lexical development,Self-organizing neural network}, abstract={In this paper we present a self-organizing neural network model of early lexical development called DevLex. The network consists of two self-organizing maps (a growing semantic map and a growing phonological map) that are connected via associative links trained by Hebbian learning. The model captures a number of important phenomena that occur in early lexical acquisition by children, as it allows for the representation of a dynamically changing linguistic environment in language learning. In our simulations, DevLex develops topographically organized representations for linguistic categories over time, models lexical confusion as a function of word density and semantic similarity, and shows age-of-acquisition effects in the course of learning a growing lexicon. These results match up with patterns from empirical research on lexical development, and have significant implications for models of language acquisition based on self-organizing neural networks.} } @article{lieberman07verbFrequencyNATURE, author={Erez Lieberman and Jean-Baptiste Michel and Joe Jackson and Tina Tang and Martin A. Nowak}, title={Quantifying the evolutionary dynamics of language}, journal={Nature}, year={2007}, month={Oct}, volume={449}, number={7163}, pages={713--716}, doi={10.1038/nature06137}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman07verbFrequencyNATURE.html}, abstract={Human language is based on grammatical rules. Cultural evolution allows these rules to change over time. Rules compete with each other: as new rules rise to prominence, old ones die away. To quantify the dynamics of language evolution, we studied the regularization of English verbs over the past 1,200 years. Although an elaborate system of productive conjugations existed in English's proto-Germanic ancestor, Modern English uses the dental suffix, '-ed', to signify past tense. Here we describe the emergence of this linguistic rule amidst the evolutionary decay of its exceptions, known to us as irregular verbs. We have generated a data set of verbs whose conjugations have been evolving for more than a millennium, tracking inflectional changes to 177 Old-English irregular verbs. Of these irregular verbs, 145 remained irregular in Middle English and 98 are still irregular today. We study how the rate of regularization depends on the frequency of word usage. The half-life of an irregular verb scales as the square root of its usage frequency: a verb that is 100 times less frequent regularizes 10 times as fast. Our study provides a quantitative analysis of the regularization process by which ancestral forms gradually yield to an emerging linguistic rule.} } @article{lieberman07evolutionOfSpeech, author={P. Lieberman}, title={The Evolution of Human Speech: Its Anatomical and Neural Bases}, journal={Current Anthropology}, year={2007}, month={February}, volume={48}, number={1}, pages={39-66}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman07evolutionOfSpeech.html}, abstract={Human speech involves species-specific anatomy deriving from the descent of the tongue into the pharynx. The human tongue's shape and position yields the 1:1 oral-to-pharyngeal proportions of the supralaryngeal vocal tract. Speech also requires a brain that can ``reiterate''--freely reorder a finite set of motor gestures to form a potentially infinite number of words and sentences. The end points of the evolutionary process are clear. The chimpanzee lacks a supralaryngeal vocal tract capable of producing the ``quantal'' sounds which facilitate both speech production and perception and a brain that can reiterate the phonetic contrasts apparent in its fixed vocalizations. The traditional Broca-Wernicke brain-language theory is incorrect; neural circuits linking regions of the cortex with the basal ganglia and other subcortical structures regulate motor control, including speech production, as well as cognitive processes including syntax. The dating of the FOXP2 gene, which governs the embryonic development of these subcortical structures, provides an insight on the evolution of speech and language. The starting points for human speech and language were perhaps walking and running. However, fully human speech anatomy first appears in the fossil record in the Upper Paleolithic (about 50,000 years ago) and is absent in both Neanderthals and earlier humans.} } @article{lieberman07NeanderthalSpeech, author={P. Lieberman}, title={Current views on Neanderthal speech capabilities: A reply to Boe et al. (2002)}, journal={Journal of Phonetics}, year={2007}, month={October}, volume={35}, number={4}, pages={552-563}, doi={10.1016/j.wocn.2005.07.002}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman07NeanderthalSpeech.html} } @book{lieberman06evolutionaryBiologyOfLanguageBOOK, author={P. Lieberman}, title={Toward an evolutionary biology of language}, year={2006}, publisher={Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman06evolutionaryBiologyOfLanguageBOOK.html} } @article{lieberman06limitsOnTongueDeformation, author={Philip Lieberman}, title={Limits on tongue deformation--Diana monkey formants and the impossible vocal tract shapes proposed by Riede et al. (2005)}, journal={Journal of Human Evolution}, year={2006}, volume={50}, number={2}, pages={219-221}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman06limitsOnTongueDeformation.html} } @article{lieberman05piedPiper, author={Philip Lieberman}, title={The pied piper of Cambridge}, journal={The Linguistic Review}, year={2005}, month={December}, volume={22}, number={2-4}, pages={289-301}, doi={10.1515/tlir.2005.22.2-4.289}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman05piedPiper.html}, abstract={The major ''contribution'' of generative grammar to cognitive science is negative. The hermetic disjuncture of linguistic research from biological principles and facts has influenced cognitive science. Linguists have followed the pied piper taking a different path from that pointed out by Charles Darwin. As Dobzhansky (1973) noted, ''Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.'' The hermetic nature of much linguistic research is apparent even in phonology which must reflect biological facts concerning speech production. For example, studies dating back to 1928 show that tongue ''features'' do not specify vowel distinctions. However, the irrefutable findings of these cineradiographic and MRI studies are generally ignored by linguists. Chomsky's central premise, that syntactic ability derives from an innate ''Universal Grammar'' common to all human beings constitutes a strong biological claim. But if a UG genetically similar for all ''normal'' individuals existed, one of the central premises of Darwinian evolutionary biology, genetic variation would be false. Concepts and processes borrowed from linguistics such as ''modularity'' have impeded our understanding of brain-behavior relations. Some aspects of behavior are regulated in specific localized ''modules'' in the brain, but current research demonstrates that the neural architecture regulating human language is also implicated in motor control, cognition, and other aspects of behavior. The neural bases of enhanced human language are not separable from cognition and motor ability. The supposed unique aspect of syntax, its ''reiterative'' productivity, appears to derive from subcortical structures that play a part in neural circuits regulating motor control. Natural selection aimed at enhancing adaptive motor control ultimately yielded a basal ganglia ''sequencing engine'' that can produce a potentially infinite number of novel actions, thoughts , or ''sentences'' from a finite number of basic elements. Recent studies suggest that the human FOXP2 gene, which differs from similar regulatory genes in chimpanzees and other mammals, acts on the basal ganglia and other subcortical structures to confer enhanced human reiterative ability in domains as different as syntax and dancing. The probable date of the critical mutations on FOXP2 is coincident with the appearance of anatomically modern human beings about 150,000 to 200,000 years ago. Humans thus can create more complex sentences than chimpanzees, but has anyone ever seen an ape dancing?} } @incollection{lieberman_encyclopediaPhysical, author={P. Lieberman}, title={Linguistic Evolution: Physical Preadaptations}, year={2004}, editor={Philipp Strazny}, publisher={New York: Fitzroy Dearborn}, booktitle={Encyclopedia of Linguistics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman_encyclopediaPhysical.html} } @incollection{lieberman_encyclopediaOverview, author={P. Lieberman}, title={Linguistic Evolution: Overview}, year={2004}, editor={Philipp Strazny}, publisher={New York: Fitzroy Dearborn}, booktitle={Encyclopedia of Linguistics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman_encyclopediaOverview.html} } @incollection{lieberman01innateness, author={P. Lieberman}, title={Language evolution and Innateness}, year={2003}, pages={3-22}, editor={M. T. Banich and M Mack}, publisher={Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Mind, Brain and Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman01innateness.html} } @incollection{lieberman03motorControl, author={Philip Lieberman}, title={Motor control, speech, and the evolution of human language}, year={2003}, editor={M.H. Christiansen and S. Kirby}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Evolution: The States of the Art}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman03motorControl.html} } @incollection{lieberman02speech, author={P. Lieberman}, title={The evolution of speech in relation to language and thought}, year={2002}, editor={Harcourt, C. S. and Sherwood, B. R.}, publisher={Otley, UK:Westbury}, booktitle={New Perspectives in Primate Evolution and Behaviour}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman02speech.html} } @incollection{lieberman02encyclopediaEvolution, author={P. Lieberman}, title={Evolution of Language}, year={2002}, pages={605-607}, editor={M. Pagel}, publisher={Oxford: Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Encyclopedia of Evolution}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman02encyclopediaEvolution.html} } @article{lieberman02yearbook, author={Philip Lieberman}, title={On the nature and evolution of the neural bases of human language}, journal={American Journal of Physical Anthropology}, year={2002}, month={December}, volume={119}, number={S35}, pages={36-62}, doi={10.1002/ajpa.10171}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman02yearbook.html}, keywords={brain; neurophysiology; neural circuits; evolution; language}, abstract={The traditional theory equating the brain bases of language with Broca's and Wernicke's neocortical areas is wrong. Neural circuits linking activity in anatomically segregated populations of neurons in subcortical structures and the neocortex throughout the human brain regulate complex behaviors such as walking, talking, and comprehending the meaning of sentences. When we hear or read a word, neural structures involved in the perception or real-world associations of the word are activated as well as posterior cortical regions adjacent to Wernicke's area. Many areas of the neocortex and subcortical structures support the cortical-striatal-cortical circuits that confer complex syntactic ability, speech production, and a large vocabulary. However, many of these structures also form part of the neural circuits regulating other aspects of behavior. For example, the basal ganglia, which regulate motor control, are also crucial elements in the circuits that confer human linguistic ability and abstract reasoning. The cerebellum, traditionally associated with motor control, is active in motor learning. The basal ganglia are also key elements in reward-based learning. Data from studies of Broca's aphasia, Parkinson's disease, hypoxia, focal brain damage, and a genetically transmitted brain anomaly (the putative ``language gene,'' family KE), and from comparative studies of the brains and behavior of other species, demonstrate that the basal ganglia sequence the discrete elements that constitute a complete motor act, syntactic process, or thought process. Imaging studies of intact human subjects and electrophysiologic and tracer studies of the brains and behavior of other species confirm these findings. As Dobzansky put it, ``Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution'' (cited in Mayr, 1982). That applies with as much force to the human brain and the neural bases of language as it does to the human foot or jaw. The converse follows: the mark of evolution on the brains of human beings and other species provides insight into the evolution of the brain bases of human language. The neural substrate that regulated motor control in the common ancestor of apes and humans most likely was modified to enhance cognitive and linguistic ability. Speech communication played a central role in this process. However, the process that ultimately resulted in the human brain may have started when our earliest hominid ancestors began to walk.} } @incollection{lieberman01neuralBases, author={P. Lieberman}, title={On the neural bases of spoken language}, year={2001}, pages={172-186}, editor={A. Nowell}, publisher={Ann Arbor: International Monographs in Prehistory}, booktitle={In the Mind's Eye: Multidisciplinary perspectives on the evolution of the human mind}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman01neuralBases.html} } @incollection{lieberman01newessays, author={P. Lieberman}, title={On the subcortical bases of the evolution of language}, year={2001}, pages={21-40}, editor={Jurgan Trabant and Sean Ward}, publisher={Berlin-New York:Mouton de Gruyter}, booktitle={New Essays on the Origins of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman01newessays.html} } @article{lieberman01summary, author={P. Lieberman}, title={Summary of ``Human language and our reptilian brain: The subcortical bases of speech, syntax, and thought''}, journal={Perspectives in Biology and Medicine}, year={2001}, volume={44}, number={1}, pages={32-51}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman01summary.html} } @book{lieberman00book, author={P. Lieberman}, title={Human language and our reptilian brain: The subcortical bases of speech, syntax, and thought}, year={2000}, address={Cambridge, MA}, publisher={Harvard University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman00book.html} } @book{lieberman98eveSpoke, author={Philip Lieberman}, title={Eve Spoke: Human Language and Human Evolution}, year={1998}, month={August}, publisher={University of California Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman98eveSpoke.html} } @incollection{lieberman97encyclopedia, author={P. Lieberman}, title={Language evolution}, year={1997}, pages={243-247}, editor={Dulbecco, R.}, publisher={Academic Press:San Diego}, booktitle={Encyclopedia of Human Biology, 2nd Edition}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman97encyclopedia.html} } @incollection{lieberman92onThe, author={Philip Lieberman}, title={On the Evolution of Human Language}, year={1992}, editor={Hawkins, John A. and Murray Gell-Mann}, series={SFI Studies in the Sciences of Complexity}, publisher={Perseus Publishing}, booktitle={The Evolution of Human Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman92onThe.html} } @article{lieberman91preadaptation, author={P. Lieberman}, title={Preadaptation, natural selection and function}, journal={Language and Communication}, year={1991}, volume={11}, number={1-2}, pages={63-65}, doi={10.1016/0271-5309(91)90019-R}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman91preadaptation.html} } @incollection{lieberman91multidisciplinary, author={P. Lieberman}, title={On the evolutionary biology of speech and syntax}, year={1991}, pages={409-429}, address={Dordrecht, The Netherlands}, editor={Jan Wind and Bernard H.Bichakjian and Alberto Nocentini and Brunetto Chiarelli}, publisher={Kluwer}, booktitle={Language Origin: A Multidisciplinary Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman91multidisciplinary.html} } @book{lieberman90uniquelyHuman, author={Philip Lieberman}, title={Uniquely Human: The evolution of speech, thought and selfless behavior}, year={1990}, address={Cambridge, MA}, publisher={Harvard University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman90uniquelyHuman.html} } @book{lieberman84theBiology, author={Philip Lieberman}, title={The Biology and Evolution of Language}, year={1984}, address={Cambridge, MA}, publisher={Harvard University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman84theBiology.html} } @incollection{lieberman76interactiveModels, author={P. Lieberman}, title={Interactive models for evolution: Neural mechanisms, anatomy and behavior}, year={1976}, volume={280}, pages={660-672}, editor={S.E. Harnard and H.D. Steklis and J. Lancaster}, publisher={}, booktitle={Origins and Evolution of Language and Speech}, note={Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman76interactiveModels.html} } @book{lieberman96book, author={P. Lieberman}, title={On the Origins of Language: An Introduction to the Evolution of Human Speech}, year={1975}, address={New York: Macmillan}, publisher={}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman96book.html} } @article{lieberman71NeanderthalMan, author={P. Lieberman and E. S. Crelin}, title={On the speech of Neanderthal man}, journal={Linguistic Inquiry}, year={1971}, volume={2}, pages={203-222}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman71NeanderthalMan.html} } @article{lieberman92pd, author={P. Lieberman and E. T. Kako and J. Friedman and G. Tajchman and L. S. Feldman and E. B. Jimenez}, title={Speech production, syntax comprehension, and cognitive deficits in Parkinson's disease}, journal={Brain and Language}, year={1992}, volume={43}, pages={169-189}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman92pd.html} } @article{lieberman94cognitiveDefects, author={P. Lieberman and A. Protopapas and E. Reed and J. W. Youngs and B. G. Kanki}, title={Cognitive defects at altitude}, journal={Nature}, year={1994}, volume={372}, pages={325}, note={Openning up a new field of enquiry. The detailed version appeared in Aviation, space and environmental medicine.}, doi={10.1038/372325a0}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieberman94cognitiveDefects.html} } @inproceedings{lieven06children, author={Elena Lieven}, title={How Do Children Develop Syntactic Representations from What They Hear?}, year={2006}, pages={72-75}, editor={P. Vogt and et al.}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Symbol Grounding and Beyond: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, doi={10.1007/11880172_6}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lieven06children.html}, abstract={Children learn language from what they hear. In dispute is what mechanisms they bring to this task. Clearly some of these mechanisms have evolved to support the human speech capacity but this leaves a wide field of possibilities open. The question I will address in my paper is whether we need to postulate an innate $\underline{syntactic}$ module that has evolved to make the learning of language structure possible. I will suggest that more general human social and cognitive capacities may be all that is needed to support the learning of syntactic structure.} } @incollection{lightfoot00theSpandrels, author={D. Lightfoot}, title={The spandrels of the linguistic genotype}, year={2000}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Chris Knight and James R. Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lightfoot00theSpandrels.html} } @book{lightfoot99book, author={D. Lightfoot}, title={The development of language: Acquisition, change and evolution}, year={1999}, publisher={Blackwell: Oxford}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lightfoot99book.html} } @book{lightfoot91howTo, author={D. Lightfoot}, title={How to Set Parameters: Arguments from Language Change}, year={1991}, publisher={MIT Press/Bradford Books}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lightfoot91howTo.html} } @incollection{lin05meaningEstimation, author={Chien-Jer Charles Lin and Kathleen Ahrens}, title={How many meanings does a word have? Meaning estimation in Chinese and English}, year={2005}, month={July}, editor={James W. Minett and William S.-Y. Wang}, publisher={City University of Hong Kong Press}, booktitle={Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lin05meaningEstimation.html}, abstract={This chapter explores the psychological basis of lexical ambiguity. We compare three ways of meaning calculation, including meanings listed in dictionaries, meanings provided by human subjects, and meanings analyzed by a linguistic theory. Two experiments were conducted using both Chinese and English data. The results suggest that while the numbers of meanings obtained by different methods are significantly different from one another, they are also significantly correlated. Different ways of meaning calculation produce distinct numbers of meanings, though on a relative scale, words with more meanings tend to have greater numbers of meanings throughout. Dictionary meanings are to be distinguished from meanings obtained from subjects both in content and in numbers. These results are then discussed with regard to their methodological implications for further research on psycho- semantics and semantic change.} } @incollection{lindblom98systemicConstraints, author={B. Lindblom}, title={Systemic constraints and adaptive change in the formation of sound structure}, year={1998}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lindblom98systemicConstraints.html} } @incollection{lindblom84self-organizing, author={B. Lindblom and P. MacNeilage and M. Studdert-Kennedy}, title={Self-organizing processes and the explanation of language universals}, year={1984}, pages={181-203}, editor={Butterworth, B. and Bernard, C. and Dahl, O.}, publisher={}, booktitle={Explanations for Language Universals}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lindblom84selforganizing.html} } @inproceedings{lindh06meaningEELC, author={Tiina Lindh-Knuutila and Timo Honkela and Krista Lagus}, title={Simulating Meaning Negotiation Using Observational Language Games}, year={2006}, pages={168-179}, editor={P. Vogt and et al.}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Symbol Grounding and Beyond: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, doi={10.1007/11880172_13}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lindh06meaningEELC.html}, abstract={In this article, we study the emergence of associations between words and concepts using the self-organizing map. In particular, we explore the meaning negotiations among communicating agents. The self-organizing map is used as a model of an agent’s conceptual memory. The concepts are not explicitly given but they are learned by the agent in an unsupervised manner. Concepts are viewed as areas formed in a self-organizing map based on unsupervised learning. The language acquisition process is modeled in a population of simulated agents by using a series of language games, specifically observational games. The results of the simulation experiments verify that the agents learn to communicate successfully and a shared lexicon emerges. This work was supported by the Academy of Finland through Adaptive Informatics Research Centre that is a part of the Finnish Centre of Excellence Programme.} } @article{lipson07evolutionaryRobotics, author={Hod Lipson}, title={Evolutionary robotics: emergence of communication}, journal={Curr Biol}, year={2007}, month={May}, volume={17}, number={9}, pages={R330--R332}, doi={10.1016/j.cub.2007.03.003}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lipson07evolutionaryRobotics.html}, abstract={The emergence of communication is considered one of the major transitions in evolution. Recent work using robot-based simulation shows that communication arises spontaneously. While deceptive communication arises in a purely competitive setting, cooperative communication arises only subject to group or kin selection.} } @phdthesis{livingstone03phdthesis, author={Daniel Livingstone}, title={Computer Models of the Evolution of Language and Languages}, year={2003}, school={University of Paisley}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/livingstone03phdthesis.html}, abstract={The emergence and evolution of human language has been the focus of increasing amounts of research activity in recent years. This increasing interest has been coincident with the increased use of computer simulation, particularly using one or more of the methods and techniques of ‘Artificial Life’, to investigate a wide range of evolutionary problems and questions. There is now a significant body of work that uses such computer simulations to investigate the evolution of language.

In this thesis a broad review of work on the evolution of language is presented, showing that language evolution occurs as two distinct evolutionary processes. The ability to use language is clearly the result of biological evolution. But the changes that occur over time to all spoken languages can also be viewed as being part of a process of cultural evolution. In this thesis, work using artificial life models to investigate each of these processes is reviewed. A review of the methods and techniques used in artificial life is also presented early in the work.

A novel model is developed which is used to explore the conditions necessary for the evolution of language. Interesting results from initial tests of the model highlight the role of redundancy in language. From these initial tests, the model is further developed to explore the biological evolution of the human capacity for language. One significant outcome of this work is to highlight the limitations of the model for developing, and especially for ‘proving’, particular theories on how or why Homo sapiens alone evolved language. This is tied to a brief review showing that this weakness is not one specific to this particular model, but may be one that is possessed by all artificial life models that try to explain the origins of language.

With further minor modifications to the model, the focus is shifted to the evolution of languages and language diversity. In comparison with some of the earlier conclusions, this work emphasises the positive contribution to ongoing scientific debate that is possible using computer simulations. In this case, experiments using the model focus on whether social and/or linguistic benefits are required in explanations of language change. A review and debate is then presented on work that contradicts our findings. Further corroboration of our conclusions is then gained by conducting a similar experiment using a different computer model.

The key contributions of this interdisciplinary work are: first, in detailing some of the unique problems and issues inherent in using computer models specifically for modelling the evolution of language; second, in emphasising the importance of redundancy in language evolution; and finally, in adding to the current debate on whether the evolution of languages can be viewed as a form of adaptively neutral evolution.} } @incollection{livingstone01theEvolution, author={Daniel Livingstone}, title={The Evolution of Dialect Diversity}, year={2002}, pages={99-118}, address={London}, chapter={5}, editor={Angelo Cangelosi and Domenico Parisi}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Simulating the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/livingstone01theEvolution.html} } @inproceedings{livingstone00computationalModels, author={D. Livingstone}, title={Computational Models of Language Change and Diversity}, year={2000}, address={Brussels}, booktitle={Workshop on the Evolution of Language in Belgium and the Netherlands}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/livingstone00computationalModels.html} } @inproceedings{livingstone99onModelling, author={D. Livingstone}, title={On Modelling the Evolution of Language and Languages}, year={1999}, month={July}, address={Orlando, USA}, booktitle={GECCO-99 Student Workshop}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/livingstone99onModelling.html} } @incollection{livingstone00modellingLanguage, author={D. Livingstone and C. Fyfe}, title={Modelling language-physiology coevolution}, year={2000}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Chris Knight and James R. Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/livingstone00modellingLanguage.html} } @inproceedings{livingstone99modellingThe, author={Daniel Livingstone and Colin Fyfe}, title={Modelling the Evolution of Linguistic Diversity}, year={1999}, pages={704-708}, address={Berlin}, editor={D. Floreano and J. Nicoud and F. Mondada}, publisher={Springer-Verlag}, booktitle={ECAL99}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/livingstone99modellingThe.html} } @book{lock99handbookOf, author={Andrew Lock and Charles R. Peters}, title={Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution}, year={1999}, publisher={Blackwell Publishers}, note={Reprint edition}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lock99handbookOf.html} } @inproceedings{locke06evolang, author={John L. Locke}, title={Interaction of developmental and evolutionary processes in the emergence of spoken language}, year={2006}, pages={184-189}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/locke06evolang.html} } @incollection{locke98socialSound, author={John L. Locke}, title={Social sound-making as a precursor to spoken language}, year={1998}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/locke98socialSound.html} } @article{locke05lifeHistoryBBS, author={John L. Locke and Barry Bogin}, title={Language and life history: A new perspective on the development and evolution of human language}, journal={Behavioral and Brain Sciences}, year={2006}, volume={29}, pages={259-280}, doi={10.1017/S0140525X0600906X}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/locke05lifeHistoryBBS.html}, keywords={adolescence, childhood, development, evolution, infancy, juvenility, language, life history, modularity, speech}, abstract={It has long been claimed that Homo sapiens is the only species that has symbolic language, but only recently recognized that humans also have an unusual pattern of growth and development. Social mammals have two stages of pre-adult development: infancy and juvenility. Humans have two additional prolonged and pronounced life history stages: childhood---an interval of four years extending between infancy and the juvenile period that follows---and adolescence---a stage of about eight years that stretches from juvenility to adulthood. We begin by reviewing the primary biological and linguistic changes occurring in each of the four preadult ontogenetic stages in life history. Then we attempt to trace the evolution of childhood and juvenility in our hominid ancestors. We propose that several different forms of selection applied in infancy and childhood; and that in adolescence, elaborated vocal behaviors played a role in courtship and intrasexual competition, enhancing fitness and ultimately integrating performative and pragmatic skills with linguistic knowledge in a broad faculty of language. A theoretical consequence of our proposal is that fossil evidence of the uniquely human stages may be used, with other findings, to date the emergence of language. If important aspects of language cannot appear until sexual maturity, as we propose, then a second consequence is that the development of language requires the whole of modern human ontogeny. Our life history model thus offers new ways of investigating, and thinking about, the evolution, development, and ultimately the nature of human language.} } @article{longa06BaldwinEffect, author={Victor M. Longa}, title={A misconception about the Baldwin Effect: Implications for language evolution}, journal={Folia Linguistica}, year={2006}, volume={40}, number={3-4}, pages={305-318}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/longa06BaldwinEffect.html}, abstract={Many scholars working in the field of language evolution interpret the Baldwin Effect (i.e. the hypothesis that learned behaviors may become inherited, thus affecting the direction of evolutionary change) as a powerful evolutionary mechanism. Baldwin's proposal, however, is highly controversial, in that the empirical support for it is far from conclusive. The aim of this article is to critically examine one of the main sources of evidence adduced in support of the Baldwin Effect, namely its alleged parity, as repeatedly assumed in Briscoe's (2000, 2002, 2003, 2005) approach to language phylogeny, with Waddington's genetic assimilation. It is argued here, however, that Baldwin's and Waddington's mechanisms are fundamentally different, and that this has important consequences for Briscoe's evolutionary model.} } @article{longa01jls, author={Victor M. Longa}, title={Sciences of complexity and language origins: an alternative to natural selection}, journal={Journal of Literary Semantics}, year={2001}, volume={30}, number={1}, pages={1-17}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/longa01jls.html}, abstract={Natural selection is claimed to be the only way to explain complex design. The same assumption has also been held for language. However, sciences of complex-ity have shown, from a wide range of domains, the existence of a clear alternative: self-organisation, spontaneous patterns of order arising from chaos. According to this view, design derives from internal factors (dynamic interaction of the ele-ments within the system) rather than from adaptation to the environment by means of selection. This paper aims to apply sciences of complexity to language origins; it shows that preexisting and well established ideas can be rethought ac-cording to such a view. The main objective of the paper is to illustrate the new and promising horizons that complexity could open as regards the origins of the most specific property of human beings.} } @article{loreto07socialDynamics, author={Vittorio Loreto and Luc Steels}, title={Social dynamics: Emergence of language}, journal={Nature Physics}, year={2007}, month={November}, volume={3}, pages={758-760}, doi={10.1038/nphys770}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/loreto07socialDynamics.html}, abstract={Our social behaviour has evolved primarily through contact with a limited number of other individuals. Yet as a species we exhibit uniformities on a global scale. This kind of emergent behaviour is familiar territory for statistical physicists.} } @article{lorincz07mindModel, author={A. Lorincz and V. Gyenes and M. Kiszlinger and I. Szita}, title={Mind Model Seems Necessary for the Emergence of Communication}, journal={Neural Information Processing - Letters and Reviews}, year={2007}, volume={11}, number={4-6}, pages={109-121}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lorincz07mindModel.html}, keywords={Emotion, theory of mind, decision making, reinforcement, learning}, abstract={We consider communication when there is no agreement about symbols and meanings. We treat it within the framework of reinforcement learning. This framework enables us to talk about emotional coupling and to consider the emergence of communication. We apply different reinforcement learning models in our studies and simplify the problem as much as possible. We show that the modelling of the other agent is insufficient in the simplest possible case, unless the intentions can also be modelled. The model of the agent and its intentions enable quick agreements about symbol-meaning association. We show that when both agents assume an intention model about the other agent then the symbol-meaning association process can be spoiled and symbol meaning association may become hard.} } @inproceedings{loula05artificialCreatures, author={Angelo Loula and Ricardo Gudwin and Charbel El-Hani and Joao Queiroz}, title={The Emergence of Symbol-Based Communication in a Complex System of Artificial Creatures}, year={2005}, address={Waltham, MA.}, booktitle={Proceedings 5th International Conference Integration of Knowledge Intensive Multi-Agent Systems KIMAS'05: Modeling, Evolution and Engineering}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/loula05artificialCreatures.html}, abstract={We present here a digital scenario to simulate the emergence of self-organized symbol-based communication among artificial creatures inhabiting a virtual world of predatory events. In order to design the environment and creatures, we seek theoretical and empirical constraints from C.S.Peirce Semiotics and an ethological case study of communication among animals. Our results show that the creatures, assuming the role of sign users and learners, behave collectively as a complex system, where self-organization of communicative interactions plays a major role in the emergence of symbol-based communication. We also strive for a careful use of the theoretical concepts involved, including the concepts of symbol, communication, and emergence, and we use a multi-level model as a basis for the interpretation of inter-level relationships in the semiotic processes we are studying.} } @inproceedings{lu06namingGames, author={Qiming Lu and G. Korniss and Boleslaw K. Szymanski}, title={Naming Games in Spatially-Embedded Random Networks}, year={2006}, pages={148--155}, address={Menlo Park, CA}, publisher={AAAI Press}, booktitle={Proc. AAAI Fall Symposium Series, Interaction and Emergent Phenomena in Societies of Agents}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lu06namingGames.html}, abstract={We investigate a prototypical agent-based model, the Naming Game, on random geometric networks. The Naming Game is a minimal model, employing local communications that captures the emergence of shared communication schemes (languages) in a population of autonomous semiotic agents. Implementing the Naming Games on random geometric graphs, local communications being local broadcasts, serves as a model for agreement dynamics in large-scale, autonomously operating wireless sensor networks. Further, it captures essential features of the scaling properties of the agreement process for spatially-embedded autonomous agents. We also present results for the case when a small density of long-range communication links are added on top of the random geometric graph, resulting in a ''small-world''-like network and yielding a significantly reduced time to reach global agreement.} } @inproceedings{lucas94structuringChromosomes, author={Simon Lucas}, title={Structuring Chromosomes for Context-free Grammar Evolution}, year={1994}, booktitle={Proceedings of The IEEE Conference on Evolutionary Computation, IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lucas94structuringChromosomes.html} } @inproceedings{lupyan06evolang, author={Gary Lupyan}, title={Labels facilitate learning of novel categories}, year={2006}, pages={190-197}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lupyan06evolang.html}, abstract={A major feature that sets language apart from other communication systems is the use of categorylabels -- words. In addition to providing a means of communication, there is growing evidence that category labels play a role in the formation and shaping of concepts. If verbal labels help humans acquire or use category information, one can ask whether it is easier to learn labeled categories compared to unlabeled ones. Normal English-speaking adults participated in a category-learning task in which categories were labeled or unlabeled. The presence of labels facilitated the learning of unfamiliar categories and resulted in more robust category representations. The advantage for acquiring named categories was observed even though the category labels did not convey any additional information and all participants had equivalent experience categorizing the stimuli. This work provides empirical support for the idea of labels as conceptual anchor points (Clark, 1997).} } @unpublished{lupyan02modeling, author={Gary Lupyan}, title={Modeling Syntactic Devices: An Exploration of Language Evolution from Connectionist and Memetic Perspectives}, year={2002}, school={College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University}, note={A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a baccalaureate degree in Cognitive Science with honors.}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lupyan02modeling.html}, keywords={connectionist, memetic, language evolution, syntax} } @inproceedings{Lyon05EntropyIndicators, author={Caroline Lyon and Chrystopher Nehaniv and Bob Dickerson}, title={Entropy Indicators for Investigating Early Language Processes}, year={2005}, month={April}, booktitle={AISB'05}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Lyon05EntropyIndicators.html}, abstract={We examine evidence for the hypothesis that language could have passed through a stage when words were combined in structured linear segments and these linear segments could later have become the building blocks for a full hierarchical grammar. Experiments were carried out on the British National Corpus, consisting of about 100 million words of text from different domains and transcribed speech. This work extends and supports the results of our previous work based on a smaller corpus reported previously. Measuring the entropy of the texts we find that entropy declines as words are taken in groups of 2, 3 and 4, indicating that it is easier to decode words taken in short sequences rather than individually. Entropy further declines when punctuation is represented, showing that appropriate segmentation captures some of the language structure. Further support for the hypothesis that local sequential processing underlies the production and perception of speech comes from neurobiological evidence. The observation that homophones are apparently ubiquitous and used without confusion also suggests that language processing may be largely based on local context.} } @book{lyon_editedBook_emergence_communication, title={Emergence of Communication and Language}, year={2007}, editor={Lyon, C. and Nehaniv, C.L. and Cangelosi, A.}, publisher={Springer}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lyon_editedBook_emergence_communication.html} } @inproceedings{lyon04EELC, author={C. Lyon and C. L. Nehaniv and S. Warren and J. Baillie}, title={Evolutionary Fitness, Homophony and Disambiguation through Sequential Processes}, year={2004}, pages={27-32}, booktitle={First International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/lyon04EELC.html} } @incollection{macdonald99distributionalInformation, author={Maryellen C. MacDonald}, title={Distributional Information in Language Comprehension, Production, and Acquisition: Three Puzzles and a Moral}, year={1999}, address={Hillsdale, NJ}, editor={B. MacWhinney}, publisher={Lawrence Earlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Emergence of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/macdonald99distributionalInformation.html} } @techreport{maclennan99theEmergence, author={B. MacLennan}, title={The Emergence of Communication through Synthetic Evolution}, year={1999}, month={October 20}, institution={}, note={To appear in Advances in Evolutionary Synthesis of Neural Systems, edited by Vasant Honavar, Mukesh Patel, and Karthik Balakrishnan - MIT Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/maclennan99theEmergence.html} } @inproceedings{maclennan92syntheticEthology, author={B. MacLennan}, title={Synthetic Ethology: An approach to the study of communication}, year={1992}, pages={631-658}, address={Redwood City, CA}, editor={C. Langton and C. Taylor and D. Farmer and S. Rasmussen}, publisher={Addison-Wesley}, booktitle={Artificial Life II}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/maclennan92syntheticEthology.html}, abstract={A complete understanding of communication, language, intention­ ality and related mental phenomena will require a theory integrating mechanistic explanations with ethological phenomena. For the foresee­ able future, the complexities of natural life in its natural environment will preclude such an understanding. An approach more conducive to carefully controlled experiments and to the discovery of deep laws of great generality is to study synthetic life forms in a synthetic world to which they have become coupled through evolution. This is the approach of synthetic ethology. Some simple synthetic ethology ex­ periments are described in which we have observed the evolution of communication in a population of simple machines. We show that even in these simple worlds we find some of the richness and complexity found in natural communication.} } @techreport{maclennan90evolutionOf, author={Bruce MacLennan}, title={Evolution of Communication in a Population of Simple Machines}, year={1990}, month={January}, institution={University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Department of Computer Science}, note={For appendices - including simulation program - see author's publication page}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/maclennan90evolutionOf.html} } @article{maclennan93syntheticEthology, author={Bruce MacLennan and Gordon M. Burghardt}, title={Synthetic Ethology and the Evolution of Cooperative Communication}, journal={Adaptive Behavior}, year={1993}, month={Fall}, volume={2}, number={2}, pages={161-187}, note={for 8 figures, see author's publication page.}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/maclennan93syntheticEthology.html}, keywords={artificial life, communication, cooperation, entropy, ethology, evolution, genetic algorithm, intentionality, language, learning, synthetic ethology}, abstract={Synthetic ethology is proposed as a means of conducting controlled experiments investigating the mechanisms and evolution of communication. After a discussion of the goals and methods of synthetic ethology, two series of experiments are described based on at least 5000 breeding cycles. The first demonstrates the evolution of cooperative communication in a population of simple machines. The average fitness of the population and the organization of its use of signals are compared under three conditions: communication suppressed, communication permitted, and communication permitted in the presence of learning. Where communication is permitted the fitness increases about 26 times faster than when communication is suppressed; with communication and learning the rate of fitness increase is about 100 fold. The second series of experiments illustrates the evolution of a syntactically simple language, in which a pair of signals is required for effective communication.} } @incollection{macneilage98evolutionOf, author={P. F. MacNeilage}, title={Evolution of the mechanisms of language output: Comparative neurobiology of vocal and manual communication}, year={1998}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/macneilage98evolutionOf.html} } @article{macneilage98theFrame, author={P. F. MacNeilage}, title={The frame/content theory of evolution of speech production}, journal={Behavioral and Brain Sciences}, year={1998}, volume={21}, pages={499-511}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/macneilage98theFrame.html}, keywords={speech, language, evolution, communication, neuropsychology}, abstract={The species-specific organizational property of speech is a continual mouth open-close alternation, the two phases of which are subject to continual articulatory modulation. The cycle constitutes the syllable and the open and closed phases are segments - vowels and consonants respectively. The fact that segmental serial ordering errors in normal adults obey syllable structure constraints suggests that syllabic ``Frames'' and segmental ``Content'' elements are separately controlled in the speech production process. The frames may derive from cycles of mandibular oscillation, present in humans from babbling onset, which are responsible for the open-close alternation. These communication-related frames perhaps first evolved when the ingestion-related cyclicities of mandibular oscillation (associated with mastication (chewing) sucking and licking) took on communicative significance as lipsmacks, tonguesmacks and teeth chatters - displays which are prominent in many nonhuman primates. The new role of Broca's area and its surround in human vocal communication may have derived from its evolutionary history as the main cortical center for the control of ingestive processes. The frame and content components of speech may have subsequently evolved separate realizations within two general-purpose primate motor control systems: (1) A motivation-related medial ``intrinsic'' system, including anterior cingulate cortex and the supplementary motor area, for self-generated behavior, formerly responsible for ancestral vocalization control and now also responsible for frames, and (2) a lateral ``extrinsic'' system, including Broca's area and surround, and Wernicke's area, specialized for response to external input (and therefore the emergent vocal learning capacity) and more responsible for Content.} } @article{macneilage00onThe, author={Peter F. MacNeilage and Barbara L. Davis}, title={On the origin of internal structure of word forms}, journal={Science}, year={2000}, volume={288}, pages={527-531}, doi={10.1126/science.288.5465.527}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/macneilage00onThe.html}, abstract={This study shows that a corpus of proto-word forms shares four sequential sound patterns with words of modern languages and the first words of infants. Three of the patterns involve intrasyllabic consonant-vowel (CV) co-occurrence: labial (lip) consonants with central vowels, coronal (tongue front) consonants with front vowels, and dorsal (tongue back) consonants with back vowels. The fourth pattern is an intersyllabic preference for initiating words with a labial consonant-vowel-coronal consonant sequence (LC). The CV effects may be primarily biomechanically motivated. The LC effect may be self-organizational, with multivariate causality. The findings support the hypothesis that these four patterns were basic to the origin of words.} } @incollection{macneilage00evolutionOf, author={P. F. MacNeilage and B. L. Davis}, title={Evolution of speech: The relation between ontogeny and phylogeny}, year={2000}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Chris Knight and James R. Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/macneilage00evolutionOf.html} } @article{macneilage01evolutionOf, author={P. F. MacNeilage and B. L. Davis}, title={Evolution of the form of spoken words}, journal={Evolution of Communication}, year={1999}, volume={3}, number={1}, pages={3-20}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/macneilage01evolutionOf.html}, abstract={The basic internal structure of a word consists of an alternation between consonants and vowels. Words tend to begin with a consonant and end with a vowel. The fundamental evolutionary status of the consonant-vowel alternation is indicated by its presence in rhythmically organized pre-linguistic vocalizations of 7 month-old babbling infants. We have argued that the basic alternation results from a mandibular cyclicity (“The Frame”) originally evolving for ingestive purposes. Here, we consider beginnings and endings of words. We conclude that preferences for consonantal beginnings and vocalic endings may be basic biomechanical consequences of the act of producing vocal episodes between resting states of the production system. Both the characteristic beginning-end asymmetry and some details of the choice of individual sounds in the non-preferred modes (vocalic beginnings and consonantal endings) are mirrored in babbling and early words. The presence of many of these properties in modern words, even though they are delivered in running speech, as well as in a proto-language corpus, indicates retention, for message purposes, of properties originally associated with the single word stage of language evolution.} } @incollection{macwhinney_perspectiveGrammar, author={Brian MacWhinney}, title={The emergence of grammar from perspective taking}, year={2005}, editor={Pecher, D and Zwaan, R.}, publisher={}, booktitle={The grounding of cognition}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/macwhinney_perspectiveGrammar.html} } @incollection{macwhinney_languageEvolution, author={Brian MacWhinney}, title={Language evolution and human development}, year={2005}, pages={383-410}, editor={Bjorklund, D. and Pellegrini, A.}, publisher={New York: Guilford Press}, booktitle={Origins of the Social Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and Child Development}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/macwhinney_languageEvolution.html} } @article{Macwhinney05linguisticFormInTime, author={Brian Macwhinney}, title={The emergence of linguistic form in time}, journal={Connection Science}, year={2005}, month={December}, volume={17}, number={3-4}, pages={191-211}, doi={10.1080/09540090500177687}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Macwhinney05linguisticFormInTime.html}, keywords={Emergence, Word learning, Syntax, Phylogeny, Ontogeny, Resonance}, abstract={Linguistic forms are shaped by forces operating on vastly different time scales. Some of these forces operate directly at the moment of speaking, whereas others accumulate over time in personal and social memory. Our challenge is to understand how forces with very different time scales mesh together in the current moment to determine the emergence of linguistic form.} } @incollection{macwhinney02languageEmergence, author={Brian MacWhinney}, title={Language Emergence}, year={2002}, pages={17-42}, editor={Burmeister, P. and Piske, T. and Rohde, A.}, publisher={Trier: Wissenshaftliche Verlag}, booktitle={An integrated view of language development - Papers in honor of Henning Wode}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/macwhinney02languageEmergence.html}, abstract={This chapter explains how emergence operates across five time frames. This is illustrated with examples from neural networks, lexical development, and evolution.} } @incollection{macwhinney99theEmergence, author={Brian MacWhinney}, title={The Emergence of Language From Embodiment}, year={1999}, address={Hillsdale, NJ}, editor={B. MacWhinney}, publisher={Lawrence Earlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Emergence of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/macwhinney99theEmergence.html} } @book{macwhinney-1999-editedbook, title={Emergence of Language}, year={1999}, editor={Brian MacWhinney}, publisher={Lawrence Earlbaum Associates}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/macwhinney1999editedbook.html} } @article{macwhinney98annualReview, author={Brian MacWhinney}, title={Models of the Emergence of Language}, journal={Annual Review of Psychology}, year={1998}, volume={49}, pages={199-227}, doi={10.1146/annurev.psych.49.1.199}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/macwhinney98annualReview.html}, keywords={development, syntax, connectionism, nativism, lexicon, children, meaning, phonology, neural networks}, abstract={Recent work in language acquisition has shown how linguistic form emerges from the operation of self-organizing systems. The emergentist framework emphasizes ways in which the formal structures of language emerge from the interaction of social patterns, patterns implicit in the input, and pressures arising from general aspects of the cognitive system. Emergentist models have been developed to study the acquisition of auditory and articulatory patterns during infancy and the ways in which the learning of the first words emerges from the linkage of auditory, articulatory, and conceptual systems. Neural network models have also been used to study the learning of inflectional markings and basic syntactic patterns. Using both neural network modeling and concepts from the study of dynamic systems, it is possible to analyze language learning as the integration of emergent dynamic systems.} } @article{mace05phylogeneticCultural, author={Ruth Mace and Clare J. Holden}, title={A phylogenetic approach to cultural evolution}, journal={Trends in Ecology and Evolution}, year={2005}, month={March}, volume={20}, number={3}, pages={116-121}, doi={10.1016/j.tree.2004.12.002}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mace05phylogeneticCultural.html}, abstract={There has been a rapid increase in the use of phylogenetic methods to study the evolution of languages and culture. Languages fit a tree model of evolution well, at least in their basic vocabulary, challenging the view that blending, or admixture among neighbouring groups, was predominant in cultural history. Here, we argue that we can use language trees to test hypotheses about not only cultural history and diversification, but also bio-cultural adaptation. Phylogenetic comparative methods take account of the non-independence of cultures (Galton's problem), which can cause spurious statistical associations in comparative analyses. Advances in phylogenetic methods offer new possibilities for the analysis of cultural evolution, including estimating the rate of evolution and the direction of coevolutionary change of traits on the tree. They also enable phylogenetic uncertainty to be incorporated into the analyses, so that one does not have to treat phylogenetic trees as if they were known without error.} } @inproceedings{macura06lexiconConvergenceEELC, author={Zoran Macura and Jonathan Ginzburg}, title={Lexicon Convergence in a Population With and Without Metacommunication}, year={2006}, pages={100-112}, editor={P. Vogt and et al.}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Symbol Grounding and Beyond: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, doi={10.1007/11880172_9}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/macura06lexiconConvergenceEELC.html}, abstract={How does a shared lexicon arise in population of agents with differing lexicons, and how can this shared lexicon be maintained over multiple generations? In order to get some insight into these questions we present an ALife model in which the lexicon dynamics of populations that possess and lack metacommunicative interaction (MCI) capabilities are compared. We suggest that MCI serves as a key component in the maintenance of a linguistic interaction system. We ran a series of experiments on mono-generational and multi-generational populations whose initial state involved agents possessing distinct lexicons. These experiments reveal some clear differences in the lexicon dynamics of populations that acquire words solely by introspection contrasted with populations that learn using MCI or using a mixed strategy of introspection and MCI. Over a single generation the performance between the populations with and without MCI is comparable, in that the lexicon converges and is shared by the whole population. In multi-generational populations lexicon diverges at a faster rate for an introspective population, eventually consisting of one word being associated with every meaning, compared with MCI capable populations in which the lexicon is maintained, where every meaning is associated with a unique word.} } @incollection{maestripieri99primates, author={Dario Maestripieri}, title={Primate Social Organization, Gestural Repertoire Size, and Communication Dynamics: A Comparative Study of Macaques}, year={1999}, chapter={3}, editor={Barbara J. King}, publisher={School of American Research Press}, booktitle={The Origins of Language: What Nonhuman Primates Can Tell Us}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/maestripieri99primates.html} } @incollection{magnusson04inbook, author={Magnus S. Magnusson}, title={Repeated Patterns in Behavior and Other Biological Phenomena}, year={2004}, pages={111-128}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/magnusson04inbook.html} } @inproceedings{marco06languageEmergence, author={Mirolli Marco and Parisi Domenico}, title={The emergence of language: how to simulate it}, year={2006}, editor={C. Lyon and C. Nehaniv and A. Cangelosi}, publisher={Berlin: Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/marco06languageEmergence.html}, abstract={The emergence of language in populations of primates that initially lacked language can be simulated with artificial organisms controlled by neural networks and living, evolving, and learning in artificial environment. Some simulations have already been done but most are a task for the future. We dis-cuss language evolution under two topics: language is learned from others on the basis of genetically inherited predispositions, and language has important influences on human cognition. We propose an evolutionary sequence accord-ing to which bipedalism and the emergence of the hands represent a selective pressure for developing an ability to predict the consequences of one's actions, this ability is the basis for learning by imitating other individuals, learning by imitating other individuals is applied to learning to imitate their communicative behaviour. The second topic include the consequences of language for various aspects of human cognition, especially when language is used to talk to oneself.} } @article{marcus06starlings, author={Gary F. Marcus}, title={Startling starlings}, journal={Nature}, year={2006}, month={April}, volume={440}, pages={1117-1118}, doi={10.1038/4401117a}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/marcus06starlings.html}, abstract={Recursion, once thought to be the unique province of human language, now seems to be within the ken of a common songbird — perhaps providing insight into the origins of language.} } @article{marocco03pt, author={Davide Marocco and Angelo Cangelosi and Stefano Nolfi}, title={The emergence of communication in evolutionary robots}, journal={Philosophical Transactions: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences}, year={2003}, volume={361}, number={1811}, pages={2397--2421}, doi={10.1098/rsta.2003.1252}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/marocco03pt.html}, abstract={Evolutionary robotics is a biologically inspired approach to robotics that is advantageous to studying the evolution of communication. A new model for the emergence of communication is developed and tested through various simulation experiments. In the first simulation, the emergence of simple signalling behaviour is studied. This is used to investigate the inter-relationships between communication abilities, namely linguistic production and comprehension, and other behavioural skills. The model supports the hypothesis that the ability to form categories from direct interaction with an environment constitutes the grounds for subsequent evolution of communication and language. In the second simulation, evolutionary robots are used to study the emergence of simple syntactic categories, e.g. action names (verbs). Comparisons between the two simulations indicate that the signalling lexicon emerged in the first simulation follows the evolutionary pattern of nouns, as observed in related models on the evolution of syntactic categories. Results also support the language-origin hypothesis on the fact that nouns precede verbs in both phylogenesis and ontogenesis. Further extensions of this new evolutionary robotic model for testing hypotheses on language origins are also discussed.} } @inproceedings{marocco_theRole, author={Davide Marocco and Angelo Cangelosi and Stefano Nolfi}, title={The Role of Social and Cognitive Abilities in the Emergence of Communication: Experiments in Evolutionary Robotics}, year={2002}, pages={174-181}, booktitle={EPSRC/BBSRC International Workshop Biologically-Inspired Robotics Bristol}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/marocco_theRole.html} } @inproceedings{marocco06embodiedAgents, author={Davide Marocco and Stefano Nolfi}, title={Emergence of communication in teams of embodied and situated agents}, year={2006}, pages={198-205}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/marocco06embodiedAgents.html}, abstract={In this paper we will describe the results of an experiment in which an effective communication system arises among a collection of initially non-communicating agents through a self-organization process based on an evolutionary process. Evolved agents communicate by producing and detecting five different signals that affect both their motor and signaling behavior. These signals identify features of the environment and of the agents/agents and agents/environmental relations that are crucial for solving the given problem. The obtained results also indicate that individual and social/communicative behaviors are tightly co-adapted.} } @inproceedings{marocco06SAB, author={Davide Marocco and Stefano Nolfi}, title={Origins of Communication in Evolving Robots}, year={2006}, pages={789-803}, editor={Nolfi, S. and et al.}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={SAB06}, doi={10.1007/11840541_65}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/marocco06SAB.html}, abstract={In this paper we describe how a population of simulated robots evolved for the ability to solve a collective navigation problem develop individual and social/communication skills. In particular, we analyze the evolutionary origins of motor and signaling behaviors. Obtained results indicate that signals and the meaning of the signals produced by evolved robots are grounded not only on the robots sensory-motor system but also on robots' behavioral capabilities previously acquired. Moreover, the analysis of the co-evolution of robots individual and communicative abilities indicate how innovation in the former might create the adaptive basis for further innovations in the latter and vice versa.} } @inproceedings{marocco06AlifeX, author={Davide Marocco and Stefano Nolfi}, title={Self-Organization of Communication in Evolving Robots}, year={2006}, pages={178-184}, editor={Luis M. Rocha and et al.}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Artificial Life X}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/marocco06AlifeX.html}, abstract={In this paper we present the results of an experiment in which a collection of simulated robots that are evolved for the ability to solve a collective navigation problem develop a communication system that allow them to better cooperate. The analysis of the obtained results indicates how evolving robots develop a non-trivial communication system and exploit different communication modalities.} } @inproceedings{marocco05embodiedAgents, author={D. Marocco and S. Nolfi}, title={Emergence of Communication in Embodied Agents: Co-Adapting Communicative and Non-Communicative Behaviours}, year={2005}, month={May}, editor={A. Cangelosi and et al.}, publisher={Singapore: World Scientific}, booktitle={Modelling Language, Cognition and Action: Proceedings of the 9th Neural Computation and Psychology Workshop}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/marocco05embodiedAgents.html}, abstract={We show how a population of simulated robots developed their communication capabilities in order to solve a collective navigation problem. The self-organized emergent vocabulary includes four different signals that influence both the motor and signalling behaviour of other robots. The analysis of the evolved behaviours also indicates: (a) the emergence of a simple form of communication protocol that allows individuals to switch signalling on and off, (b) the emergence of tightly co-adapted communicative and non-communicative behaviours, and (c) the exploitation of properties resulting from the dynamical interactions between motor and signalling behaviours produced by interacting robots.} } @incollection{marten06phylogeneticMethods, author={Lutz Marten}, title={Bantu Classification, Bantu Trees and Phylogenetic Methods}, year={2006}, pages={43-}, chapter={4}, editor={Peter Forster and Colin Renfrew}, publisher={}, booktitle={Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/marten06phylogeneticMethods.html} } @inproceedings{massera06AlifeX, author={Gianluca Massera and Angelo Cangelosi and Stefano Nolfi}, title={Developing a reaching behaviour in an simulated anthropomorphic robotic arm through an evolutionary technique}, year={2006}, pages={234-240}, editor={Luis M. Rocha and et al.}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Artificial Life X}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/massera06AlifeX.html}, abstract={In this article we present an evolutionary technique for developing a neural network based controller for an an- thropomorphic robotic arm with 4 DOF able to exhibit a reaching behaviour. Evolved neural controllers display an ability to reach targets accurately and generalize their ability to moving targets. This study demonstrates that it is possible to obtain solutions that are extremely parsimonious from the point of view of the control system. Evolutionary training techniques allow us to evolve parameters of the control system on the basis of the global effects that they produce on the dynamics arising from the interaction between the control system, the robot’s body and the environment.} } @incollection{mather04inbook, author={Jennifer A. Mather}, title={Cephalopod Skin Displays: From Concealment to Communication}, year={2004}, pages={193-214}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mather04inbook.html} } @inproceedings{matoba06utilityEELC, author={Ryuichi Matoba and Makoto Nakamura and Satoshi Tojo}, title={Utility for Communicability by Profit and Cost of Agreement}, year={2006}, pages={224-236}, editor={P. Vogt and et al.}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Symbol Grounding and Beyond: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, doi={10.1007/11880172_17}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/matoba06utilityEELC.html}, abstract={The inflection of words based on agreement, such as number, gender and case, is considered to contribute to clarify the dependency between words in a sentence. Our purpose in this study is to investigate the efficiency of word inflections with HPSG (Head–driven Phrase Structure Grammar), which is able to deal with these features directly. Using a notion of utility, we measure the efficiency of a grammar in terms of the balance between the number of semantic structures of a sentence, and the cost of agreement according to the number of unification processes. In our experiments, we showed how these were balanced in two different corpora. One, WSJ (Wall Street Journal), includes long and complicated sentences, while the other corpus, ATIS (Air Travel Information System) does shorter colloquial sentences. In the both corpora, agreement is surely important to reduce ambiguity. However, the importance of agreement in the ATIS corpus became salient as personal pronouns were so often employed in it, compared with the WSJ corpus.} } @article{matsen04PNAS, author={Frederick A. Matsen and Martin A. Nowak}, title={Win-stay, lose-shift in language learning from peers}, journal={PNAS}, year={2004}, month={December}, volume={101}, number={52}, pages={18053-18057}, doi={10.1073/pnas.0406608102}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/matsen04PNAS.html}, abstract={Traditional language learning theory explores an idealized interaction between a teacher and a learner. The teacher provides sentences from a language, while the learner has to infer the underlying grammar. Here, we study a new approach by considering a population of individuals that learn from each other. There is no designated teacher. We are inspired by the observation that children grow up to speak the language of their peers, not of their parents. Our goal is to characterize learning strategies that generate ``linguistic coherence,'' which means that most individuals use the same language. We model the resulting learning dynamics as a random walk of a population on a graph. Each vertex represents a candidate language. We find that a simple strategy using a certain aspiration level with the principle of win–stay, lose–shift does extremely well: stay with your current language, if at least three others use that language; otherwise, shift to an adjacent language on the graph. This strategy guarantees linguistic coherence on all nearly regular graphs, in the relevant limit where the number of candidate languages is much greater than the population size. Moreover, for many graphs, it is sufficient to have an aspiration level demanding only two other individuals to use the same language.} } @book{maynardsmith99originsOfLife, author={J. Maynard Smith and E. Szathmary}, title={The origins of life: From the Birth of Life to the Origin of Language}, year={1999}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/maynardsmith99originsOfLife.html} } @book{maynard-smith1997majorTransitions, author={J. Maynard-Smith and E. Szathmary}, title={The Major Transitions in Evolution}, year={1997}, publisher={New York: Oxford University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/maynardsmith1997majorTransitions.html} } @incollection{mccune99childrensTransition, author={Lorraine McCune}, title={Children's Transition to Language: A Human Model for Development of the Vocal Repertoire in Extant and Ancestral Primate Species?}, year={1999}, chapter={8}, editor={Barbara J. King}, publisher={School of American Research Press}, booktitle={The Origins of Language: What Nonhuman Primates Can Tell Us}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mccune99childrensTransition.html} } @incollection{mcdaniel05production, author={Dana McDaniel}, title={The Potential Role of Production in the Evolution of Syntax}, year={2005}, chapter={7}, editor={Maggie Tallerman}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mcdaniel05production.html} } @incollection{mcdermott05musicEvolution, author={Josh McDermott and Marc D. Hauser}, title={Probing the Evolutionary Origins of Music Perception}, year={2005}, month={December}, volume={1060}, pages={6-16}, editor={Giuliano Avanzini and Stefan Koelsch and Luisa Lopez and Maria Majno}, publisher={}, booktitle={The Neurosciences and Music II: From Perception to Performance. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences}, doi={10.1196/annals.1360.002}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mcdermott05musicEvolution.html}, keywords={music, preferences, monkey, consonance, evolution, adaptation}, abstract={Empirical data have recently begun to inform debates on the evolutionary origins of music. In this paper we discuss some of our recent findings and related theoretical issues. We claim that theories of the origins of music will be usefully constrained if we can determine which aspects of music perception are innate, and, of those, which are uniquely human and specific to music. Comparative research in nonhuman animals, particularly nonhuman primates, is thus critical to the debate. In this paper we focus on the preferences that characterize most humans' experience of music, testing whether similar preferences exist in nonhuman primates. Our research suggests that many rudimentary acoustic preferences, such as those for consonant over dissonant intervals, may be unique to humans. If these preferences prove to be innate in humans, they may be candidates for music-specific adaptations. To establish whether such preferences are innate in humans, one important avenue for future research will be the collection of data from different cultures. This may be facilitated by studies conducted over the internet.} } @inproceedings{mcintyre98babelA, author={Angus McIntyre}, title={Babel: A testbed for research in origins of language}, year={1998}, address={Montreal}, publisher={ACL}, booktitle={COLING-ACL98}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mcintyre98babelA.html} } @unpublished{mclennan02, author={M. Sean McLennan}, title={Evolution and Learning of Language: Insights Drawn from Modeling}, year={2002}, note={}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mclennan02.html} } @incollection{mcMahon06phylogeneticMethods, author={April McMahon and Robert McMahon}, title={Why Lingustics Don't Do Dates: Evidence from Indo-European and Australian Languages}, year={2006}, pages={153-}, chapter={13}, editor={Peter Forster and Colin Renfrew}, publisher={}, booktitle={Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mcMahon06phylogeneticMethods.html} } @incollection{mehler06stratified, author={Alexander Mehler}, title={Stratified Constraint Satisfaction Networks in Synergetic Multi-Agent Simulations of Language Evolution}, year={2006}, pages={140-174}, address={Hershey}, editor={Angelo Loula and Ricardo Gudwin and Joao Queiroz}, publisher={Idea Group Inc.}, booktitle={Artificial Cognition Systems}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mehler06stratified.html}, abstract={We describe a simulation model of language evolution which integrates synergetic linguistics with multi-agent modeling. On the one hand, this enables to utilize knowledge about the distribution of the parameter values of system variables as a touch stone of simulation validity. On the other hand it allows to account for synergetic interdependencies of microscopic system variables and macroscopic order parameters. This approach goes beyond the classical setting of synergetic linguistics by grounding processes of selfregulation and -organization in mechanisms of (dialogically aligned) language learning. Consequently, the simulation model includes four levels, that are, (i) the level of single information processing agents which are (ii) dialogically aligned in communication processes enslaved (iii) by the social system in which the agents participate and whose countless communication events shape (iv) the corresponding language system. In summary, the present paper is basically conceptual. It outlines a simulation model which bridges between different levels of language modeling kept apart in contemporary simulation models. This model relates to artificial cognition systems in the sense that it may be implemented to endow an artificial agent community in order to perform distributed processes of meaning constitution.} } @incollection{merriman99competitionAttention, author={W. E. Merriman}, title={Competition, Attention, and Young Children's Lexical Processing.}, year={1999}, address={Hillsdale, NJ}, editor={B. MacWhinney}, publisher={Lawrence Earlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Emergence of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/merriman99competitionAttention.html} } @inproceedings{meyer00design, author={Bertrand Meyer}, title={Principles of Language Design and Evolution}, year={2000}, pages={229-246}, booktitle={Millenial Perspectives in Computer Science (Proceedings of the 1999 Oxford-Microsoft Symposium in Honour of Sir Tony Hoare)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/meyer00design.html} } @incollection{miikkulainen99disambiguationAnd, author={Risto Miikkulainen and Marshall R. Mayberry}, title={Disambiguation and Grammar as Emergent Soft Constraints}, year={1999}, address={Hillsdale, NJ}, editor={B. MacWhinney}, publisher={Lawrence Earlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Emergence of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/miikkulainen99disambiguationAnd.html} } @article{miller02communicationAndCooperation, author={John H. Miller and Carter Butts and David Rode}, title={Communication and Cooperation}, journal={Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization}, year={2002}, volume={47}, pages={179--195}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/miller02communicationAndCooperation.html}, keywords={Communication, Cooperation, Strategic Learning, Prisoner's Dilemma, Endogenous Strategic Communication}, abstract={Communication plays a vital role in the organization and operation of biological, computational, economic, and social systems. Agents often base their behavior on the signals they receive from others and also recognize the importance of the signals they send. Here we develop a framework for analyzing the emergence of communication in an adaptive system. The framework enables the study of a system composed of agents who evolve the ability to strategically send and receive communication. While the modeling framework is quite general, we focus here on a specific application, namely the analysis of cooperation in a single shot Prisoner?s Dilemma. We find that contrary to initial expectations, communication allows the emergence of cooperation in such a system. Moreover, we find a systematic relationship between the processing and language complexity inherent in the communication system and the observed behavior. The approach developed here should open up a variety of phenomena to the systematic exploration of endogenous, strategic communication.} } @incollection{millikan04inbook, author={Ruth Garrett Millikan}, title={On Reading Signs: Some Differences between Us and the Others}, year={2004}, pages={15-30}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/millikan04inbook.html} } @incollection{minett05bookIntro, author={James W. Minett}, title={Introduction: Essays in evolutionary linguistics}, year={2005}, month={July}, pages={3-18}, editor={James W. Minett and William S.-Y. Wang}, publisher={City University of Hong Kong Press}, booktitle={Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/minett05bookIntro.html} } @inproceedings{minett06wordOrderBias, author={James W. Minett and Tao Gong and William S-Y. Wang}, title={A language emergence model predicts word order bias}, year={2006}, pages={206-213}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/minett06wordOrderBias.html}, abstract={The majority of extant languages have one of three basic word orders: SVO, SOV or VSO. Various hypotheses have been put forward to explain aspects of this bias, including the existence of a universal grammar, learnability imposed by non-linguistic-specific cognitive constraints, and the descent of the extant languages from a common ancestral proto-language. Here, we adopt a multi-agent model for language emergence that simulates the coevolution of a lexicon and syntax from a holistic signaling system. The syntax evolves through a process of categorization; local syntactic rules are constructed that assign a relative order (e.g., S before V) to the elements of the two categories to which each rule applies. We demonstrate that local syntax encoding the relative position of S and O are the most stable, allowing the coexistence of the global word order pairs SOV/SVO and VOS/OVS. The structure of the semantic space that the language encodes further constrains the global syntax that is stable.} } @article{minett04endangeredLanguage, author={James W. Minett and William S-Y. Wang}, title={Modelling endangered languages: The effects of bilingualism and social structure}, journal={Lingua}, year={2008}, month={January}, volume={118}, number={1}, pages={19-45}, doi={10.1016/j.lingua.2007.04.001}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/minett04endangeredLanguage.html}, keywords={Language competition; Language death; Language maintenance; Dynamical system; Agent-based model}, abstract={The mathematical model for language competition developed by Abrams and Strogatz allows the evolution of the numbers of monolingual speakers of two competing languages to be estimated. In this paper, we extend the model to examine the role of bilingualism and social structure, neither of which are addressed in the previous model. We consider the impact of two strategies for language maintenance: (1) adjusting the status of the endangered language; and (2) adjusting the availability of monolingual and bilingual educational resources. The model allows us to predict for which scenarios of intervention language maintenance is more likely to be achieved. Qualitative analysis of the model indicates a set of intervention strategies by which the likelihood of successful maintenance is expected to increase.} } @book{minett_wang2004editedBook, title={Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics}, year={2005}, month={July}, editor={James W. Minett and William S.-Y. Wang}, publisher={City University of Hong Kong Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/minett_wang2004editedBook.html} } @unpublished{minett04lexicalSkewing, author={James W. Minett and William S-Y. Wang}, title={An analysis of the lexical skewing method for detecting language contact}, year={2004}, note={}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/minett04lexicalSkewing.html} } @article{mira05languageDeathDynamics, author={J. Mira and A. Paredes}, title={Interlinguistic similarity and language death dynamics}, journal={Europhysics Letters}, year={2005}, volume={69}, number={6}, pages={1031-1034}, doi={10.1209/epl/i2004-10438-4}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mira05languageDeathDynamics.html}, abstract={We analyze the time evolution of a system of two coexisting languages (Castillian Spanish and Galician, both spoken in northwest Spain) in the framework of a model given by Abrams and Strogatz [Nature 424, 900 (2003)]. It is shown that, contrary to the model's initial prediction, a stable bilingual situation is possible if the languages in competition are similar enough. Similarity is described with a simple parameter, whose value can be estimated from fits of the data.} } @article{miranda03musicEvolution, author={Eduardo Reck Miranda and Simon Kirby and Peter M. Todd}, title={On Computational Models of the Evolution of Music: From the Origins of Musical Taste to the Emergence of Grammars}, journal={Contemporary Music Review}, year={2003}, month={September}, volume={22}, number={3}, pages={91-111}, doi={10.1080/0749446032000150915}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/miranda03musicEvolution.html}, keywords={origins of music, evolution of musical taste, imitation, sensory-motor mapping, evolution of grammar}, abstract={Evolutionary computing is a powerful tool for studying the origins and evolution of music. In this case, music is studied as an adaptive complex dynamic system and its origins and evolution are studied in the context of the cultural conventions that may emerge under a number of constraints (e.g. psychological, physiological and ecological). This paper introduces three case studies of evolutionary modelling of music. It begins with a model for studying the role of mating-selective pressure in the evolution of musical taste. Here the agents evolve ``courting tunes'' in a society of ``male'' composers and ``female'' critics. Next, a mimetic model is introduced to study the evolution of musical expectation in a community of autonomous agents furnished with a vocal synthesizer, a hearing system and memory. Finally, an iterated learning model is proposed for studying the evolution of compositional grammars. In this case, the agents evolve grammars for composing music to express a set of emotions.} } @article{mirolli08producerBias, author={Marco Mirolli and Domenico Parisi}, title={How Producer Biases Can Favor the Evolution of Communication: An Analysis of Evolutionary Dynamics}, journal={Adaptive Behavior}, year={2008}, month={February}, volume={16}, pages={27-52}, doi={10.1177/1059712307087597}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mirolli08producerBias.html}, keywords={evolution of communication; producer bias; receiver bias; evolutionary dynamics}, abstract={Like any other biological trait, communication can be studied from at least four perspectives: mechanistic, ontogenetic, functional, and phylogenetic. In this article, we focus on the following phylogenetic question: how can communication emerge, given that both signal-producing and signal-responding abilities seem to be adaptively neutral until the complementary ability is present in the population? We explore the problem of co-evolution of speakers and hearers with artificial life simulations: a population of artificial neural networks evolving a food call system. The core of the article is devoted to a careful analysis of the complex evolutionary dynamics demonstrated by our simple simulation. Our analyses reveal an important factor, which might solve the phylogenetic problem: the spontaneous production of good (meaningful) signals by speakers because of the need for organisms to categorize their experience in adaptively relevant ways. We discuss our results with respect both to previous simulative work and to the biological literature on the evolution of communication.} } @inproceedings{mirolli06evolang, author={Marco Mirolli and Domenico Parisi}, title={Talking to oneself as a selective pressure for the emergence of language}, year={2006}, pages={214-221}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mirolli06evolang.html}, abstract={Selective pressures for the evolutionary emergence of human language tend to be interpreted as social in nature, i.e., for better social communication and coordination. Using a simple neural network model of language acquisition we demonstrate that even using language for oneself, i.e., as private or inner speech, improves an individual's categorization of the world and, therefore, makes the individual's behavior more adaptive. We conclude that language may have first emerged due to the advantages it confers on individual cognition, and not only for its social advantages.} } @article{Mirolli05benefitsTheHearer, author={Marco Mirolli and Domenico Parisi}, title={How can we explain the emergence of a language that benefits the hearer but not the speaker?}, journal={Connection Science}, year={2005}, month={December}, volume={17}, number={3-4}, pages={307-324}, doi={10.1080/09540090500177539}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Mirolli05benefitsTheHearer.html}, keywords={Language evolution, Alturism, Neutral networks, Kin selection, Docility theory, Talking to oneself}, abstract={In this paper, we explore various adaptive factors that can influence the emergence of a communication system that benefits the receiver of signals (the hearer) but not the emitter (the speaker). Using computer simulations of a population of interacting agents whose behaviour is determined by a neural network, we show that a stable communication system does not emerge in groups of unrelated individuals because of its altruistic character. None the less, another set of simulations shows that the emergence of a language that confers an advantage only to hearers, not to speakers, is possible under at least three conditions: (1) if the hearer and the speaker tend to share the same genes, as predicted by kin selection theory; (2) if the population is ‘docile’ and the communication system is culturally transmitted together with other adaptive behaviours, as predicted by Simon’s docility theory; and (3) if the linguistic system is used not only for social communication, but also for talking to oneself, in particular as an aid to memory.} } @inproceedings{marco05languageCategorization, author={Marco Mirolli and Domenico Parisi}, title={Language as an aid to categorization: A neural network model of early language acquisition}, year={2005}, month={May}, publisher={Singapore: World Scientific}, booktitle={Modelling Language, Cognition and Action: Proceedings of the 9th Neural Computation and Psychology Workshop}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/marco05languageCategorization.html}, abstract={The paper describes a neural network model of early language acquisition with an emphasis on how language positively influences the categories with which the child categorizes reality. Language begins when the two separate networks that are responsible for nonlinguistic sensory-motor mappings and for recognizing and repeating linguistic sounds become connected together at 1 year of age. Language makes more similar the internal representations of different inputs that must be responded to with the same action and more different the internal representations of inputs that must be responded to with different actions.} } @article{mitchener07universalGrammar, author={W. Garrett Mitchener}, title={Game Dynamics with Learning and Evolution of Universal Grammar}, journal={Bulletin of Mathematical Biology}, year={2007}, month={Apr}, volume={69}, number={3}, pages={1093-1118}, doi={10.1007/s11538-006-9165-x}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mitchener07universalGrammar.html}, keywords={population game dynamics; replicator equation; language dynamical equation; learning; evolution; evolutionary stability; universal grammar; metastrategy}, abstract={We investigate a model of language evolution, based on population game dynamics with learning. Specifically, we examine the case of two genetic variants of universal grammar (UG), the heart of the human language faculty, assuming each admits two possible grammars. The dynamics are driven by a communication game. We prove using dynamical systems techniques that if the payoff matrix obeys certain constraints, then the two UGs are stable against invasion by each other, that is, they are evolutionarily stable. These constraints are independent of the learning process. Intuitively, if a mutation in UG results in grammars that are incompatible with the established languages, then it will die out because individuals with the mutation will be unable to communicate and therefore unable to realize any potential benefit of the mutation. An example for which the proofs do not apply shows that compatible mutations may or may not be able to invade, depending on the population's history and the learning process. These results suggest that the genetic history of language is constrained by the need for compatibility and that mutations in the language faculty may have died out or taken over depending more on historical accident than on any simple notion of relative fitness.} } @incollection{mitchener07middleEnglish, author={W. Garrett Mitchener}, title={A Mathematical Model of the Loss of Verb-Second in Middle English}, year={2006}, editor={Ritt, Nikolaus and Schendl, Herbert and Dalton-Puffer, Christiane and Kastovsky, Dieter}, publisher={Peter Lang Publishing}, booktitle={Medieval English and its Heritage: Structure, Meaning and Mechanisms of Change}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mitchener07middleEnglish.html}, abstract={Lightfoot (1999) proposes the following explanation for the loss of the verb-second rule in Middle English: There were two regional dialects of Middle English, a northern dialect influenced by Old Norse with a verb- second rule, and a southern dialect with a slightly different word order. Children acquire the verb-second rule based on hearing some critical fraction of cue sentences requiring such a rule. As the dialects experienced increased contact, northern children were less likely to hear enough cue sentences, and consequently acquired a different grammar, resulting in the extinction of the northern dialect.

This hypothesis can be modeled with differential equations. By using dynamical systems methods, the catastrophe in question may be modeled by a mathematical event known as a saddle-node bifurcation. A key part of the model is the function that gives the probability of learning the northern dialect given that a fraction of the local population uses it. Other model acquisition algorithms, such as memoryless learner (Niyogi \& Berwick 1996), give the mysterious result that verb-second languages should be extremely stable, in contrast to the history of English. This new model provides an explanation for that behavior: Memoryless learners are more sensitive to noise, resulting in a differently shaped function that does not allow the northern grammar to disappear. This model demonstrates how dynamical systems theory can be used to study language change and learning models.} } @inproceedings{mitchener05languageChangeSimulation, author={W. G. Mitchener}, title={A Simulation of Language Change in the Presence of Non-Idealized Syntax}, year={2005}, month={June}, booktitle={Proceedings of the workshop Psychocomputational Models of Human Language Acquisition, ACL-2005}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mitchener05languageChangeSimulation.html}, abstract={Both Middle English and Old French had a syntactic property called verb-second or V2 that disappeared. This paper describes a simulation being developed to shed light on the question of why V2 is stable in some languages, but not others. The simulation, based on a Markov chain, uses fuzzy grammars where speakers can use an arbitrary mixture of idealized grammars. Thus, it can mimic the variable syntax observed in Middle English manuscripts. The simulation supports the hypotheses that children use the topic of a sentence for word order acquisition, that acquisition takes into account the ambiguity of grammatical information available from sample sentences, and that speakers prefer to speak with more regularity than they observe in the primary linguistic data.} } @phdthesis{mitchener03phd, author={W. Garrett Mitchener}, title={A Mathematical Model of Human Languages: The Interaction of Game Dynamics and Learning Processes}, year={2003}, school={Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics, Princeton University}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mitchener03phd.html}, abstract={Human language is a remarkable communication system, apparently unique among an­ imals. All humans have a built­in learning mechanism known as universal grammar or UG. Languages change in regular yet unpredictable ways due to many factors, including properties of UG and contact with other languages. This dissertation extends the standard replicator equation used in evolutionary biology to include a learning process. The resulting language dynamical equation models language change at the population level. In a further extension, members of the population may have di#erent UGs. It models evolution of the language faculty itself.

We begin by examining the language dynamical equation in the case where the param­ eters are fully symmetric. When learning is very error prone, the population always settles at an equilibrium where all grammars are present. For more accurate learning, coherent equilibria appear, where one grammar dominates the population. We identify all bifurca­ tions that take place as learning accuracy increases. This alternation between incoherence and coherence provides a mechanism for understanding how language contact can trigger change.

We then relax the symmetry assumptions, and demonstrate that the language dynami­ cal equation can exhibit oscillations and chaos. Such behavior is consistent with the regular, spontaneous, and unpredictable changes observed in actual languages, and with the sensi­ tivity exhibited by changes triggered by language contact. From there, we move to the extended model with multiple UGs. The first stage of analysis focuses on UGs that admit only a single grammar. These are stable, immune to invasion by other UGs with imperfect learning. They can invade a population that uses a similar grammar with a multi­grammar UG. This analysis suggests that in the distant past, human UG may have admitted more languages than it currently does, and that over time variants with more built­in information have taken over. Finally, we address a low­dimensional case of competition between two UGs, and find conditions where they are stable against one another, and where they can coexist. These results imply that evolution of UG must have been incremental, and that similar variants may coexist.

This research was conducted under the supervision of Dr. Martin A. Nowak (Program in Theoretical Biology at the Institute for Advanced Study, and Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University).} } @article{mitchener03jmb, author={W. Garrett Mitchener}, title={Bifurcation Analysis of the Fully Symmetric Language Dynamical Equation}, journal={Journal of Mathematical Biology}, year={2003}, month={3}, volume={46}, number={3}, pages={265-285}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mitchener03jmb.html} } @article{mitchener04chaosAndLanguage, author={W. G. Mitchener and M. A. Nowak}, title={Chaos and Language}, journal={Proceedings of The Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences}, year={2004}, volume={271}, number={1540}, pages={701-704}, doi={10.1098/rspb.2003.2643}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mitchener04chaosAndLanguage.html}, keywords={language, evolution, game dynamics, learning, dynamical systems, chaos}, abstract={Human language is a complex and expressive communication system. Children spontaneously develop a native language from speech they hear in their community. Languages change dramatically and unpredictably by accumulating small changes over time and by interacting with other languages. This paper describes a mathematical model illustrating language change. Children learn their parents' language imperfectly, and in the case presented here, the result is a simulated population that maintains an ever-changing mixture of grammars. This research is part of a growing attempt to use mathematical models to better understand the social and biological history of language.} } @article{mitchener03competitiveExclusion, author={W. G. Mitchener and M. A. Nowak}, title={Competitive Exclusion and Coexistence of Universal Grammars}, journal={Bulletin of Mathematical Biology}, year={2003}, volume={65}, number={1}, pages={67-93}, doi={10.1006/bulm.2002.0322}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mitchener03competitiveExclusion.html}, abstract={Universal grammar (UG) is a list of innate constraints that specify the set of grammars that can be learned by the child during primary language acquisition. UG of the human brain has been shaped by evolution. Evolution requires variation. Hence, we have to postulate and study variation of UG. We investigate evolutionary dynamics and language acquisition in the context of multiple UGs. We provide examples for competitive exclusion and stable coexistence of different UGs. More specific UGs admit fewer candidate grammars, and less specific UGs admit more candidate grammars. We will analyze conditions for more specific UGs to outcompete less specific UGs and vice versa. An interesting finding is that less specific UGs can resist invasion by more specific UGs if learning is more accurate. In other words, accurate learning stabilizes UGs that admit large numbers of candidate grammars.} } @book{mithen05musicLanguage, author={Steve Mithen}, title={The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body}, year={2005}, publisher={Weidenfeld \& Nicolson}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mithen05musicLanguage.html} } @inproceedings{mittal06learningModel, author={Shashi Mittal and Harish Karnik}, title={Learning models for language acquisition}, year={2006}, pages={222-229}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mittal06learningModel.html}, abstract={In this paper, we present a model of language acquisition which can be used to explain how children learn a grammar by interacting with their surroundings. We build upon the model proposed by Komarova et al in the context of evolution of grammars. We test our model for two situations : One, in which an individual is trying to learn a grammar in an environment where everybody uses the same grammar, and the other in which different groups in the population use different grammars.} } @article{moldoveanu02languageGames, author={Mihnea Moldoveanu}, title={Language, games and language games}, journal={Journal of Socio-Economics}, year={2002}, volume={31}, number={3}, pages={233-251}, doi={10.1016/S1053-5357(02)00118-X}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/moldoveanu02languageGames.html}, keywords={Axiomatization; Rationalizing; Coordination}, abstract={How do social values come about and gain legitimacy? Starting from the premise that discourses of social analysis affect the ways in which social norms develop and proliferate, this article models the evolution of professional codes and dialects using Wittgenstein's idea of a language game. A language game is formalized as a repeated game of tacit coordination played among participants with informational asymmetries. The informational asymmetries model the different meanings that people assign to the same word used in a conversation. A language is formalized as a code that emerges as a result of repeated interactions in a language game. The paper argues that certain codes--such as those based on the real number system--lead to more reliable strategies in language games. The result is used to argue that professional dialects based on axiomatizable codes--such as physics, mathematics and economics--are less likely to experience fragmentation into intra-disciplinary 'sects,' camps and incommensurable paradigms than are professional dialects that are not based on an axiomatizable code--such as sociology, psychology, organization studies, and strategic management studies. The idea of a language game is extended to explore ways in which certain disciplines can establish cognitive jurisdiction over particular phenomena, starting from a particular set of codes, and thereby claim 'cognitive monopolies.' A rudimentary theory of the market for ideas is advanced.} } @incollection{morris_aConnectionist, author={W. C. Morris and G. W. Cottrell and J. L. Elman}, title={A connectionist simulation of the empirical acquisition of grammatical relations}, year={2000}, editor={Stefan Wermter and Run Sun}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Hybrid Neural Symbolic Integration}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/morris_aConnectionist.html} } @article{motter02PRE, author={Adilson E. Motter and Alessandro P. S. de Moura and Ying-Cheng Lai and Partha Dasgupta}, title={Topology of the conceptual network of language}, journal={Physical Review E}, year={2002}, volume={65}, pages={065102}, doi={10.1103/PhysRevE.65.065102}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/motter02PRE.html}, abstract={We define two words in a language to be connected if they express similar concepts. The network of connections among the many thousands of words that make up a language is important not only for the study of the structure and evolution of languages, but also for cognitive science. We study this issue quantitatively, by mapping out the conceptual network of the English language, with the connections being defined by the entries in a Thesaurus dictionary. We find that this network presents a small-world structure, with an amazingly small average shortest path, and appears to exhibit an asymptotic scale-free feature with algebraic connectivity distribution.} } @inproceedings{moy03caseEmergence, author={Joanna Moy and Suresh Manandhar}, title={Modelling the Emergence of Case}, year={2003}, pages={42-51}, booktitle={Proceedings of Language Evolution and Computation Workshop/Course at ESSLLI}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/moy03caseEmergence.html} } @article{mufwene04LanguageBirthAndDeath, author={Salikoko S. Mufwene}, title={Language birth and death}, journal={Annu. Rev. Anthropol.}, year={2004}, volume={33}, pages={201-222}, doi={10.1146/annurev.anthro.33.070203.143852}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mufwene04LanguageBirthAndDeath.html}, keywords={ecology, exploitation colony, settlement colony, language endangerment, langue minoree}, abstract={Since the late 1980s, language endangerment and death have been discussed as if the phenomena had no connection at all with language birth. More recently the phenomena have been associated almost exclusively with the intense and pervasive economic globalization of same period, a process that some authors have reduced too easily to the McDonaldization phenomenon. Moreover, the relation of globalization to different forms of colonization has been poorly articulated. As a matter of fact, little of the longer history of population movements and contacts since the dawn of agriculture has been invoked in the literature on language endangerment to give some broader perspective on the mechanisms of language birth and death and on the ecological factors that bear on how they proceed. This review aims to remedy these shortcomings in our scholarship.} } @article{mufwene02selection, author={Salikoko S. Mufwene}, title={Competition and selection in language evolution}, journal={Selection}, year={2002}, volume={3}, number={1}, pages={45-56}, doi={10.1556/Select.3.2002.1.5}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mufwene02selection.html}, keywords={selection, selection, competition, evolution, ecology, hybridism, Acquisition, creole, feature/gene pool, gene recombination, idiolect, Lamarckian, mixed language/system, restructuring, species, transmission, Universal Grammar}, abstract={The primary thesis of this paper is that selection plays a role in language evolution. Underlying this position is the assumption that a language is a Lamarckian species, a construct extrapolated from idiolects spoken by individuals who acknowledge using the same verbal code to communicate with each other. There is no perfect replication in any case of language “acquisition”, which is actually a recreation process in which the learner makes a system out of features selected from utterances of different individuals with whom he/she has interacted. In a way similar to gene recombination in biology, each learner gradually and selectively reintegrates into new system features which are often modified in the process. At the population level, the congruence of some divergent idiolectal selections is often strong enough for a language to evolve into a new communal system. A fundamental question for my hypothesis is: What principles regulate selection? I also assume hybridism in language “transmission”, which is polyploidic, as features of every idiolect originate not only in various competing idiolects, but possibly also in different dialects or languages in contact. The question about feature selection remains the same.} } @book{mufwene01book, author={Salikoko S. Mufwene}, title={The Ecology of Language Evolution}, year={2001}, address={Cambridge}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mufwene01book.html} } @techreport{mukherjee07soundInventory, author={Animesh Mukherjee}, title={Self-Organization of the Sound Inventories: An Explanation based on Complex Networks}, year={2007}, institution={Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India}, note={PhD registration seminar report}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mukherjee07soundInventory.html}, abstract={The sound inventories of the world's languages self-organize themselves giving rise to similar cross-linguistic patterns. In this work, we attempt to explain this phenomenon of self-organization, which shapes the structure of the sound inventories, through a complex network approach. We also attempt to analyze the patterns of similarity that emerges as a result of this self-organization and in turn affects the evolution of the inventories.

In order to explain the self-organization, the goes on in the consonant inventories we define the occurrence network of consonants, and systematically study some of the impor- tant properties of this network that sheds some light on the principles of organization of the consonant inventories. A crucial observation is that the occurrence of consonants across the languages of the world follows a power law distribution. This property is arguably a consequence of the principle of preferential attachment. In order to support this argument, we propose a synthesis model, which reproduces the degree distribution for the network to a close approximation.

For the purpose of studying the similarity patterns across the consonant inventories, we define a weighted network, where the consonants are the nodes and an edge between two nodes (read consonants) signify their co-occurrence likelihood over the consonant inventories. Through this network we identify communities of consonants that essentially reflect their patterns of co-occurrence across languages. We test the goodness of the communities and observe that the constituent consonants frequently occur in such groups in real languages also. Interestingly, the consonants forming these communities reflect strong correlations in terms of their features, which indicates that the principle of feature economy acts as a driving force towards community formation. In order to measure the strength of this force, we pro- pose an information theoretic definition of feature economy and show that indeed the feature economy exhibited by the consonant communities are substantially better than those where the consonant inventories are assumed to have evolved just by chance.

We are presently trying to have a synthesis model for the for the co-occurrence network of consonants so as to understand the significance of the âœpatterns of co-occurrenceâ in the self-organization of the consonant inventories. We are also trying to perform similar studies for the vowel inventories and compare them with those of the consonant inventories.} } @article{Mukherjee07soundInventory, author={Animesh Mukherjee and Monojit Choudhury and Anupam Basu and Niloy Ganguly}, title={Self-organization of the Sound Inventories: Analysis and Synthesis of the Occurrence and Co-occurrence Networks of Consonants}, journal={Journal of Quantitative Linguistics}, year={forthcoming}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Mukherjee07soundInventory.html}, abstract={The sound inventories of the world's languages self-organize themselves giving rise to similar cross-linguistic patterns. In this work we attempt to capture this phenomenon of self-organization, which shapes the structure of the consonant inventories, through a complex network approach. For this purpose we define the occurrence and co-occurrence networks of consonants and systematically study some of their important topological properties. A crucial observation is that the occurrence as well as the co-occurrence of consonants across languages follow a power law distribution. This property is arguably a consequence of the principle of preferential attachment. In order to support this argument we propose a synthesis model which reproduces the degree distribution for the networks to a close approximation. We further observe that the co-occurrence network of consonants show a high degree of clustering and subsequently refine our synthesis model in order to incorporate this property. Finally, we discuss how preferential attachment manifests itself through the evolutionary nature of language.} } @article{mukherjee06consonantIJMPC, author={Animesh Mukherjee and Monojit Choudhury and Anupam Basu and Niloy Ganguly}, title={Modeling the Co-occurrence Principles of the Consonant Inventories: A Complex Network Approach}, journal={International Journal of Modern Physics C}, year={2007}, volume={18}, number={2}, pages={281-295}, doi={10.1142/S0129183107010395}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mukherjee06consonantIJMPC.html}, abstract={Speech sounds of the languages all over the world show remarkable patterns of cooccurrence. In this work, we attempt to automatically capture the patterns of cooccurrence of the consonants across languages and at the same time figure out the nature of the force leading to the emergence of such patterns. For this purpose we define a weighted network where the consonants are the nodes and an edge between two nodes (read consonants) signify their co-occurrence likelihood over the consonant inventories. Through this network we identify communities of consonants that essentially reflect their patterns of co-occurrence across languages. We test the goodness of the communities and observe that the constituent consonants frequently occur in such groups in real languages also. Interestingly, the consonants forming these communities reflect strong correlations in terms of their features, which indicate that the principle of feature economy acts as a driving force towards community formation. In order to measure the strength of this force we propose an information theoretic definition of feature economy and show that indeed the feature economy exhibited by the consonant communities are substantially better than those if the consonant inventories had evolved just by chance.} } @inproceedings{mukherkee07ACL, author={Animesh Mukherjee and Monojit Choudhury and Anupam Basu and Niloy Ganguly}, title={Redundancy ratio: an invariant property of the consonant inventories of the world's languages}, year={2007}, month={June}, address={Prague, Czech Republic}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mukherkee07ACL.html}, abstract={In this paper, we put forward an information theoretic definition of the redundancy that is observed across the sound inventories of the world's languages. Through rigorous statistical analysis, we find that this redundancy is an invariant property of the consonant inventories. The statistical analysis further unfolds that the vowel inventories do not exhibit any such property, which in turn points to the fact that the organizing principles of the vowel and the consonant inventories are quite different in nature.} } @inproceedings{mukherkee07sigmorphon, author={Animesh Mukherjee and Monojit Choudhury and Anupam Basu and Niloy Ganguly}, title={Emergence of community structures in vowel inventories: an analysis based on complex networks}, year={2007}, month={June}, address={Prague}, booktitle={Proceedings of Ninth Meeting of the ACL Special Interest Group in Computational Morphology and Phonology}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mukherkee07sigmorphon.html}, abstract={In this work, we attempt to capture patterns of co-occurrence across vowel systems and at the same time figure out the nature of the force leading to the emergence of such patterns. For this purpose we define a weighted network where the vowels are the nodes and an edge between two nodes (read vowls) signify their co-occurrence likelihood over the vowel inventories. Through this network we identify communities of vowels, which essentially reflect their patterns of co-occurrence across languages. We observe that in the assortative vowel communities the constituent nodes (read vowels) are largely uncorrelated in terms of their features indicating that they are formed based on the principle of maximal perceptual contrast. However, in the rest of the communities, strong correlations are reflected among the constituent vowels with respect to their features indicating that it is the principle of feature economy that binds them together.} } @article{Mukherjee08vowelInventories, author={Animesh Mukherjee and Monojit Choudhury and Shamik RoyChowdhury and Anupam Basu and Niloy Ganguly}, title={Rediscovering the Co-occurrence Principles of the Vowel Inventories: A Complex Network Approach}, journal={Advances in Complex Systems}, year={forthcoming}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Mukherjee08vowelInventories.html}, abstract={In this work, we attempt to capture patterns of co-occurrence across vowel systems and at the same time figure out the nature of the force leading to the emergence of such patterns. For this purpose we define a weighted network where the vowels are the nodes and an edge between two nodes (read vowels) signify their co-occurrence likelihood over the vowel inventories. Through this network we identify communities of vowels, which essentially reflect their patterns of co-occurrence across languages. We observe that in the assortative vowel communities the constituent nodes (read vowels) are largely uncorrelated in terms of their features and show that they are formed based on the principle of maximal perceptual contrast. However, in the rest of the communities, strong correlations are reflected among the constituent vowels with respect to their features indicating that it is the principle of feature economy that binds them together. We validate the above observations by proposing a quantitative measure of perceptual contrast as well as feature economy and subsequently comparing the results obtained due to these quantifications with those where we assume that the vowel inventories had evolved just by chance.} } @article{munroe02learningAnd, author={S. Munroe and A. Cangelosi}, title={Learning and the evolution of language: The role of cultural variation and learning costs in the Baldwin Effect}, journal={Artificial Life}, year={2002}, volume={8}, number={4}, pages={311-339}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/munroe02learningAnd.html}, keywords={Baldwin effect, language evolution, neural networks, genetic algorithms, learning cost, cultural transmission}, abstract={The Baldwin effect has been explicitly used by Pinker and Bloom as an explanation of the origins of language and the evolution of a language acquisition device. This article presents new simulations of an artificial life model for the evolution of compositional languages. It specifically addresses the role of cultural variation and of learning costs in the Baldwin effect for the evolution of language. Results show that when a high cost is associated with language learning, agents gradually assimilate in their genome some explicit features (e.g., lexical properties) of the specific language they are exposed to. When the structure of the language is allowed to vary through cultural transmission, Baldwinian processes cause, instead, the assimilation of a predisposition to learn, rather than any structural properties associated with a specific language. The analysis of the mechanisms underlying such a predisposition in terms of categorical perception supports Deacon’s hypothesis regarding the Baldwinian inheritance of general underlying cognitive capabilities that serve language acquisition. This is in opposition to the thesis that argues for assimilation of structural properties needed for the specification of a full-blown language acquisition device.} } @article{mller96innatenessAutonomy, author={R. A. Müller}, title={Innateness, autonomy, universality - neurobiological approaches to language}, journal={Behavioral and Brain Sciences}, year={1996}, volume={19}, pages={611-631}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/mller96innatenessAutonomy.html} } @inproceedings{nakamura05languageEquation_EELC, author={M. Nakamura and T. Hashimoto and S. Tojo}, title={Language Change in Modified Language Dynamics Equation by Memoryless Learners}, year={2005}, booktitle={Second International Symposium on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nakamura05languageEquation_EELC.html}, abstract={Language change is considered as a transition of population among languages. The language dynamics equation represents such a transition of population. Our purpose in this paper is to develop a new formalism of language dynamics for a real situation of language contact. We assume a situation that memoryless learners are exposed to a number of languages. We show experimental results, in which contact with other language speakers during acquisition period deteriorates the learning accuracy and prevents the emergence of a dominant language. If we suppose a communicative language, when learners are frequently exposed to a variety of languages, the language earns relatively higher rate of population. We discuss the communicative language from the viewpoint of the language bioprogram hypothesis.} } @inproceedings{nakamura03esslli, author={Makoto Nakamura and Takashi Hashimoto and Satoshi Tojo}, title={Creole Viewed from Population Dynamics}, year={2003}, pages={95-104}, address={Vienna}, editor={Simon Kirby}, booktitle={Proceedings of Language Evolution and Computation Workshop/Course at ESSLLI}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nakamura03esslli.html}, keywords={Population Dynamics, Creole, Similarity among Languages, Language Dynamics Equations}, abstract={Creole is one of the main topics in various fields concerning the language origin and the language change, such as sociolinguistics, the developmental psychology of language, paleoanthropology and so on. Our purpose in this paper is to develop an evolutionary theory of language to study the emergence of creole. We discuss how the emergence of creole is dealt with in the perspective of population dynamics. The proposal of evolutionary equations is a modification of the language dynamics equations by Komarova et al. We show experimental results, in which we could observe the emergence of creole. Furthermore, we analyze the condition of creolization in terms of similarity among languages. We conclude that a creole becomes dominant when pre-existing languages are not similar to each other and rather similar to the newly appeared language (would-be-creole); however the new language must not be too similar, in which case pre-existing languages remain and coexist.} } @inproceedings{nakamura03icai, author={Makoto Nakamura and Takashi Hashimoto and Satoshi Tojo}, title={The Language Dynamics Equations of Population-Based Transition -- a Scenario for Creolization}, year={2003}, editor={HR Arabnia}, publisher={CSREA Press}, booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IC-AI'03)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nakamura03icai.html}, keywords={language acquisition, population dynamics, creole}, abstract={Children will develop their parental languages correctly, since language learners come to obtain the one which they contact most in the community. At the same time, children would be affected by other languages, the influence of which is proportional to the population of those languages. In this paper, we revise the foregoing evolutionary theory of language, that is differential equations of the population dynamics. We propose that the transition rate in languages is sensitive to the distribution of population of each generation. In addition, we introduce the exposure probability that is the measure of influence from other languages. We show experimental results, in which we could observe the emergence of creole. Furthermore, we analysed which language would be dominant, dependent on the initial distribution of population, together with the exposure probability.} } @article{nakano88selfOrganizing, author={K. Nakano and K. Sakaguchi and Y. Isotani and T. Ohmori}, title={Self Organizing System Obtaining Communication Ability - A Primitive Model for Language Generation}, journal={Biological Cybernetics}, year={1988}, volume={58}, pages={417-425}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nakano88selfOrganizing.html} } @unpublished{nakhleh05JLSA, author={L. Nakhleh and D. Ringe and T. Warnow}, title={Perfect Phylogenetic Networks: A New Methodology for Reconstructing the Evolutionary History of Natural Languages}, year={2005}, note={Under review for LANGUAGE, Journal of the Linguistic Society of America, 2005}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nakhleh05JLSA.html}, abstract={In this paper we extend the Ringe-Warnow model of language evolution to include the case where languages remain in contact, trading linguistic material, as they evolve. We describe our analysis of an Indo-European dataset (originally assembled by Ringe and Taylor) based on this new model. Our study shows that this new model fits the IE family well and suggests that the early evolution of IE involved only limited contact between distinct lineages. Furthermore, the candidate histories we obtain appear to be consistent with archaeological findings, which suggests that this method may be of practical use.} } @unpublished{nakhleh05NWRE, author={L. Nakhleh and T. Warnow and D. Ringe and Steven N. Evans}, title={A Comparison of Phylogenetic Reconstruction Methods on an IE Dataset}, year={2005}, note={Under review}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nakhleh05NWRE.html}, abstract={Researchers interested in the history of the Indo-European family of languages have used a variety of methods to estimate the phylogeny of the family, and have obtained widely differing results. In this paper we explore the reconstructions of the Indo- European phylogeny obtained by using the major phylogeny estimation procedures on an existing database of 336 characters (including lexical, phonological, and morpho- logical characters) for 24 Indo-European languages. Our study finds that the different methods agree in part, but that there are also several striking differences. We dis- cuss the reasons for these differences, and make proposals with respect to phylogenetic reconstruction in historical linguistics.} } @inproceedings{nerbonne07CompHistPhon, author={John Nerbonne and T. Mark Ellison and Grzegorz Kondrak}, title={Computing and Historical Phonology}, year={2007}, month={June}, pages={1--5}, address={Prague, Czech Republic}, publisher={Association for Computational Linguistics}, booktitle={Proceedings of Ninth Meeting of the ACL Special Interest Group in Computational Morphology and Phonology}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nerbonne07CompHistPhon.html}, abstract={We introduce the proceedings from the workshop ``Computing and Historical Phonology'': 9th Meeting of ACL Special Interest Group for Computational Morphology and Phonology} } @article{nettle07languageAndGenesPNAS, author={Daniel Nettle}, title={Language and genes: A new perspective on the origins of human cultural diversity}, journal={PNAS}, year={2007}, month={June}, volume={104}, number={26}, pages={10755-10756}, note={commentary}, doi={10.1073/pnas.0704517104}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nettle07languageAndGenesPNAS.html} } @incollection{nettle06costsAndBenefits, author={D. Nettle}, title={Language: Costs and benefits of a specialised system for social information transmission}, year={2006}, pages={137-152}, address={London}, editor={J. Wells and et al.}, publisher={Taylor & Francis}, booktitle={Social Information Transmission and Human Biology}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nettle06costsAndBenefits.html}, abstract={Language is often thought of as the crowning human adaptation, the one that allowed Homo sapiens sapiens to conquer the globe. The assumption underlying such ideas is that verbal transmission of information provides unalloyed benefits, by reducing the costs of learning about the environment. However, this raises the question of why no other species has discovered such a good trick. I argue that verbal transmission is only likely to be adaptive in a restricted range of circumstances. Even then, it cannot be exclusively relied on, and it causes problems of deceit and instances of maladaptation. We should expect natural selection to have made us discriminating evaluators of verbal information who ultimately trust the evidence of our senses. Nonetheless, once language has become widespread, it can increase human adaptability, by increasing the efficiency of individual learning.} } @book{nettle99linguisticDiversity, author={Daniel Nettle}, title={Linguistic Diversity}, year={1999}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nettle99linguisticDiversity.html} } @article{nettle99socialImpact, author={Daniel Nettle}, title={Using Social Impact Theory to simulate language change}, journal={Lingua}, year={1999}, month={June}, volume={108}, number={2-3}, pages={95-117}, doi={10.1016/S0024-3841(98)00046-1}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nettle99socialImpact.html}, keywords={Language change; Social networks; Actuation problem, Computer simulation}, abstract={This paper presents a framework for simulating language change in social networks derived from Social Impact Theory. In this framework, the language learner samples the speech of individuals from right across his speech community, though he may weight their input differentially according to their social position. This conceptualisation is argued to be more realistic than that provided by other models. Computer simulations are used to investigate the effects on language change of different social structures and biases in language acquisition. From the results of these simulations, it is argued that the fundamental engine driving language change is the combination of inherent variation in language acquisition and differences between individuals in local social influence. Functional biases attaching to different linguistic variants influence the direction of language change.} } @article{nettle99linguisticChange, author={D. Nettle}, title={Is the rate of linguistic change constant?}, journal={Lingua}, year={1999}, month={June}, volume={108}, number={2}, pages={119-136}, doi={10.1016/S0024-3841(98)00047-3}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nettle99linguisticChange.html}, keywords={Language change; Lexicostatistics; Word order; Computer simulation}, abstract={The computer simulation of language change in a finite, structured population which was presented in an earlier paper ('Using Social Impact Theory to simulate language change', Lingua 108, 95-117, 1999), is here extended to speech communities of different sizes. On the basis of the results it is proposed (a) that language change may be faster in small communities; (b) that linguistic borrowing is one sense more likely in small communities; and (c) that the evolution of linguistically marked structures is more likely in small communities. It is argued that these three generalisations could be used to make sense of the different patterns of linguistic diversity observed in the Old and New Worlds, and the distribution of marked word orders in the world's languages.} } @article{nettle98coevolution, author={D. Nettle}, title={Coevolution of phonology and the lexicon in twelve languages of West Africa}, journal={Journal of Quantitative Linguistics}, year={1998}, volume={5}, number={3}, pages={240-245}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nettle98coevolution.html}, abstract={Synergetic models of language structure predict that the length of a word will depend upon various parameters such as its frequency and the number of phonemes in the language. This prediction has been used to explain word length differences within languages, but less often to explain the differences between languages. Here I show that average word length across 12 West African languages is related to the size of the phonological inventory. This is an apparent example of the adaptation of language structure to the efficient communication of information. The hypothesised mechanism by which the relationship evolves are outlined.} } @article{nettle98languageDiversity, author={D. Nettle}, title={Explaining global patterns of language diversity}, journal={Journal of Anthropological Archaeology}, year={1998}, month={December}, volume={17}, number={4}, pages={354-74}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nettle98languageDiversity.html}, abstract={The six and a half thousand languages spoken by humankind are very unevenly distributed across the globe. Language diversity generally increases as one moves from the poles toward the equator and is very low in arid environments. Two belts of extremely high language diversity can be identified. One runs through West and Central Africa, while the other covers South and South-East Asia and the Pacific. Most of the world's languages are found in these two areas. This paper attempts to explain aspects of the global distribution of language diversity. It is proposed that a key factor influencing it has been climatic variability. Where the climate allows continuous food production throughout the year, small groups of people can be reliably self-sufficient and so populations fragment into many small languages. Where the variability of the climate is greater, the size of social network necessary for reliable subsistence is larger, and so languages tend to be more widespread. A regression analysis relating the number of languages spoken in the major tropical countries to the variability of their climates is performed and the results support the hypothesis. The geographical patterning of languages has, however, begun to be destroyed by the spread of Eurasian diseases, Eurasian people, and the world economy.} } @article{nettle96languageDiversityJAA, author={D. Nettle}, title={Language Diversity in West Africa: An Ecological Approach}, journal={Journal of Anthropological Archaeology}, year={1996}, month={December}, volume={15}, number={4}, pages={403--438}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nettle96languageDiversityJAA.html}, abstract={Analysis of a linguistic atlas reveals an ecological gradient in the diversity of languages in West Africa. As one moves south from arid into lusher ecoclimatic zones, the average size of ethnolinguistic groups decreases. Various factors are considered which may have contributed to this distribution. I argue that the ethnolinguistic map is primarily a reflection of the systems of generalized exchange and mutual dependence into which people enter. It is hypothesized that such social networks function to reduce subsistence risk due to variations in the food supply. If this hypothesis is correct, the average size of ethnolinguistic groups should be inversely proportional to the degree of ecological variability they face. This prediction is tested and found to hold strongly for a large part of West Africa. There is also limited evidence of a correlation between linguistic diversity and topography. It is concluded that ecological risk has been a key historical force in West Africa and that the ethnolinguistic mosaic can be used as a valuable 'fossil record' of people's adaptive social and economic strategies.} } @inproceedings{neumann96makingInfrastructure, author={L. Neumann and S. L. Star}, title={Making infrastructure: the dream of a common language}, year={1996}, pages={231-40}, address={Palo Alto, CA}, publisher={Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility/ACM}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Fourth Biennial Participatory Design Conference (PDC'96)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/neumann96makingInfrastructure.html} } @incollection{newmeyer02whatCan, author={Frederick J. Newmeyer}, title={What Can the Field of Linguistics Tell Us About the Evolution of Language?}, year={2003}, editor={M.H. Christiansen and S. Kirby}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Evolution: The States of the Art}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/newmeyer02whatCan.html} } @incollection{newmeyer02uniformitarianAssumptions, author={Frederick J. Newmeyer}, title={Uniformitarian Assumptions and Language Evolution Research}, year={2002}, address={Oxford}, chapter={17}, editor={Alison Wray}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={The Transition to Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/newmeyer02uniformitarianAssumptions.html} } @article{newmeyer00review, author={Frederick J. Newmeyer}, title={Review of three book-length studies of language evolution}, journal={Journal of Linguistics}, year={2000}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/newmeyer00review.html} } @incollection{newmeyer00onThe, author={F. J. Newmeyer}, title={On the reconstruction of 'Proto-world' word order}, year={2000}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Chris Knight and James R. Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/newmeyer00onThe.html} } @incollection{newmeyer98onThe, author={F. J. Newmeyer}, title={On the supposed 'counterfunctionality' of universal grammar: Some evolutionary considerations}, year={1998}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/newmeyer98onThe.html} } @article{newmeyer91functional, author={F. J. Newmeyer}, title={Functional explanation in linguistics and the origins of language}, journal={Language and Communication}, year={1991}, volume={11}, number={1-2}, pages={3-28}, doi={10.1016/0271-5309(91)90011-J}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/newmeyer91functional.html}, abstract={It is necessary to relate functional explanations to the whole issue of innateness, which has been so crucial in the development of formal explanations in linguistics. For instance, it is not excluded that functional principles might be innate.... This raises the interesting question of how innate ideas turn out to be `correct' (more accurately, functionally valuable) ideas, as the result of selectional pressure in evolution. (Comrie, 1983, p. 99.)} } @incollection{nicholls06phylogeneticMethods, author={Geoff K. Nicholls and Russell D. Gray}, title={Quantifying Uncertainty in a Stochastic Model of Vocabulary Evolution}, year={2006}, pages={161-}, chapter={14}, editor={Peter Forster and Colin Renfrew}, publisher={}, booktitle={Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nicholls06phylogeneticMethods.html} } @incollection{nichols06phylogeneticMethods, author={Johanna Nichols}, title={Quasi-cognates and Lexical Type Shifts: Rigorous Distance Measures for Long-range Comparison}, year={2006}, pages={57-}, chapter={5}, editor={Peter Forster and Colin Renfrew}, publisher={}, booktitle={Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nichols06phylogeneticMethods.html} } @article{nickles07JASSS, author={Matthias Nickles and Michael Rovatsos and Marco Schmitt and Wilfried Brauer and Felix Fischer and Thomas Malsch and Kai Paetow and Gerhard Weiss}, title={The Empirical Semantics Approach to Communication Structure Learning and Usage: Individualistic Vs. Systemic Views}, journal={Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation}, year={2007}, volume={10}, number={1}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nickles07JASSS.html}, keywords={Agent Communication, Open Multiagent Systems, Social Systems Theory, Symbolic Interactionism, Pragmatism, Computational Pragmatics}, abstract={In open systems of artificial agents, the meaning of communication in part emerges from ongoing interaction processes. In this paper, we present the empirical semantics approach to inductive derivation of communication semantics that can be used to derive this emergent semantics of communication from observations. The approach comes in two complementary variants: One uses social systems theory, focusing on system expectation structures and global utility maximisation, and the other is based on symbolic interactionism, focusing on the viewpoint and utility maximisation of the individual agent. Both these frameworks make use of the insight that the most general meaning of agent utterances lies in their expectable consequences in terms of observable events, and thus they strongly demarcate themselves from traditional approaches to the semantics and pragmatics of agent communication languages.} } @book{niyogi_book, author={Partha Niyogi}, title={The Computational Nature of Language Learning and Evolution}, year={2006}, month={April}, address={Cambridge, MA}, publisher={MIT Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/niyogi_book.html} } @incollection{niyogi04phaseTransitions, author={P. Niyogi}, title={Phase Transitions in Language Evolution}, year={2004}, editor={L. Jenkins}, publisher={Elsevier Press}, booktitle={Variation and Universals in Biolinguistics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/niyogi04phaseTransitions.html}, abstract={Language is transmitted from one generation to the next via learning by individuals. By taking this point of view one is able to link the linguistic behavior of successive generations and therefore study how language evolves over generational time scales. We provide a brief overview of this approach to the study of language evolution, its formalization as a dynamical system, and the analogical connections to the methodological principles of evolutionary biology. We show how the interplay between learning and evolution can be quite subtle and how phase transitions arise in many such models of language evolution. Such phase transitions may provide a suitable theoretical construct with which explanations for rapid language change or evolution may be given. Some illustrative examples are provided.} } @incollection{niyogi02digs, author={P. Niyogi}, title={The Computational Study of Diachronic Linguistics}, year={2002}, editor={D. Lightfoot}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Syntactic Effects of Morphological Change}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/niyogi02digs.html} } @incollection{niyogi02theoriesOf, author={P. Niyogi}, title={Theories of cultural evolution and their application to language evolution}, year={2002}, chapter={7}, editor={Ted Briscoe}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Linguistic Evolution through Language Acquisition: Formal and Computational Models}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/niyogi02theoriesOf.html} } @inproceedings{niyogi97modelingThe, author={P. Niyogi}, title={Modeling the Dynamics of Historical Linguistics}, year={1997}, month={Sept}, address={Nashua, NH}, booktitle={New England Conference on Complex Systems}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/niyogi97modelingThe.html} } @article{niyogi98theLogical, author={P. Niyogi and R. C. Berwick}, title={The Logical Problem of Language Change: A Case Study of European Portuguese}, journal={Syntax: A Journal of Theoretical, Experimental, and Interdisciplinary Research}, year={1998}, month={August}, volume={1}, number={2}, pages={192-205}, doi={10.1111/1467-9612.00007}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/niyogi98theLogical.html}, abstract={In this article we present new results of a novel computational approach to the interaction of two important cognitive-linguistic phenomena: (1) language learning; and (2) language change over time (diachronic linguistics). We exploit the insight that while language learning takes place at the individual level, language change is more properly regarded as an ensemble property that takes place at the level of populations of language learners. We show by analytical and computer simulation methods that language learning can be regarded as the driving force behind a dynamical systems account of language change. We apply this model to the specific case of historical change from Classical Portuguese to European Portuguese, demonstrating how a particular language learning model coupled with data on the differences between Classical and European Portuguese leads to specific predictions for possible language-change envelopes. The main investigative message of this paper is to show how this methodology can be applied to a specific case, that of Portuguese. The main moral underscores the individual/population difference; we show that simply because an individual will choose a particular grammar does not mean that all other grammars will be eliminated.} } @article{niyogi97evolutionaryConsequences, author={P. Niyogi and R. C. Berwick}, title={Evolutionary Consequences of Language Learning}, journal={Linguistics and Philosophy}, year={1997}, volume={20}, number={6}, pages={697-719}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/niyogi97evolutionaryConsequences.html}, abstract={Linguists' intuitions about language change can be captured by a dynamical systems model derived from the dynamics of language acquisition. Rather than having to posit a separate model for diachronic change, as has sometimes been done by drawing on assumptions from population biology (cf. Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman, 1973; 1981; Kroch, 1990), this new model dispenses with these independent assumptions by showing how the behavior of individual language learners leads to emergent, global population characteristics of linguistic communities over several generations. As the simplest case, we formalize the example of two grammars and show that even this situation leads directly to a nonlinear (quadratic) dynamical system. We study this one parameter model in a variety of situations for different kinds of acquisition algorithms and maturational times, showing how different learning theories can have very different evolutionary consequences. This allows us to formulate an evolutionary criterion for the adequacy of grammatical and learning theories. An application of the computational model to the historical loss of Verb Second from Old French to Modern French is described showing how otherwise adequate grammatical theories might fail the evolutionary criterion.} } @article{niyogi97aDynamical, author={P. Niyogi and R. C. Berwick}, title={A Dynamical Systems Model for Language Change}, journal={Complex Systems}, year={1997}, volume={11}, pages={161-204}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/niyogi97aDynamical.html} } @inproceedings{niyogi97populationsOf, author={P. Niyogi and Robert C. Berwick}, title={Populations of Learners: The Case of European Portuguese}, year={1997}, month={August}, address={Stanford, CA}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/niyogi97populationsOf.html} } @article{niyogi96aLanguage, author={P. Niyogi and R. C. Berwick}, title={A Language Learning Model for Finite Parameter Spaces}, journal={Cognition}, year={1996}, volume={61}, number={1-2}, pages={161-193}, doi={10.1016/S0010-0277(96)00718-4}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/niyogi96aLanguage.html}, abstract={This paper shows how to formally characterize language learning in a finite parameter space, for instance, in the principles-and-parameters approach to language, as a Markov structure. New language learning results follow directly; we can explicitly calculate how many positive examples on average (``sample complexity'') it will take for a learner to correctly identify a target language with high probability. We show how sample complexity varies with input distributions and learning regimes. In particular we find that the average time to converge under reasonable language input distributions for a simple three-parameter system first described by Gibson and Wexler (1994) is psychologically plausible, in the range of 100-150 positive examples. We further find that a simple random step algorithm - that is, simply jumping from one language hypothesis to another rather than changing one parameter at a time - works faster and always converges to the right target language, in contrast to the single-step, local parameter setting method advocated in some recent work.} } @techreport{niyogi95theLogical, author={P. Niyogi and R. C. Berwick}, title={The Logical Problem of Language Change}, year={1995}, month={July}, institution={AI Lab, MIT}, note={AI Memo-1516}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/niyogi95theLogical.html}, abstract={This paper considers the problem of language change. Linguists must explain not only how languages are learned but also how and why they have evolved along certain trajectories and not others. While the language learning problem has focused on the behavior of individuals and how they acquire a particular grammar from a class of grammars $cal G$, here we consider a population of such learners and investigate the emergent, global population characteristics of linguistic communities over several generations. We argue that language change follows logically from specific assumptions about grammatical theories and learning paradigms. In particular, we are able to transform parameterized theories and memoryless acquisition algorithms into grammatical dynamical systems, whose evolution depicts a population's evolving linguistic composition. We investigate the linguistic and computational consequences of this model, showing that the formalization allows one to ask questions about diachronic that one otherwise could not ask, such as the effect of varying initial conditions on the resulting diachronic trajectories. From a more programmatic perspective, we give an example of how the dynamical system model for language change can serve as a way to distinguish among alternative grammatical theories, introducing a formal diachronic adequacy criterion for linguistic theories} } @incollection{noble00coOperation, author={J. Noble}, title={Co-operation, competition and the evolution of pre-linguistic communication}, year={2000}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Chris Knight and James R. Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/noble00coOperation.html} } @inproceedings{noble00talkIs, author={J. Noble}, title={Talk is cheap: Evolved strategies for communication and action in asymmetrical animal contests}, year={2000}, pages={481-490}, address={Honolulu, Hawaii}, editor={J.-A. Meyer and A. Berthoz and D. Floreano and H. Roitblat and S. Wilson}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={SAB00}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/noble00talkIs.html} } @article{noble99cooperationConflict, author={J. Noble}, title={Cooperation, conflict and the evolution of communication}, journal={Adaptive Behavior}, year={1999}, volume={7}, number={3/4}, pages={349-370}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/noble99cooperationConflict.html} } @inproceedings{noble99sexualSignalling, author={Jason Noble}, title={Sexual Signalling in an Artificial Population: When Does the Handicap Principle Work?}, year={1999}, pages={644-653}, address={Berlin}, editor={D. Floreano and J. Nicoud and F. Mondada}, publisher={Springer-Verlag}, booktitle={ECAL99}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/noble99sexualSignalling.html} } @phdthesis{noble98theEvolution, author={J. Noble}, title={The Evolution of Animal Communication Systems: Questions of Function Examined through Simulation}, year={1998}, address={Brighton, UK}, school={School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences, University of Sussex}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/noble98theEvolution.html}, abstract={Simulated evolution is used as a tool for investigating the selective pressures that have influenced the design of animal signalling systems. The biological literature on communication is first reviewed: central concepts such as the handicap principle and the view of signalling as manipulation are discussed. The equation of ``biological function'' with ``adaptive value'' is then defended, along with a workable definition of communication. Evolutionary simulation models are advocated as a way of testing the coherence of a given theory. Contra some ALife enthusiasts, simulations are not alternate worlds worthy of independent study; in fact they fit naturally into a Quinean picture of scientific knowledge as a web of modifiable propositions. Existing simulation work on the evolution of communication is reviewed: much of it consists of simple proofs of concept that fail to make connections with existing theory. A particular model (MacLennan and Burghardt, 1994) of the evolution of referential communication in a co-operative context is replicated and critiqued in detail.

Evolutionary simulations are then presented that cover a range of ecological scenarios; the first is a general model of food- and alarm-calling. In such situations signallers and receivers can have common or conflicting interests; the model allows us to test the idea that a conflict of interests will lead to an arms race of ever more costly signals, whereas common interests will result in signals that are as cheap as possible. The second model is concerned with communication during aggressive interactions. Many animals use signals to settle contests, thus avoiding the costs associated with fighting. Conventional game-theoretic results suggest that the signalling of aggression or of strength will not be evolutionarily stable unless it is physically unfakeable, but some recent models imply that cost-free, arbitrary signals can be reliable indicators of both intent and ability. The simulation, which features continuous-time perception of the opponent's strategy, is an attempt to settle the question. The third model deals with sexual signalling, i.e., elaborate displays that are designed to persuade members of the opposite sex to mate. The results clarify the question of whether such displays are the pointless result of runaway sexual selection, or whether they function as honest and costly indicators of genetic quality.

The models predict the evolution of reliable communication in a surprisingly narrow range of circumstances; a serious gap remains between these predictions and the ethological data. Future directions for simulation work are discussed.} } @inproceedings{noble98evolvedSignals, author={J. Noble}, title={Evolved Signals: Expensive Hype vs. Conspirational Whispers}, year={1998}, pages={358-67}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={C. Adami and R. Belew and H. Kitano and C. Taylor}, publisher={MIT Press.}, booktitle={Artificial Life VI}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/noble98evolvedSignals.html} } @inproceedings{noble96onSimulating, author={J. Noble and D. Cliff}, title={On simulating the evolution of communication}, year={1996}, address={Cambridge MA}, editor={Maes, P. and Mataric, M. and Meyer, J.-A. and Pollack, J. and Wilson, S. W.}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={SAB96}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/noble96onSimulating.html} } @incollection{noble01adaptiveFactors, author={J. Noble and E. A. Di Paolo and S. Bullock}, title={Adaptive Factors in the Evolution of Signaling Systems}, year={2002}, pages={53-78}, address={London}, chapter={3}, editor={Angelo Cangelosi and Domenico Parisi}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Simulating the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/noble01adaptiveFactors.html} } @article{Nolfi05embodiedAgents, author={Stefano Nolfi}, title={Emergence of communication in embodied agents: co-adapting communicative and non-communicative behaviours}, journal={Connection Science}, year={2005}, month={December}, volume={17}, number={3-4}, pages={231-248}, doi={10.1080/09540090500177554}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Nolfi05embodiedAgents.html}, keywords={Communication, Language evolution, Adaptive behaviour}, abstract={In this paper, I discuss in which conditions a population of embodied and situated agents that have to solve problems that require co-operation might develop forms of ritualized interaction and communication. After reviewing the most relevant literature, I shall try to identify the main open research problems and the most promising research directions. More specifically, I shall discuss: (a) the type of problems, the agents’ characteristics and the environmental/social conditions that might facilitate the emergence of an ability to interact and communicate; and (b) the behavioural and cognitive capabilities that are crucial for the development of forms of communication of different complexity.} } @article{noll03digitalOrigin, author={Hans Noll}, title={The digital origin of human language - a synthesis}, journal={BioEssays}, year={2003}, month={May}, volume={25}, number={5}, pages={489-500}, doi={10.1002/bies.10281}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/noll03digitalOrigin.html}, abstract={The fact that all languages known are digital poses the question of their origin. The answer developed here treats language as the interface of information theory and molecular development by showing previously unrecognized isomorphisms between the analog and digital features of language and life at the molecular level. Human language is a special case of signal transduction and hence is subject to the coding aspects of Shannon's theorems and the analog aspects of pattern recognition, each represented by genotype and phenotype. Digital language acquisition is late in evolution and postnatal development and requires a neural reorganization by a mechanism of somatic network programming in response to the environment. Such a mechanism would solve the Chomsky conundrum of how children can learn any language without knowing rules of grammar too numerous to be encoded genotypically. BioEssays} } @book{nowak06evolutionaryDynamicsBOOK, author={Martin A. Nowak}, title={Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life}, year={2006}, publisher={Harvard University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nowak06evolutionaryDynamicsBOOK.html} } @article{nowak02fromQuasispecies, author={M. A. Nowak}, title={From quasispecies to universal grammar}, journal={Z. Phys. Chem.}, year={2002}, volume={16}, pages={5-20}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nowak02fromQuasispecies.html}, abstract={The perspective of this paper is to compare mathematical models for the evolutionary dynamics of genomes and languages. The quasispecies equation describes the evolution of genetic sequences under the influence of mutation and selection. A central result is an error threshold which specifies the minimum replication accuracy required for maintaining genetic information of a certain length. The language equation describes the evolution of communication, including the cultural evolution of grammar and the biological evolution of universal grammar. A central result is a coherence threshold which specifies certain conditions that universal grammar has to fulfill in order to induce coherent communication in a population.} } @article{nowak00homo, author={M. A. Nowak}, title={Homo grammaticus}, journal={Natural History}, year={2000}, month={December}, volume={109}, pages={36-44}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nowak00homo.html} } @article{nowak00theBasic, author={M. A. Nowak}, title={The basic reproductive ratio of a word, the maximum size of a lexicon}, journal={Journal of Theoretical Biology}, year={2000}, month={May}, volume={204}, number={2}, pages={179-189}, doi={10.1006/jtbi.2000.1085}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nowak00theBasic.html}, abstract={Language is about words and rules. While there is some discussion to what extent rules are learned or innate, it is clear that words have to be learned. Here I construct a mathematical framework for the population dynamics of language evolution with particular emphasis on how words are propagated over generations. I define the basic reproductive ratio of word, R, and show that R>1 is required for words to be maintained in the lexicon of a language. Assuming that the frequency distribution of words follow Zipf's law, an upper limit is obtained for the number of words in a language that relies exclusively on oral transmission.} } @article{nowak00evolutionaryBiology, author={M. A. Nowak}, title={Evolutionary biology of language}, journal={Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences}, year={2000}, month={11}, volume={355}, number={1403}, pages={1615-1622}, doi={10.1098/rstb.2000.0723}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nowak00evolutionaryBiology.html}, keywords={evolution; game theory; animal communication; human language}, abstract={Language is the most important evolutionary invention of the last few million years. It was an adaptation that helped our species to exchange information, make plans, express new ideas and totally change the appearance of the planet. How human language evolved from animal communication is one of the most challenging questions for evolutionary biology. The aim of this paper is to outline the major principles that guided language evolution in terms of mathematical models of evolutionary dynamics and game theory. I will discuss how natural selection can lead to the emergence of arbitrary signs, the formation of words and syntactic communication.} } @incollection{nowak03evolutionOfAltruism, author={M. A. Nowak and N. L. Komarova}, title={The evolution of altruism: from game theory to human language}, year={2005}, editor={C. Harper}, publisher={Templeton Foundation Press}, booktitle={Spiritual Information: 100 perspectives}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nowak03evolutionOfAltruism.html} } @article{nowak01towardsAn, author={M. A. Nowak and N. L. Komarova}, title={Towards an evolutionary theory of language}, journal={Trends in Cognitive Sciences}, year={2001}, volume={5}, number={7}, pages={288-295}, doi={10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01683-1}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nowak01towardsAn.html}, abstract={Language is a biological trait that radically changed the performance of one species and the appearance of the planet. Understanding how human language came about is one of the most interesting tasks for evolutionary biology. Here we discuss how natural selection can guide the emergence of some basic features of human language, including arbitrary signs, words, syntactic communication and grammar. We show how natural selection can lead to the duality of patterning of human language: sequences of phonemes form words; sequences of words form sentences. Finally, we present a framework for the population dynamics of grammar acquisition, which allows us to study the cultural evolution of grammar and the biological evolution of universal grammar.} } @article{nowak02computationalAnd, author={M. A. Nowak and N. L. Komarova and P. Niyogi}, title={Computational and evolutionary aspects of language}, journal={Nature}, year={2002}, month={June}, day={6}, volume={417}, pages={611-617}, doi={10.1038/nature00771}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nowak02computationalAnd.html}, abstract={Language is our legacy. It is the main evolutionary contribution of humans, and perhaps the most interesting trait that has emerged in the past 500 million years. Understanding how darwinian evolution gives rise to human language requires the integration of formal language theory, learning theory and evolutionary dynamics. Formal language theory provides a mathematical description of language and grammar. Learning theory formalizes the task of language acquisition--it can be shown that no procedure can learn an unrestricted set of languages. Universal grammar specifies the restricted set of languages learnable by the human brain. Evolutionary dynamics can be formulated to describe the cultural evolution of language and the biological evolution of universal grammar.} } @article{nowak01evolutionOf, author={M. A. Nowak and N. L. Komarova and P. Niyogi}, title={Evolution of universal grammar}, journal={Science}, year={2001}, volume={291}, pages={114-118}, doi={10.1126/science.291.5501.114}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nowak01evolutionOf.html}, abstract={Universal grammar specifies the mechanism of language acquisition. It determines the range of grammatical hypothesis that children entertain during language learning and the procedure they use for evaluating input sentences. How universal grammar arose is a major challenge for evolutionary biology. We present a mathematical framework for the evolutionary dynamics of grammar learning. The central result is a coherence threshold, which specifies the condition for a universal grammar to induce coherent communication within a population. We study selection of grammars within the same universal grammar and competition between different universal grammars. We calculate the condition under which natural selection favors the emergence of rule-based, generative grammars that underlie complex language.} } @article{nowak99theEvolution, author={M. A. Nowak and D. Krakauer}, title={The evolution of language}, journal={PNAS}, year={1999}, volume={96}, number={14}, pages={8028-8033}, doi={10.1073/pnas.96.14.8028}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nowak99theEvolution.html}, abstract={The emergence of language was a defining moment in the evolution of modern humans. It was an innovation that changed radically the character of human society. Here, we provide an approach to language evolution based on evolutionary game theory. We explore the ways in which protolanguages can evolve in a nonlinguistic society and how specific signals can become associated with specific objects. We assume that early in the evolution of language, errors in signaling and perception would be common. We model the probability of misunderstanding a signal and show that this limits the number of objects that can be described by a protolanguage. This 'error limit' is not overcome by employing more sounds but by combining a small set of more easily distinguishable sounds into words. The process of 'word formation' enables a language to encode an essentially unlimited number of objects. Next, we analyze how words can be combined into sentences and specify the conditions for the evolution of very simple grammatical rules. We argue that grammar originated as a simplified rule system that evolved by natural selection to reduce mistakes in communication. Our theory provides a systematic approach for thinking about the origin and evolution of human language.} } @article{nowak99anError, author={M. A. Nowak and D. Krakauer and A. Dress}, title={An error limit for the evolution of language}, journal={Proceedings of The Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences}, year={1999}, volume={266}, number={1433}, pages={2131-2136}, doi={10.1098/rspb.1999.0898}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nowak99anError.html}, abstract={On the evolutionary trajectory that led to human language there must have been a transition from a fairly limited to an essentially unlimited communication system. The structure of modern human languages reveals at least two steps that are required for such a transition: in all languages (i) a small number of phonemes are used to generate a large number of words; and (ii) a large number of words are used to a produce an unlimited number of sentences. The first (and simpler) step is the topic of the current paper. We study the evolution of communication in the presence of errors and show that this limits the number of objects (or concepts) that can be described by a simple communication system. The evolutionary optimum is achieved by using only a small number of signals to describe a few valuable concepts. Adding more signals does not increase the fitness of a language. This represents an error limit for the evolution of communication. We show that this error limit can be overcome by combining signals (phonemes) into words. The transition from an analogue to a digital system was a necessary step toward the evolution of human language.} } @article{nowak00theEvolution, author={M. A. Nowak and J. B. Plotkin and Vincent A. A. Jansen}, title={The evolution of syntactic communication}, journal={Nature}, year={2000}, month={March}, day={30}, volume={404}, pages={495-498}, doi={10.1038/35006635}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nowak00theEvolution.html}, abstract={Animal communication is typically non-syntactic, which means that signals refer to whole situations. Human language is syntactic, and signals consist of discrete components that have their own meaning. Syntax is a prerequisite for taking advantage of combinatorics, that is, 'making infinite use of finite means'. The vast expressive power of human language would be impossible without syntax, and the transition from non-syntactic to syntactic communication was an essential step in the evolution of human language. We aim to understand the evolutionary dynamics of this transition and to analyse how natural selection can guide it. Here we present a model for the population dynamics of language evolution, define the basic reproductive ratio of words and calculate the maximum size of a lexicon. Syntax allows larger repertoires and the possibility to formulate messages that have not been learned beforehand. Nevertheless, according to our model natural selection can only favour the emergence of syntax if the number of required signals exceeds a threshold value. This result might explain why only humans evolved syntactic communication and hence complex language.} } @article{nowak99theEvolutionary, author={M. A. Nowak and J. B. Plotkin and D. Krakauer}, title={The evolutionary language game}, journal={Journal of Theoretical Biology}, year={1999}, volume={200}, number={2}, pages={147-162}, doi={10.1006/jtbi.1999.0981}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/nowak99theEvolutionary.html}, abstract={We explore how evolutionary game dynamics have to be modified to accomodate a mathematical framework for the evolution of language. In particular, we are interested in the evolution of vocabulary, that is associations between signals and objects. We assume that successful communication contributes to biological fitness: individuals who communicate well leave more offspring. Children inherit from their parents a strategy for language learning (a language acquisition device). We consider three mechanisms whereby language is passed from one generation to the next: (i) parental learning: children learn the language of their parents; (ii) role model learning: children learn the language of individuals with a high payoff; and (iii) random learning: children learn the language of randomly chosen individuals. We show that parental and role model learning outperform random learning. Then we introduce mistakes in language learning and study how this process changes language over time. Mistakes increase the overall efficacy of parental and role model learning: in a world with errors evolutionary adaptation is more efficient. Our model also provides a simple explanation why homonomy is common while synonymy is rare.} } @article{odonnell05mathModels, author={Timothy J. O'Donnell and Marc D. Hauser and W. Tecumseh Fitch}, title={Using mathematical models of language experimentally}, journal={Trends in Cognitive Sciences}, year={2005}, month={June}, volume={9}, number={6}, pages={284-289}, doi={10.1016/j.tics.2005.04.011}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/odonnell05mathModels.html}, abstract={Understanding developmental and evolutionary aspects of the language faculty requires comparing adult languages users' abilities with those of non-verbal subjects, such as babies and non-human animals. Classically, comparative work in this area has relied on the rich theoretical frameworks developed by linguists in the generative grammar tradition. However, the great variety of generative theories and the fact that they are models of language specifically makes it difficult to know what to test in animals and children lacking the expressive abilities of normal, mature adults. We suggest that this problem can be mitigated by tapping equally rich, but more formal mathematical approaches to language.} } @inproceedings{oneill01evolvingMarket, author={Michael O'Neill and Anthony Brabazon and Conor Ryan and J. J. Collins}, title={Evolving Market Index Trading Rules Using Grammatical Evolution}, year={2001}, pages={343-352}, booktitle={EvoWorkshops 2001}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oneill01evolvingMarket.html} } @inproceedings{oneill00crossoverIn, author={Michael O'Neill and Conor Ryan}, title={Crossover in Grammatical Evolution: A Smooth Operator?}, year={2000}, pages={149-162}, booktitle={EuroGP 2000}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oneill00crossoverIn.html} } @inproceedings{oneill99geneticCode, author={Michael O'Neill and Conor Ryan}, title={Genetic Code Degeneracy: Implications for Grammatical Evolution and Beyond}, year={1999}, pages={149-153}, address={Berlin}, editor={D. Floreano and J. Nicoud and F. Mondada}, publisher={Springer-Verlag}, booktitle={ECAL99}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oneill99geneticCode.html} } @inproceedings{oneill01crossoverIn, author={Michael O'Neill and Conor Ryan and Maarten Keijzer and Mike Cattolico}, title={Crossover in Grammatical Evolution: The Search Continues}, year={2001}, pages={337-347}, booktitle={EuroGP 2001}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oneill01crossoverIn.html} } @techreport{oates99usingSyntax, author={Tim Oates and Zachary Eyler-Walker and Paul R. Cohen}, title={Using Syntax to Learn Semantics: An Experiment in Language Acquisition with a Mobile Robot}, year={1999}, institution={Computer Science Department, University of Massachusetts at Amherst}, note={Technical Report 99-35}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oates99usingSyntax.html} } @article{ofria02ieee, author={C. Ofria and C. Adami and T.C. Collier}, title={Design of Evolvable Computer Languages}, journal={IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation}, year={2002}, volume={6}, pages={420-424}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ofria02ieee.html}, keywords={Auto-adaptive systems, computer languages, digital life, evolvability, robustness}, abstract={We investigate common design decisions for constructing a computational genetic language in an autoadaptive system. Such languages must support self-replication and are typically Turing-complete so as not to limit the types of computations they can perform. We examine the importance of using templates to denote locations in the genome, the methods by which those templates are located (direct-matching versus complementmatching), methods used in the calculation of genome length and the size and complexity of the language. For each test, we examine the effects on the rate of evolution of the populations and isolate those factors that contribute to it, most notably the organisms’ ability to withstand mutations.} } @article{okanoya07neurobiologyOfLangEv, author={Kazuo Okanoya}, title={Language evolution and an emergent property.}, journal={Curr Opin Neurobiol}, year={2007}, month={Apr}, volume={17}, number={2}, pages={271--276}, doi={10.1016/j.conb.2007.03.011}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/okanoya07neurobiologyOfLangEv.html}, abstract={Much debate has been stimulated by the recent hypothesis that human language consists of a faculty that is shared with non-human animals (faculty of language in a broad sense; FLB) and a faculty that is specific to human language (faculty of language in a narrow sense; FLN). This hypothesis has encouraged a tendency to emphasize one component of FLN: the cognitive operation of recursion. In consequence, non-syntactical, yet unique, aspects of human language have been neglected. One of these properties consists of vocal learning that enables an abundance of learned syllables. I suggest that FLN is not an independent faculty, but an 'emergent' property, arising from interactions between several other non-syntactical subfaculties of FLB, including vocal learning ability.} } @incollection{okanoya02sexualDisplay, author={Kazuo Okanoya}, title={Sexual Display as a Syntactic Vehicle: The Evolution of Syntax in Birdsong and Human Language through Sexual Selection}, year={2002}, address={Oxford}, chapter={3}, editor={Alison Wray}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={The Transition to Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/okanoya02sexualDisplay.html} } @incollection{oliphant02learnedSystems, author={Michael Oliphant}, title={Learned systems of arbitrary reference: the foundation of human linguistic uniqueness}, year={2002}, chapter={2}, editor={Ted Briscoe}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Linguistic Evolution through Language Acquisition: Formal and Computational Models}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oliphant02learnedSystems.html}, abstract={While most work on the evolution of language has been centered on the evolution of syntax, my focus in this paper is instead on more basic features that separate human communication from the systems of communication used by other animals. In particular, I argue that human language is the only existing system of learned arbitrary reference. While innate communication systems are, by definition, directly transmitted genetically, the transmission of a learned systems must be indirect. Learners must acquire the system by being exposed its the use in the community. Although it is reasonable that a learner has access to the utterances that are produced, it is less clear how accessible the meaning is that the utterance is intended to convey. This particularly problematic if the system of communication is symbolic -- where form and meaning are linked in a purely conventional way. Given this, I propose that the ability to transmit a learned symbolic system of communication from one generation to the next represents a key milestone in the evolution of language.} } @article{oliphant99theLearning, author={M. Oliphant}, title={The learning barrier: Moving from innate to learned systems of communication}, journal={Adaptive Behavior}, year={1999}, volume={7}, number={3/4}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oliphant99theLearning.html}, abstract={Human language is a unique ability. It sits apart from other systems of communication in two striking ways: it is syntactic, and it is learned. While most approaches to the evolution of language have focused on the evolution of syntax, this paper explores the computational issues that arise in shifting from a simple innate communication system to an equally simple one that is learned. Associative network learning within an observational learning paradigm is used to explore the computational difficulties involved in establishing and maintaining a simple learned communication system. Because Hebbian learning is found to be sufficient for this task, it is proposed that the basic computational demands of learning are unlikely to account for the rarity of even simple learned communication systems. Instead, it is the problem of *observing* that is likely to be central -- in particular the problem of determining what meaning a signal is intended to convey.} } @phdthesis{oliphant97formalApproaches, author={M. Oliphant}, title={Formal Approaches to Innate and Learned Communication: Laying the Foundation for Language}, year={1997}, school={Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oliphant97formalApproaches.html}, abstract={This dissertation identifies the conditions necessary to establish a system of communication in a population of individuals, whether through evolution or learning. A definition of communication is proposed that encompasses the behavior of species ranging from flowers to human beings, and a formal framework for modeling such behavior is presented. Through the use of computational simulations, it is shown that systems of communication evolve in cases where such behavior conveys a selective advantage to both sender and receiver. It is also demonstrated that factors such as kin selection and reciprocal altruism can result in the establishment of communication even when there is no direct pressure on the transmission of signals. In the case of learned communication, it is argued that observational learning is the appropriate learning model. Learning strategies that simply imitate the behavior of others, however, are not suitable. Instead, a learning mechanism must optimize its behavior so as best to communicate with the population it is observing. A Bayesian learning procedure designed to maximize the probability of communicative success is shown to be capable not only of learning an existing communication system, but also constructing such a system from random initial signaling behavior. To examine how animals might actually implement such a procedure, network learning models are considered. It is shown that a simple form of Hebbian learning, well within the grasp of most animals, has the required properties. Given this, it is surprising that learned systems of communication are not more frequent. Evidence from the animal social learning literature suggests that the primary reason for this may be that observational learning is difficult, if not impossible, for non-human animals. Given this, he most basic explanation for why only humans have language may not lie in the ability of learn a complex, syntactic form of communication, but rather in the ability to learn any system of communication at all.} } @article{oliphant96theDilemma, author={M. Oliphant}, title={The dilemma of Saussurean communication}, journal={Biosystems}, year={1996}, volume={37}, number={1-2}, pages={31-38}, doi={10.1016/0303-2647(95)01543-4}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oliphant96theDilemma.html}, abstract={A Saussurean communication system exists when an entire communicating population uses a single ``language'' that maps states unambiguously onto symbols and then back into the original states. This paper describes a number of simulations performed with a genetic algorithm to investigate the conditions necessary for such communication systems to evolve. The first simulation shows that Saussurean communication evolves in the simple case where direct selective pressure is placed on individuals to be both good transmitters and good receivers. The second simulation demonstrates that, in the more realistic case where selective pressure is only placed on doing well as a receiver, Saussurean communication fails to evolve. Two methods, inspired by research on the Prisoner's Dilemma, are used to attempt to solve this problem. The third simulation shows that, even in the absence of selective pressure on transmission, Saussurean communication can evolve if individuals interact multiple times with the same communication partner and are given the ability to respond differentially based on past interaction. In the fourth simulation, spatially organized populations are used, and it is shown that this allows Saussurean communication to evolve through kin selection.} } @article{oliphant97learningAnd, author={M. Oliphant and J. Batali}, title={Learning and the emergence of coordinated communication}, journal={The newsletter of the Center for Research in Language}, year={1997}, volume={11}, number={1}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oliphant97learningAnd.html}, abstract={If the members of a population of animals are to enjoy the benefit that might accrue from the exchange of information, their communicative behavior must be coordinated -- most of the time that an animal sends a signal in some type of situation, others respond to the signal in a manner appropriate to the situation that inspired it. We investigate how coordinated communication could emerge among animals capable of producing and responding to simple signals, and how such coordination could be maintained, when new members of a population learn to communicate by observing the other members. We describe a learning procedure that enables an individual to achieve the maximum possible accuracy in communicating with a given population. If all new members of the population use this procedure, or one of the approximations to it we describe, the coordination of the population's communication will steadily increase, ultimately yielding a highly coordinated system. Our results are derived mathematically from a formal model of simple communication systems. We illustrate these results with computational simulations. and discuss their biological plausibility and their relevance to more complex communication systems, including human language.} } @incollection{oller04underpinnings, author={D. Kimbrough Oller}, title={Underpinnings for a Theory of Communicative Evolution}, year={2004}, pages={49-66}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oller04underpinnings.html} } @incollection{oller04concludingRemarks, author={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, title={Directions for Research in Comparative Communication Systems}, year={2004}, pages={325-332}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oller04concludingRemarks.html} } @book{oller-griebel-2004-editedbook, title={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, year={2004}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={MIT Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ollergriebel2004editedbook.html} } @incollection{oller04intro, author={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, title={Theoretical and Methodological Tools for Comparison and Evolutionary Modeling of Communication Systems}, year={2004}, pages={3-12}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oller04intro.html} } @book{oudeyer06bookSpeech, author={Pierre-Yves Oudeyer}, title={Self-Organization in the Evolution of Speech}, year={2006}, series={Studies in the Evolution of Language}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyer06bookSpeech.html} } @inproceedings{oudeyer05EELC, author={Pierre-Yves Oudeyer}, title={From vocal replication to shared combinatorial speech codes: a small step for evolution, a big step for language}, year={2005}, editor={Lyon, C. and Nehaniv L. and A. Cangelosi}, series={Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, publisher={Springer-Verlag. Berlin}, booktitle={Second International Symposium on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyer05EELC.html}, abstract={In this chapter, we show that from a minimal neural kit for vocal replication, a shared combinatorial speech code with structural regularities and diversity spontaneously self-organizes in a population of agents. This allows to understand that the evolutionary step from vocal replication systems to modern human speech systems might have been rather small.} } @article{oudeyer05jtb, author={P-Y. Oudeyer}, title={The Self-Organization of Speech Sounds}, journal={Journal of Theoretical Biology}, year={2005}, volume={233}, number={3}, pages={435--449}, doi={10.1016/j.jtbi.2004.10.025}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyer05jtb.html}, keywords={origins of speech sounds, self-organization, evolution, forms, artificial systems, artificial systems, phonetics, phonology}, abstract={The speech code is a vehicle of language: it defines a set of forms used by a community to carry information. Such a code is necessary to support the linguistic interactions that allow humans to communicate. How then may a speech code be formed prior to the existence of linguistic interactions? Moreover, the human speech code is discrete and compositional, shared by all the individuals of a community but different across communities, and phoneme inventories are characterized by statistical regularities. How can a speech code with these properties form? We try to approach these questions in the paper, using the `methodology of the artificial'. We build a society of artificial agents, and detail a mechanism that shows the formation of a discrete speech code without pre-supposing the existence of linguistic capacities or of coordinated interactions. The mechanism is based on a low-level model of sensory-motor interactions. We show that the integration of certain very simple and non language-specific neural devices leads to the formation of a speech code that has properties similar to the human speech code. This result relies on the self-organizing properties of a generic coupling between perception and production within agents, and on the interactions between agents. The artificial system helps us to develop better intuitions on how speech might have appeared, by showing how self-organization might have helped natural selection to find speech.} } @article{oudeyer05phonologicalStructuresABJ, author={Pierre-Yves Oudeyer}, title={How Phonological Structures Can Be Culturally Selected for Learnability}, journal={Adaptive Behavior}, year={2005}, volume={13}, number={4}, pages={269-280}, doi={10.1177/105971230501300407}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyer05phonologicalStructuresABJ.html}, keywords={origins of speech, evolution, acquisition, constraint, phonetics, phonology, learnability}, abstract={This paper shows how phonological structures can be culturally selected so as to become learnable and adapted to the ecological niche formed by the brains and bodies of speakers. A computational model of the cultural formation of syllable systems illustrates how general learning and physical biases can influence the evolution of the structure of vocalization systems. We use the artificial life methodology of building a society of artificial agents, equipped with motor, perceptual and cognitive systems that are generic and have a realistic complexity. We demonstrate that agents, playing the ''imitation game,'' build shared syllable systems and show how these syllable systems relate to existing human syllable systems. Detailed experiments study the learnability of the self-organized syllable systems. In particular, we reproduce the critical period effect and the artificial language learning effect without the need for innate biases which specify explicitly in advance the form of possible phonological structures. The ability of children agents to learn syllable systems is explained by the cultural evolutionary history of these syllable systems, which were selected for learnability.} } @incollection{oudeyer05holisticToDiscrete, author={P-Y. Oudeyer}, title={From Holistic to Discrete Speech Sounds: The Blind Snow-Flake Maker Hypothesis}, year={2005}, pages={68-99}, chapter={4}, editor={M. Tallerman}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyer05holisticToDiscrete.html}, abstract={Sound is a medium used by humans to carry information. The existence of this kind of medium is a pre-requisite for language. It is organized into a code, called speech, which provides a repertoire of forms that is shared in each language community. This code is necessary to support the linguistic interactions that allow humans to communicate. How then may a speech code be formed prior to the existence of linguistic interactions? Moreover, the human speech code is characterized by several properties: speech is digital and compositional (vocalizations are made of units re-used systematically in other syllables); phoneme inventories have precise regularities as well as great diversity in human languages; all the speakers of a language community categorize sounds in the same manner, but each language has its own system of categorization, possibly very different from every other. How can a speech code with these properties form? These are the questions we will approach in the paper. We will study them using the method of the artificial. We will build a society of artificial agents, and study what mechanisms may provide answers. This will not prove directly what mechanisms were used for humans, but rather give ideas about what kind of mechanism may have been used. This allows us to shape the search space of possible answers, in particular by showing what is sufficient and what is not necessary. The mechanism we present is based on a low-level model of sensorymotor interactions. We show that the integration of certain very simple and non language-specific neural devices allows a population of agents to build a speech code that has the properties mentioned above. The originality is that it pre-supposes neither a functional pressure for communication, nor the ability to have coordinated social interactions (they do not play language or imitation games). It relies on the self-organizing properties of a generic coupling between perception and production both within agents, and on the interactions between agents.} } @article{oudeyer05combinatorialityAndPhonotactics, author={Pierre-Yves Oudeyer}, title={The self-organization of combinatoriality and phonotactics in vocalization systems}, journal={Connection Science}, year={2005}, month={December}, volume={17}, number={3-4}, pages={325-341}, doi={10.1080/09540090500217145}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyer05combinatorialityAndPhonotactics.html}, keywords={Origins of speech, Self-organization, Evolution, Phonetics, Phonology, Combinatoriality}, abstract={This paper shows how a society of agents can self-organize a shared vocalization system that is discrete, combinatorial and has a form of primitive phonotactics, starting from holistic inarticulate vocalizations. The originality of the system is that: (1) it does not include any explicit pressure for communication; (2) agents do not possess capabilities of coordinated interactions, in particular they do not play language games; (3) agents possess no specific linguistic capacities; and (4) initially there exists no convention that agents can use. As a consequence, the system shows how a primitive speech code may bootstrap in the absence of a communication system between agents, i.e. before the appearance of language.} } @article{oudeyer02theProduction, author={P-Y. Oudeyer}, title={The production and recognition of emotions in speech: features and algorithms}, journal={International Journal of Human Computer Interaction}, year={2003}, volume={59}, number={1-2}, pages={157-183}, note={Special issue on Affective Computing}, doi={10.1016/S1071-5819(02)00141-6}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyer02theProduction.html}, keywords={Emotions; Speech; Robots; Emotion production; Emotion recognition}, abstract={This paper presents algorithms that allow a robot to express its emotions by modulating the intonation of its voice. They are very simple and efficiently provide life-like speech thanks to the use of concatenative speech synthesis. We describe a technique which allows to continuously control both the age of a synthetic voice and the quantity of emotions that are expressed. Also, we present the first large-scale data mining experiment about the automatic recognition of basic emotions in informal everyday short utterances. We focus on the speaker-dependent problem. We compare a large set of machine learning algorithms, ranging from neural networks, Support Vector Machines or decision trees, together with 200 features, using a large database of several thousands examples. We show that the difference of performance among learning schemes can be substantial, and that some features which were previously unexplored are of crucial importance. An optimal feature set is derived through the use of a genetic algorithm. Finally, we explain how this study can be applied to real world situations in which very few examples are available. Furthermore, we describe a game to play with a personal robot which facilitates teaching of examples of emotional utterances in a natural and rather unconstrained manner.} } @inproceedings{oudeyerAISB03, author={P-Y. Oudeyer}, title={The Social Formation of Acoustic Codes with Something Simpler}, year={2003}, editor={Dautenham K. and Nehaniv C.}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Imitation in Animals and Artifacts}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyerAISB03.html} } @inproceedings{oudeyerprosody2002b, author={P-Y. Oudeyer}, title={The Synthesis of Cartoon Emotional Speech}, year={2002}, pages={551-554}, editor={Bel B. and Marlien I.}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Speech Prosody}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyerprosody2002b.html} } @inproceedings{oudeyersab2002, author={P-Y. Oudeyer}, title={Phonemic coding might be a result of sensory-motor coupling dynamics}, year={2002}, pages={406-416}, editor={Hallam B. and Floreano D. and Hallam J. and Hayes G. and Meyer J-A}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={SAB02}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyersab2002.html} } @inproceedings{oudeyerprosody2002a, author={P-Y. Oudeyer}, title={Novel Useful Features and Algorithms for the Recognition of Emotions in Speech}, year={2002}, pages={547-550}, editor={Bel B. and Marlien I.}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Speech Prosody}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyerprosody2002a.html} } @inproceedings{oudeyercogsci2002, author={P-Y. Oudeyer}, title={A Unified Model for the Origins of Phonemically Coded Syllable Systems}, year={2002}, editor={Bel B. and Marlien I.}, publisher={Laurence Erlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Twenty-fourth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyercogsci2002.html} } @inproceedings{oudeyerorage2001, author={P-Y. Oudeyer}, title={The Epigenesis of Syllable Systems: a computational model}, year={2001}, publisher={l'Harmattan}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Orality and Gestuality Conference}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyerorage2001.html}, abstract={A computational model of the origins of syllables systems is presented : a society of robotic agents endowed with realistic motor, perceptual and cognitive apparati is shown to build from scratch shared syllable systems in a decentralized manner. Furthermo re, these systems share many structural properties with those of human languages.} } @inproceedings{oudeyerea2001, author={P-Y. Oudeyer}, title={Origins and Learnability of Syllable Systems: a Cultural Evolutionary Model}, year={2001}, pages={143-155}, editor={Collet P. and Fonlupt C. and Hao J.K., Lutton E. and Schoenauer M.}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Artificial Evolution, LNCS 2310}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyerea2001.html}, abstract={This paper presents a model of the origins of syllable systems that brings plausibility to the theory which claims that language learning, and in particular phonological acquisition, needs not innate linguistically specific information, as believed by many researchers of the Chomskyan school, but is rather made possible by the interaction between general motor, perceptual, cognitive and social constraints through a self-organizing process. The strategy is to replace the question of acquisition in a larger and evolutionary (cultural) framework: the model addresses the question of the origins of syllable systems (syllables are the major phonological units in speech). It is based on the artificial life methodology of building a society of agents, endowed with motor, perceptual and cognitive apparati that are generic and realistic. We show that agents effectively build sound systems and how these sound systems relate to existing human sound systems. Results concerning the learnability of the produced sound systems by fresh/baby agents are detailed: the critical period effect and the artificial language effect can effectively be predicted by our model. The ability of children to learn sound systems is explained by the evolutionary history of these sound systems, which were precisely shaped so as to fit the ecological niche formed by the brains and bodies of these children, and not the other way around (as advocated by Chomskyan approaches to language).} } @inproceedings{oudeyer01coupledNeural, author={Pierre-Yves Oudeyer}, title={Coupled Neural Maps for the Origins of Vowel Systems}, year={2001}, pages={1171-1176}, editor={G. Dorffner and H. Bischof and K. Hornik}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, LNCS 2130}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyer01coupledNeural.html}, abstract={A unified connectionist model of the perceptual magnet effect (the perceptual warping of vowels) is proposed, and relies on the concept of population coding in neural maps. Unlike what has been often stated, we claim that the imprecision of the classical sum of vectors coding/decoding scheme is not a drawback and can account for psychological observations. Furthermore, we show that coupling these neural maps allows the formation of vowel systems, which are shared symbolic systems, from initially continuous and uniform perception and production. This has important consequences for existing theories of phonetics.} } @inproceedings{oudeyer01theOrigins, author={Pierre-Yves Oudeyer}, title={The Origins of Syllable Systems: An Operational Model}, year={2001}, pages={744-749}, editor={Johanna D. Moore and Keith Stenning}, publisher={Laurence Erlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Twenty-third Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyer01theOrigins.html}, abstract={Many models, computational or not, exist that describe the acquisition of speech: they all rely on the pre-existence of some sort of linguistic structure in the input, i.e. speech itself. Very few address the question of how this coherence and structure appeared. We try here to give a solution concerning syllable systems. We propose an operational model that shows how a society of robotic of agents, endowed with a set of non-linguistically specific motor, perceptual, cognitive and social constraints (some of them are obstacles whereas others are opportunities), can collectively build a coherent and structured syllable system from scratch. As opposed to many existing abstract models of the origins of language, as few shortcuts as possible were taken in the way the constraints are implemented. The structural properties of the produced sound systems are extensively studied under the light of phonetics and phonology and more broadly language theory. The model brings more plausibility in favor of theories of language that defend the idea that there needs no innate linguistic specific abilities to explain observed regularities in world languages.} } @inproceedings{oudeyer99selfOrganization, author={Pierre-Yves Oudeyer}, title={Self-organization of a lexicon in a structured society of agents}, year={1999}, pages={726--729}, editor={Floreano, D. and Nicoud, J-D and Mondada, F.}, publisher={Springer-Verlag}, booktitle={ECAL99}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyer99selfOrganization.html} } @article{oudeyer07computationalStudies, author={Pierre-Yves Oudeyer and Frederic Kaplan}, title={Language Evolution as a Darwinian Process: Computational Studies}, journal={Cognitive Processing}, year={2007}, month={January}, volume={8}, number={1}, pages={21--35}, doi={10.1007/s10339-006-0158-3}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyer07computationalStudies.html}, keywords={language evolution, language change, Darwinian evolution, genes, memes, replicators,learning bias, functional pressure, self-organization}, abstract={This paper presents computational experiments that illustrate how one can precisely conceptualize language evolution as a Darwinian process. We show that there is potentially a wide diversity of replicating units and replication mechanisms involved in language evolution. Computational experiments allow us to study systemic properties coming out of populations of linguistic replicators: linguistic replicators can adapt to specific external environments; they evolve under the pressure of the cognitive constraints of their hosts, as well as under the functional pressure of communication for which they are used; one can observe neutral drift; coalitions of replicators may appear, forming higher level groups which can themselves become subject to competition and selection.} } @article{oudeyer06discoveryOfCommunication, author={Pierre-Yves Oudeyer and Frederic Kaplan}, title={Discovering Communication}, journal={Connection Science}, year={2006}, volume={18}, number={2}, pages={189-206}, doi={10.1080/09540090600768567}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/oudeyer06discoveryOfCommunication.html}, keywords={development, robotics, communication, intrinsic motivation, vocalizations, stages}, abstract={What kind of motivation drives child language development? This article presents a computational model and a robotic experiment to articulate the hypothesis that children discover communication as a result of exploring and playing with their environment. The considered robotic agent is intrinsically motivated towards situations in which it optimally progresses in learning. To experience optimal learning progress, it must avoid situations already familiar but also situations where nothing can be learnt. The robot is placed in an environment in which both communicating and non-communicating objects are present. As a consequence of its intrinsic motivation, the robot explores this environment in an organized manner focusing first on non-communicative activities and then discovering the learning potential of certain types of interactive behaviour. In this experiment, the agent ends up being interested by communication through vocal interactions without having a specific drive for communication.} } @incollection{owings04inbook, author={Donald H. Owings and Debra M. Zeifman}, title={Human Infant Crying as an Animal Communication System: Insights from an Assessment/Management Approach}, year={2004}, pages={151-170}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/owings04inbook.html} } @article{owren00standingEvolution, author={M. J. Owren}, title={Standing evolution on its head: The uneasy role of evolutionary theory in comparative cognition and communication}, journal={Reviews in Anthropology}, year={2000}, volume={29}, pages={55-69}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/owren00standingEvolution.html} } @article{page04languageLearning, author={Karen M. Page}, title={Language learning: How much evidence does a child need in order to learn to speak grammatically?}, journal={Bulletin of Mathematical Biology}, year={2004}, month={July}, volume={66}, number={4}, pages={651-662}, doi={10.1016/j.bulm.2003.09.007}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/page04languageLearning.html}, abstract={In order to learn grammar from a finite amount of evidence, children must begin with in-built expectations of what is grammatical. They clearly are not born, however, with fully developed grammars. Thus early language development involves refinement of the grammar hypothesis until a target grammar is learnt. Here we address the question of how much evidence is required for this refinement process, by considering two standard learning algorithms and a third algorithm which is presumably as efficient as a child for some value of its memory capacity. We reformulate this algorithm in the context of Chomsky's 'principles and parameters' and show that it is possible to bound the amount of evidence required to almost certainly speak almost grammatically.} } @incollection{pagel00theHistory, author={M. Pagel}, title={The history, rate and pattern of world linguistic evolution}, year={2000}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Chris Knight and James R. Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pagel00theHistory.html} } @article{pagel07wordFrequencyNATURE, author={Mark Pagel and Quentin D. Atkinson and Andrew Meade}, title={Frequency of word-use predicts rates of lexical evolution throughout Indo-European history}, journal={Nature}, year={2007}, month={Oct}, volume={449}, number={7163}, pages={717--720}, doi={10.1038/nature06176}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pagel07wordFrequencyNATURE.html}, abstract={Greek speakers say 'omicronupsilonrho', Germans 'schwanz' and the French 'queue' to describe what English speakers call a 'tail', but all of these languages use a related form of 'two' to describe the number after one. Among more than 100 Indo-European languages and dialects, the words for some meanings (such as 'tail') evolve rapidly, being expressed across languages by dozens of unrelated words, while others evolve much more slowly--such as the number 'two', for which all Indo-European language speakers use the same related word-form. No general linguistic mechanism has been advanced to explain this striking variation in rates of lexical replacement among meanings. Here we use four large and divergent language corpora (English, Spanish, Russian and Greek) and a comparative database of 200 fundamental vocabulary meanings in 87 Indo-European languages to show that the frequency with which these words are used in modern language predicts their rate of replacement over thousands of years of Indo-European language evolution. Across all 200 meanings, frequently used words evolve at slower rates and infrequently used words evolve more rapidly. This relationship holds separately and identically across parts of speech for each of the four language corpora, and accounts for approximately 50\% of the variation in historical rates of lexical replacement. We propose that the frequency with which specific words are used in everyday language exerts a general and law-like influence on their rates of evolution. Our findings are consistent with social models of word change that emphasize the role of selection, and suggest that owing to the ways that humans use language, some words will evolve slowly and others rapidly across all languages.} } @incollection{pagel06lexicalReplacementRates, author={Mark Pagel and Andrew Maede}, title={Estimating Rates of Lexical Replacement on Phylogenetic Trees of Languages}, year={2006}, pages={173-182}, chapter={15}, editor={Peter Forster and Colin Renfrew}, publisher={}, booktitle={Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pagel06lexicalReplacementRates.html} } @inproceedings{parisi06simulationResearchAgenda, author={Domenico Parisi}, title={Simulating the Evolutionary Emergence of Language: A Research Agenda}, year={2006}, pages={230-238}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/parisi06simulationResearchAgenda.html} } @article{parisi97anArtificial, author={Domenico Parisi}, title={An Artificial Life Approach to Language}, journal={Brain and Language}, year={1997}, volume={59}, number={1}, pages={121-146}, doi={10.1006/brln.1997.1815}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/parisi97anArtificial.html}, abstract={The aim of the paper is to show that an Artificial Life approach to language tends to change the research agenda on language which has been shared by both the symbolic paradigm and classical connectionism. Artificial Life Neural Networks (ALNNs) are different from classical connectionist networks because they interact with an independent physical environment; are subject to evolutionary, developmental, and cultural change, and not only to learning; and are part of organisms that have a physical body, have a life (are born, develop, and die), and are members of genetic and, sometimes, cultural populations. Using ALNNs to study language shifts the emphasis from research on linguistic forms and laboratory-like tasks to the investigation of the emergence and transmission of language, the use of language, its role in cognition, and language as a populational rather than as an individual phenomenon.} } @incollection{parisi01aUnified, author={Domenico Parisi and Angelo Cangelosi}, title={A Unified Simulation Scenario for Language Development, Evolution, and Historical Change}, year={2002}, pages={255-276}, address={London}, chapter={12}, editor={Angelo Cangelosi and Domenico Parisi}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Simulating the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/parisi01aUnified.html} } @article{parisi_nounsVerbs, author={D. Parisi and A. Cangelosi and I. Falcetta}, title={Verbs, Nouns and Simulated Language games}, journal={Journal of Italian Linguistics}, year={2002}, volume={14}, number={1}, pages={99-114}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/parisi_nounsVerbs.html} } @inproceedings{parker06recursion, author={Anna R. Parker}, title={Evolving the narrow language faculty: was recursion the pivotal step?}, year={2006}, pages={239-246}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/parker06recursion.html}, abstract={A recent proposal (Hauser, Chomsky \& Fitch, 2002) suggests that the crucial defining property of human language is recursion. In this paper, following a critical analysis of what is meant by the term, I examine three reasons why the recursion-only hypothesis cannot be correct: (i) recursion is neither unique to language in humans, nor unique to our species, (ii) human language consists of many properties which are unique to it, and independent of recursion, and (iii) recursion may not even be necessary to human communication. Consequently, if recursion is not the key defining property of human language, it should not be granted special status in an evolutionary account of the system.} } @phdthesis{parker06phdthesis, author={Anna R. Parker}, title={Evolution as a Constraint on Theories of Syntax: The Case against Minimalism}, year={2006}, school={Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, The University of Edinburgh}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/parker06phdthesis.html}, abstract={This thesis investigates the evolutionary plausibility of the Minimalist Program. Is such a theory of language reasonable given the assumption that the human linguistic capacity has been subject to the usual forces and processes of evolution? More generally, this thesis is a comment on the manner in which theories of language can and should be constrained. What are the constraints that must be taken into account when constructing a theory of language? These questions are addressed by applying evidence gathered in evolutionary biology to data from linguistics.

The development of generative syntactic theorising in the late 20th century has led to a much redesigned conception of the human language faculty. The driving question - ‘why is language the way it is?’ - has prompted assumptions of simplicity, perfection, optimality, and economy for language; a minimal system operating in an economic fashion to fit into the larger cognitive architecture in a perfect manner. Studies in evolutionary linguistics, on the other hand, have been keen to demonstrate that language is complex, redundant, and adaptive, Pinker & Bloom’s (1990) seminal paper being perhaps the prime example of this. The question is whether these opposing views can be married in any way.

Interdisciplinary evidence is brought to bear on this problem, demonstrating that any reconciliation is impossible. Evolutionary biology shows that perfection, simplicity, and economy do not arise in typically evolving systems, yet the Minimalist Program attaches these characteristics to language. It shows that evolvable systems exhibit degeneracy, modularity, and robustness, yet the Minimalist Programmust rule these features out for language. It shows that evolution exhibits a trend towards complexity, yet the Minimalist Program excludes such a depiction of language.

By determining where language falls in each of these three cases, the choice between the opposing positions of gradual adaptive evolution and the Minimalist Program is resolved. Language is shown to be imperfect, uneconomic, and non-optimal, and hence a typical biological system. Language is shown to exhibit the key features of evolvability, and hence accords with the usual pressures and constraints of evolution. Language is shown to be both complex and adaptive, and hence amenable to a gradual adaptive evolutionary account.

In addition, the uniqueness of the pivotal property of language according to one minimalist evolutionary account – recursion – is examined, its place as just one of a collection of properties which make language special illustrating that language is significantly more complex and sophisticated than the Minimalist Program allows. Finally, significant flaws in the details of minimalist theories themselves – including extraneous operations, and unmotivated and stipulative features – are uncovered, further signalling that the perfection, simplicity, and economy that minimalism advocates is not a valid characterisation of language.} } @article{patriarca04languageCompetition, author={Marco Patriarca and Teemu Leppanen}, title={Modeling language competition}, journal={Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications}, year={2004}, month={July}, volume={338}, number={1-2}, pages={296-299}, doi={10.1016/j.physa.2004.02.056}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/patriarca04languageCompetition.html}, keywords={Reaction-diffusion equations; Language competition}, abstract={We consider a model introduced recently [Nature 424(2003)900], for describing competition between two languages, which in typical situations predicts the extinction of one of them. We generalize it by introducing a spatial dependence in terms of a reaction-diffusion equation. We show that in this generalized model both languages can survive, each mostly concentrated in a different geographical area.} } @phdthesis{depauw02phd, author={G. De Pauw}, title={An Agent-Based Evolutionary Computing Approach to Memory-Based Syntactic Parsing of Natural Language}, year={2002}, school={University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/depauw02phd.html}, abstract={The PhD thesis titled ``An Agent-Based Evolutionary Computing Approach to Memory-Based Syntactic Parsing of Natural Language'' introduces the grael system (grammar evolution) as one of the first research efforts that investigates an agent-based evolutionary computing approach as a possible machine learning method for data-driven grammar optimization and induction. Using the same architecture, but different information sources, grael can be shown to handle a diverse range of grammar engineering tasks, which can help resolve common issues in corpus-based parsing systems, such as insufficient grammar coverage and the suboptimal distribution of probability mass.

Since the PhD thesis covers a considerable array of research issues, which may not be relevant to all researchers alike, this web page is further subdivided into thematic units. If you want to read the entire thesis, please go to the full download page...} } @article{pawlowitsch07optimalLanguage, author={Christina Pawlowitsch}, title={Finite populations choose an optimal language.}, journal={Journal of Theoretical Biology}, year={2007}, month={Aug}, doi={10.1016/j.jtbi.2007.08.009}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pawlowitsch07optimalLanguage.html}, abstract={This paper studies the evolution of a proto-language in a finite population under the frequency-dependent Moran process. A proto-language can be seen as a collection of concept-to-sign mappings. An efficient proto-language is a bijective mapping from objects of communication to used signs and vice versa. Based on the comparison of fixation probabilities, a method for deriving conditions of evolutionary stability in a finite population [Nowak et al., 2004. Emergence of cooperation and evolutionary stability in finite populations. Nature 428, 246-650], it is shown that efficient proto-languages are the only strategies that are protected by selection, which means that no mutant strategy can have a fixation probability that is greater than the inverse population size. In passing, the paper provides interesting results about the comparison of fixation probabilities as well as Maynard Smith's notion of evolutionary stability for finite populations [Maynard Smith, 1988. Can a mixed strategy be stable in a finite population? J. Theor. Biol. 130, 247-251] that are generally true for games with a symmetric payoff function.} } @incollection{pepperberg05avianPerspective, author={Irene Maxine Pepperberg}, title={An Avian Perspective on Language Evolution: Implications of simultaneous development of vocal and physical object combinations by a Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus)}, year={2005}, chapter={11}, editor={Maggie Tallerman}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pepperberg05avianPerspective.html} } @incollection{pepperberg04inbook, author={Irene M. Pepperberg}, title={Evolution of Communication from an Avian Perspective}, year={2004}, pages={171-192}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pepperberg04inbook.html} } @article{perfors02simulatedEvolution, author={Amy Perfors}, title={Simulated Evolution of Language: a Review of the Field}, journal={Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation}, year={2002}, volume={5}, number={2}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/perfors02simulatedEvolution.html}, keywords={Computational Simulations; Innateness; Language Evolution}, abstract={This is an overview of recent computational work done in the simulated evolution of language. It is prefaced by an overview of the broader issues in linguistics that computational models may help to clarify. Is language innate - genetically specified in the human organism in some way, a product of natural selection? Or can the properties of language be accounted for by general cognitive capabilities that did not develop as a consequence of language-specific selective pressures? After a consideration of the intellectual background surrounding these issues, we will examine how recent computational work sheds light on them.} } @mastersthesis{perfors00simulatedEvolution, author={A. Perfors}, title={Simulated Evolution of Communication: The Emergence of Meaning}, year={2000}, school={Department of Linguistics, Stanford University}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/perfors00simulatedEvolution.html} } @phdthesis{petrova01theEvolution, author={Olga Petrova}, title={The Evolution of the English Obstruent System: An Optimality Theoretic Approach}, year={2001}, school={University of Iowa, USA}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/petrova01theEvolution.html}, abstract={This dissertation provides an Optimality-Theoretic (OT: Prince & Smolensky 1993, McCarthy & Prince 1993) account of the evolution of the English obstruent inventory over an extended period of time, starting with Proto-Indo-European and ending with Early New English. By modeling the mechanism through which the PIE [voice] distinction in stops emerged as a Germanic [spread glottis] distinction, the analysis lends support to a recently established claim that [spread glottis], rather than [voice], is distinctive in stops in the majority of the Germanic languages (Iverson & Salmons 1995, Jessen 1998) OT, a non-derivational framework which provides a model of Universal Grammar (UG) significantly different from the earlier rule-based approaches, views language change as the reranking of hierarchically organized UG constraints on the well-formedness of output representations (Cho 1995, Bermœdez-Otero 1995). The non-serial essence of OT makes it possible to describe parallel sound shifts, whereby a number of sound changes occur in parallel, rather than sequentially. For example, in Grimm's Law, p-b shifts to psg-p, whereby the contrast is preserved, yet it is has a different segmental composition. Specifically, it is demonstrated that a comprehensive analysis of language change, and, especially, parallel sound shifts, calls for the integration of two complementary approaches within OT: faithfulness (McCarthy & Prince 1995, and others) and dispersion (Flemming 1996, Padgett 1997). In the faithfulness framework, language change is viewed as a resolution of the conflict between the tendency to save articulatory effort and the preference for the faithful mapping of input representations to their output correspondents. In the dispersion framework, language change results from the conflict between articulatory effort minimization and the preference for a maximal perceptual contrast among output forms, with no reference to inputs. In more general terms, the dispersion interaction reflects the tendency to maintain a balanced inventory, whereas a faithfulness interaction implements the preference for a transparent (i.e., non-structure changing) inventory. The integration of the two approaches amounts to claiming that each individual output form experiences two competing pressures: to be different from or similar to other output forms, and to be identical to a corresponding input form. Unlike the proponents of the dispersion-based approach (e.g., Flemming 1998), who contend that the two approaches are incompatible, I demonstrate that dispersion and faithfulness are not only compatible, but complementary in accounting for language change. Dispersion constraints exercise a stabilizing effect on the inventory. By enforcing a fixed number of contrasts, the dispersion interaction thereby delimits the range of (or censors) possible faithfulness violations. The faithfulness constraints complement the dispersion interaction, by referring to an input as the reference point relative to which the output contrast is evaluated, so that the contrast which is minimally unfaithful to the input is selected as optimal. In other words, whereas dispersion is responsible for enforcing contrast itself, faithfulness is in charge of determining the adequate segmental composition of the contrast. The analysis reveals that the integrated dispersion/faithfulness framework has advantages over earlier linguistic approaches in accounting for the sound changes which have a perceptual origin, such as Grimm's Law and Verner's Law.} } @inproceedings{philps06evolang, author={Dennis Philps}, title={From mouth to hand}, year={2006}, pages={247-254}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/philps06evolang.html}, abstract={Within a semiogenetic theory of the emergence and evolution of the language sign, I claim that a structural-notional analysis of submorphemic data provided by certain reconstructed PIE roots and their reflexes, projected as far back as theories of the evolution of speech will permit by a principle of articulatory invariance, points to the existence of an unconscious neurophysiologically grounded strategy for 'naming' parts of the body. Specifically, it is claimed that the occlusive sounds produced by open-close movements of the mouth, which have been shown experimentally to be synchronized with open-close movements of the hand(s), may have functioned as 'core invariants'. Morphogenetically transformed into conventionalized language signs, these could have served to 'name' not only the mouth movements and articulators involved, but also the hand movements with which they appear to be coordinated, as well as the hand itself.} } @incollection{piatellipalmarini04immuneSyntax, author={M. Piatelli-Palmarini and J. Uriagereka}, title={The immune syntax: the evolution of the language virus}, year={2004}, pages={341-377}, chapter={14}, editor={Lyle Jenkins}, publisher={Oxford: Elsevier}, booktitle={Variation and Universals in Biolinguistics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/piatellipalmarini04immuneSyntax.html} } @inproceedings{piazza06evolang, author={Alberto Piazza and Luigi Cavalli-Sforza}, title={Diffusion of genes and languages in human evolution}, year={2006}, pages={255-266}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/piazza06evolang.html}, abstract={In a study by Cavalli-Sforza et al. (1988), the spread of anatomically modern man was reconstructed on the basis of genetic and linguistic pieces of evidence: the main conclusion was that these two approaches reflect a common underlying history, the history of our past still frozen in the genes of modern populations. The expression `genetic history' was introduced (Piazza et al. 1988) to point out that if today we find many genes showing the same geographical patterns in terms of their frequencies, this may be due to the common history of our species. A deeper exploration of the whole problem can be found in Cavalli-Sforza et al. (1994). In the following, some specific cases of structural analogies between linguistic and genetic geographical patterns will be explored that supply further and more updated information. It is important to emphasize at the outset that evidence for coevolution of genes and languages in human populations does not suggest by itself that some genes of our species determine the way we speak; this coevolution may simply be due to a common mode of transmission and mutation of genetic and linguistic units of information and common constraints of demographic factors.} } @article{piedmont07lexicalEmergence, author={Ralph L. Piedmont and William Aycock}, title={An historical analysis of the lexical emergence of the Big Five personality adjective descriptors}, journal={Personality and Individual Differences}, year={2007}, month={April}, volume={42}, number={6}, pages={1059--1068}, doi={10.1016/j.paid.2006.09.015}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/piedmont07lexicalEmergence.html}, abstract={This study examined two questions regarding the emergence of adjectives that describe the Big Five Personality dimensions and when they emerged into the modern English lexicon: (1) Did the terms that describe these qualities appear simultaneously or sequentially? (2) Can the emergence of these terms be linked to specific historical eras? Results showed that the adjective descriptors for Openness appeared in the modern lexicon significantly later than those for Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Conscientiousness. The historical context surrounding the emergence of Openness was presented and the implications of these findings for understanding personality were discussed.} } @article{pietarinen06semanticsEvolution, author={Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen}, title={The evolution of semantics and language-games for meaning}, journal={Interaction Studies}, year={2006}, volume={7}, number={1}, pages={79-104}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pietarinen06semanticsEvolution.html}, keywords={communication; evolutionary game theory; logic; Peirce; semantic games}, abstract={To understand evolutionary aspects of communication is to understand the evolutionary development of the meaning relations between language and the world. Such meaning relations are established by the application of the interactive systems of semantic games. Subsumed under the evolutionary framework of repeated games, semantics in such games refers to the cases in which stable meanings survive populations of strategically interacting players. The viability of compositionality, common ground and salience in such evolutionary games is assessed. Foundationally, the discussion is rooted in Charles S. Peirce's pragmatist philosophy.} } @inproceedings{pika06evolang, author={Simone Pika and Katja Liebal}, title={Differences and similarities between the natural gestural communication of the great apes and human children}, year={2006}, pages={267-274}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pika06evolang.html}, abstract={The majority of studies on animal communication provide evidence that gestural signaling plays an important role in the communication of nonhuman primates and resembles that of pre-linguistic and just-linguistic human infants in some important ways. However, ape gestures also differ from the gestures of human infants in some important ways as well, and these differences might provide crucial clues for answering the question of how human language -- at least in its cognitive and social-cognitive aspects- evolved from the gestural communication of our ape-like ancestors. The present manuscript summarizes and compares recent studies on the gestural signaling of the great apes (Gorilla gorilla, Pan paniscus, Pan troglodytes, Pongo pygmaeus) to enable a comparison with gestures in children. We focused on the three following aspects: 1) nature of gestures, 2) intentional use of gestures, 3) and learning of gestures. Our results show, that apes have multifaceted gestural repertoires and use their gestures intentionally. Although some group-specific gestures seem to be acquired via a social learning process, the majority of gestures are learned via individual learning. Importantly, all of the intentional produced gestures share two important characteristics that make them crucially different from human deictic and symbolic gestures: 1) they are almost invariably used in dyadic contexts and 2) they are used exclusively for imperative purposes. Implications for these differences are discussed.} } @article{pinasco06languageCoexistence, author={J.P. Pinasco and L. Romanelli}, title={Coexistence of Languages is possible}, journal={Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications}, year={2006}, month={February}, volume={361}, number={1}, pages={355-360}, doi={10.1016/j.physa.2005.06.068}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pinasco06languageCoexistence.html}, keywords={Populational dynamics; Language competition}, abstract={In this work we study the dynamics of language competition. In Abrams and Strogatz [Modeling the dynamics of language death, Nature 424 (2003) 900], the extinction of one of the competing languages is predicted, although in some case the coexistence occurs. The preservation of both languages was explained by Patriarca and Leppanen [Modeling language competition, Physica A 338 (2004) 296] by introducing the existence of two disjoint zones where each language is predominant. However, their results cannot explain the survivance of both languages in only one zone of competition. In this work we discuss their results and propose a new alternative model of Lotka-Volterra type in order to explain the coexistence of two languages.} } @incollection{pinker03LanguageAs, author={Steven Pinker}, title={Language as an adaptation to the cognitive niche}, year={2003}, editor={M.H. Christiansen and S. Kirby}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Evolution: The States of the Art}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pinker03LanguageAs.html} } @article{pinker01geneticsTalk, author={Steven Pinker}, title={Talk of genetics and vice versa}, journal={Nature}, year={2001}, month={October}, volume={413}, pages={465-467}, doi={10.1038/35097173}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pinker01geneticsTalk.html}, abstract={Does our ability to talk lie in our genes? The suspicion is bolstered by the discovery of a gene that might affect how the brain circuitry needed for speech and language develops.} } @article{pinker00nature, author={Steven Pinker}, title={Survival of the Clearest}, journal={Nature}, year={2000}, volume={404}, pages={441-442}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pinker00nature.html}, abstract={There are no fossils to show how language evolved. But evolutionary game theory is revealing how some of the defining features of human language could have been shaped by natural selection.} } @article{pinker00bookreview, author={Steven Pinker}, title={A brief history of the past three billion years: Review of ``The Origins of Life: From the Birth of Life to the Origin of Language'', by John Maynard Smith and EöSzathmá, 1999}, journal={Trends in Ecology and Evolution}, year={2000}, month={March}, volume={15}, number={3}, pages={127-128}, doi={10.1016/S0169-5347(99)01797-8}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pinker00bookreview.html} } @book{pinker99wordsAnd, author={S. Pinker}, title={Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language}, year={1999}, address={New York}, publisher={Basic Books}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pinker99wordsAnd.html} } @book{pinker94theLanguage, author={S. Pinker}, title={The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language}, year={1994}, address={New York}, publisher={HarperCollins}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pinker94theLanguage.html} } @book{pinker89book, author={Steven Pinker}, title={Learnability and Cognition: The acquisition of Argument Structure}, year={1989}, publisher={Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pinker89book.html} } @book{pinker84languageLearnability, author={S. Pinker}, title={Language Learnability and Language Development}, year={1984}, address={Cambridge, MA}, publisher={Harvard University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pinker84languageLearnability.html} } @article{pinker90naturalLanguage, author={Steven Pinker and Paul Bloom}, title={Natural language and natural selection}, journal={Behavioral and Brain Sciences}, year={1990}, volume={13}, number={4}, pages={707-784}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pinker90naturalLanguage.html}, keywords={Language, Evolution, Language Acquisition, Natural Selection, Grammatical Theory, Biology of Language, Language Universals, Psycholinguistics, Origin of Language}, abstract={Many people have argued that the evolution of the human language faculty cannot be explained by Darwinian natural selection. Chomsky and Gould have suggested that language may have evolved as the by-product of selection for other abilities or as a consequence of as-yet unknown laws of growth and form. Others have argued that a biological specialization for grammar is incompatible with every tenet of Darwinian theory -- that it shows no genetic variation, could not exist in any intermediate forms, confers no selective advantage, and would require more evolutionary time and genomic space than is available. We examine these arguments and show that they depend on inaccurate assumptions about biology or language or both. Evolutionary theory offers clear criteria for when a trait should be attributed to natural selection: complex design for some function, and the absence of alternative processes capable of explaining such complexity. Human language meets this criterion: grammar is a complex mechanism tailored to the transmission of propositional structures through a serial interface. Autonomous and arbitrary grammatical phenomena have been offered as counterexamples to the position that language is an adaptation, but this reasoning is unsound: communication protocols depend on arbitrary conventions that are adaptive as long as they are shared. Consequently, language acquisition in the child should systematically differ from language evolution in the species and attempts to analogize them are misleading. Reviewing other arguments and data, we conclude that there is every reason to believe that a specialization for grammar evolved by a conventional neo-Darwinian process.} } @article{pinker_jackendoff, author={Steven Pinker and Ray Jackendoff}, title={The Faculty of Language: What's Special about it?}, journal={Cognition}, year={2005}, volume={95}, number={2}, pages={201-236}, doi={10.1016/j.cognition.2004.08.004}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pinker_jackendoff.html}, keywords={Phonology; Communication; Language; Evolution; Minimalism; Syntax}, abstract={We examine the question of which aspects of language are uniquely human and uniquely linguistic in light of recent suggestions by Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch that the only such aspect is syntactic recursion, the rest of language being either specific to humans but not to language (e.g. words and concepts) or not specific to humans (e.g. speech perception). We find the hypothesis problematic. It ignores the many aspects of grammar that are not recursive, such as phonology, morphology, case, agreement, and many properties of words. It is inconsistent with the anatomy and neural control of the human vocal tract. And it is weakened by experiments suggesting that speech perception cannot be reduced to primate audition, that word learning cannot be reduced to fact learning, and that at least one gene involved in speech and language was evolutionarily selected in the human lineage but is not specific to recursion. The recursion-only claim, we suggest, is motivated by Chomsky's recent approach to syntax, the Minimalist Program, which de-emphasizes the same aspects of language. The approach, however, is sufficiently problematic that it cannot be used to support claims about evolution. We contest related arguments that language is not an adaptation, namely that it is 'perfect,' non-redundant, unusable in any partial form, and badly designed for communication. The hypothesis that language is a complex adaptation for communication which evolved piecemeal avoids all these problems.} } @incollection{plaut99theEmergence, author={D. C. Plaut and C. T. Kello}, title={The Emergence of Phonology From the Interplay of Speech Comprehension and Production: A Distributed Connectionist Approach.}, year={1999}, address={Hillsdale, NJ}, editor={B. MacWhinney}, publisher={Lawrence Earlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Emergence of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/plaut99theEmergence.html} } @article{plotkin01entropy, author={Joshua B. Plotkin and Martin A. Nowak}, title={Major Transitions in Language Evolution}, journal={Entropy}, year={2001}, volume={3}, number={4}, pages={227-246}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/plotkin01entropy.html}, keywords={Language evolution; evolutionary game theory; Shannon's noisy coding theorem; phoneme}, abstract={Language is the most important evolutionary invention of the last few million years. How human language evolved from animal communication is a challenging question for evolutionary biology. In this paper we use mathematical models to analyze the major transitions in language evolution. We begin by discussing the evolution of coordinated associations between signals and objects in a population. We then analyze word-formation and its relationship to Shannon's noisy coding theorem. Finally, we model the population dynamics of words and the adaptive emergence of syntax.} } @article{plotkin00languageEvolution, author={J. B. Plotkin and M. A. Nowak}, title={Language evolution and information theory}, journal={Journal of Theoretical Biology}, year={2000}, volume={205}, number={1}, pages={147-159}, doi={10.1006/jtbi.2000.2053}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/plotkin00languageEvolution.html}, abstract={This paper places models of language evolution within the framework of information theory. We study how signals become associated with meaning. If there is a probability of mistaking signals for each other, then evolution leads to an error limit: increasing the number of signals does not increase the fitness of a language beyond a certain limit. This error limit can be overcome by word formation: a linear increase of the word length leads to an exponential increase of the maximum fitness. We develop a general model of word formation and demonstrate the connection between the error limit and Shannon's noisy coding theorem.} } @article{pollick07apeGesturesPNAS, author={Amy S. Pollick and Frans B. M. de Waal}, title={Ape gestures and language evolution}, journal={PNAS}, year={2007}, volume={104}, number={19}, pages={8184-8189}, doi={10.1073/pnas.0702624104}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/pollick07apeGesturesPNAS.html}, keywords={bonobo, chimpanzee, communication, multimodal}, abstract={The natural communication of apes may hold clues about language origins, especially because apes frequently gesture with limbs and hands, a mode of communication thought to have been the starting point of human language evolution. The present study aimed to contrast brachiomanual gestures with orofacial movements and vocalizations in the natural communication of our closest primate relatives, bonobos (Pan paniscus) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). We tested whether gesture is the more flexible form of communication by measuring the strength of association between signals and specific behavioral contexts, comparing groups of both the same and different ape species. Subjects were two captive bonobo groups, a total of 13 individuals, and two captive chimpanzee groups, a total of 34 individuals. The study distinguished 31 manual gestures and 18 facial/vocal signals. It was found that homologous facial/vocal displays were used very similarly by both ape species, yet the same did not apply to gestures. Both within and between species gesture usage varied enormously. Moreover, bonobos showed greater flexibility in this regard than chimpanzees and were also the only species in which multimodal communication (i.e., combinations of gestures and facial/vocal signals) added to behavioral impact on the recipient.} } @inproceedings{popescubelis00incrementalSimulations, author={Andrei Popescu-Belis and John Batali}, title={Incremental Simulations of the Emergence of Grammar: Towards Complex Sentence-Meaning Mappings}, year={2000}, pages={187-190}, booktitle={Third International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/popescubelis00incrementalSimulations.html} } @inproceedings{poulshock06evolang, author={Joseph Poulshock}, title={The evolution of language as a precursor to the evolution of morality}, year={2006}, pages={275-282}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/poulshock06evolang.html}, abstract={This paper argues that the evolution of human language is a prerequisite to the evolution of human morality. Human moral systems are not possible without fully complex language. Though protolanguage can extend moral systems, the design features of human language greatly extend human moral ability. Specifically, this paper focuses on how recursion, linguistic creativity, naming ability, displacement, and compositionality extend moral systems. The argument descriptively defines altruism as self-sacrificial behavior for others and morality as how a group classifies right and wrong behavior. No comment is made on how altruism squares with the replicatory selfishness of genes, or on the controversy of group selection. However, along with Dawkins (Dawkins, 1976), the author concurs that humans can use linguistically based concepts to help constrain genetic selfishness and promote degrees of altruism and morality. Though drawing on previous research, the ideas presented here are novel to the extent that they demonstrate how the design features of language support and extend human altruism and morality.} } @phdthesis{poulshock, author={Joseph W. Poulshock}, title={Language and Morality: Evolution, Altruism and Linguistic Moral Mechanisms}, year={2006}, school={Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, The University of Edinburgh}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/poulshock.html}, abstract={This thesis inquires into how human language relates to morality -- and shows the ways language enables, extends, and maintains human value systems. Though we ultimately need to view the relation between language and morality from many different perspectives -- biological, psychological, sociological, and philosophical -- the approach here is primarily a linguistic one informed by evolutionary theory.

At first, this study shows how natural selection relates to the problem of altruism and how language serves human moral ontogeny. Subsequently, the argument demonstrates how language helps enable cultural group selection. Moreover, as language helps influence human behavior in an altruistic direction beyond in-group non-kin (helping facilitate cultural group selection), we also consider how language can help facilitate altruistic behavior towards out-group non-kin. This therefore raises the prospect of a limited moral realism in a world of evolutionary processes.

With these issues and possibilities in mind, we consider and analyze the properties of language that help extend human morality. Specifically, discussion covers how recursion, linguistic creativity, naming ability, displacement, stimulus freedom, compositionality, cultural transmission, and categorization extend moral systems. Moreover, because language so broadly influences morality, the inquiry extends into how linguistic differences (specifically between English and Japanese) might also cause subtle differences in moral perception between Japanese and English speakers.

Lastly, we consider how moral ideas might take on a life of their own, catalytically propagating in degrees dependent and independent of human intention. That is, we consider how ideas might become memetic. After considering the serious problems of memetics, this approach employs a linguistic version of memetic theory and considers how psychological, social, and linguistic constraints may cause moral memes to attain a memetic state and spread by an independent or semi-independent replicator dynamic. Thus, some moral ideas that we possess through language may actually possess us.} } @incollection{power00secretLanguage, author={Camilla Power}, title={Secret language use at female initiation: Bounding gossiping communities}, year={2000}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Chris Knight and James R. Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/power00secretLanguage.html} } @incollection{power98oldWives, author={Camilla Power}, title={Old wives' tales: The gossip hypothesis and the reliability of cheap signals}, year={1998}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/power98oldWives.html} } @article{prince97optimality, author={Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky}, title={Optimality: From Neural Networks to Universal Grammar}, journal={Science}, year={1997}, month={March}, volume={275}, number={5306}, pages={1604-1610}, doi={10.1126/science.275.5306.1604}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/prince97optimality.html}, abstract={Can concepts from the theory of neural computation contribute to formal theories of the mind? Recent research has explored the implications of one principle of neural computation, optimization, for the theory of grammar. Optimization over symbolic linguistic structures provides the core of a new grammatical architecture, optimality theory. The proposition that grammaticality equals optimality sheds light on a wide range of phenomena, from the gulf between production and comprehension in child language, to language learnability, to the fundamental questions of linguistic theory: What is it that the grammars of all languages share, and how may they differ?} } @inproceedings{quinn01evolvingCommunication, author={Matt Quinn}, title={Evolving Communication without Dedicated Communication Channels}, year={2001}, month={September 10-14}, pages={357-366}, address={Prague}, editor={J. Kelemen and P. Sosík}, series={Lectures Notes in Computer Science}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={ECAL01}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/quinn01evolvingCommunication.html}, abstract={Artificial Life models have consistently implemented communication as an exchange of signals over dedicated and functionally isolated channels. I argue that such a feature prevents models from providing a satisfactory account of the origins of communication and present a model in which there are no dedicated channels. Agents controlled by neural networks and equipped with proximity sensors and wheels are presented with a co-ordinated movement task. It is observed that functional, but non-communicative, behaviours which evolve in the early stages of the simulation both make possible, and form the basis of, the communicative behaviour which subsequently evolves.} } @incollection{ragir02constraintsOn, author={Sonia Ragir}, title={Constraints on Communities with Indigenous Sign Languages: Clues to the Dynamics of Language Genesis}, year={2002}, address={Oxford}, chapter={13}, editor={Alison Wray}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={The Transition to Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ragir02constraintsOn.html} } @article{ramus00languageDiscrimination, author={F. Ramus and M.D. Hauser and C.T. Miller and D. Morris and J. Mehler}, title={Language discrimination by human newborns and cotton-top tamarin monkeys}, journal={Science}, year={2000}, month={April}, volume={288}, number={5464}, pages={349-351}, doi={10.1126/science.288.5464.349}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ramus00languageDiscrimination.html}, abstract={Humans, but no other animal, make meaningful use of spoken language. What is unclear, however, is whether this capacity depends on a unique constellation of perceptual and neurobiological mechanisms or whether a subset of such mechanisms is shared with other organisms. To explore this problem, parallel experiments were conducted on human newborns and cotton-top tamarin monkeys to assess their ability to discriminate unfamiliar languages. A habituation-dishabituation procedure was used to show that human newborns and tamarins can discriminate sentences from Dutch and Japanese but not if the sentences are played backward. Moreover, the cues for discrimination are not present in backward speech. This suggests that the human newborns' tuning to certain properties of speech relies on general processes of the primate auditory system.} } @article{redford01constrainedEmergence, author={Melissa A. Redford and Chun Chi Chen and Risto Miikkulainen}, title={Constrained Emergence of Universals and Variation in Syllable Systems}, journal={Language and Speech}, year={2001}, volume={44}, pages={27-56}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/redford01constrainedEmergence.html}, keywords={Phonetics, Phonology}, abstract={A computational model of emergent syllable systems is developed based on a set of functional constraints on syllable systems and the assumption that language structure emerges through cumulative change over time. The constraints were derived from general communicative factors as well as from the phonetic principles of perceptual distinctiveness and articulatory ease. Through evolutionary optimization, the model generated mock vocabularies optimized for the given constraints. Several simulations were run to understand how these constraints might define the emergence of universals and variation in complex sound systems. The predictions were that (1) CV syllables would be highly frequent in all vocabularies evolved under the constraints; (2) syllables with consonant clusters, consonant codas, and vowel onsets would occur much less frequently; (3) a relationship would exist between the number of syllable types in a vocabulary and the average word length in the vocabulary; (4) different syllable types would emerge according to, what we termed, an iterative principle of syllable structure and their frequency would be directly related to their complexity; and (5) categorical differences would emerge between vocabularies evolved under the same constraints. Simulation results confirmed these predictions and provided novel insights into why regularities and differences may occur across languages. Specifically, the model suggested that both language universals and variation are consistent with a set of functional constraints that are fixed relative to one another. Language universals reflect underlying constraints on the system and language variation represents the many different and equally-good solutions to the unique problem defined by these constraints.} } @inproceedings{redford98syllableSystems, author={Melissa A. Redford and Chun Chi Chen and Risto Miikkulainen}, title={Modeling the emergence of syllable systems}, year={1998}, pages={882-886}, address={Mahwah, NJ}, editor={M.A. Gernsbacher and S.J. Derry}, publisher={Lawrence Erlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/redford98syllableSystems.html}, abstract={In this paper we present an approach to modeling emergent syllable systems using simulated evolution of a ``vocabulary'' of ``words.'' The model is aimed at testing the general hypothesis that language-universal sound patterns emerge from selection pressures exerted on the system by the perceptual and articulatory constraints of language users. The model is able to distinguish between hypotheses about how specific, biologicallymotivated constraints affect the sound structure of language. For example, it is shown that mandibular oscillation provides a strong constraint on the sequential organization of phonemes into words. Future work will explore the potential of other constraints that, with mandibular oscillation, will be sufficient to describe the emergence of syllable systems.} } @article{reed02negotiatingThe, author={Chris Reed and Timothy J. Norman and Nicholas R. Jennings}, title={Negotiating the semantics of agent communication languages}, journal={Computational Intelligence}, year={2002}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/reed02negotiatingThe.html}, keywords={agent communication languages, semantic space, semantic fixing}, abstract={This article presents a formal framework and outlines a method that autonomous agents can use to negotiate the semantics of their communication language at run­time. Such an ability is needed in open multi­agent systems so that agents can ensure they understand the implications of the utterances that are being made and so that they can tailor the meaning of the primitives to best fit their prevailing circumstances. To this end, the semantic space framework provides a systematic means of classifying the primitives along multiple relevant dimensions. This classification can then be used by the agents to structure their negotiation (or semantic fixing) process so that they converge to the mutually agreeable semantics that are necessary for coherent social interactions.} } @article{reggia01conditionsEnabling, author={James A. Reggia and Reiner Schulz and Gerald Wilkinson and Juan Uriagereka}, title={Conditions Enabling the Evolution of Inter-Agent Signaling in an Artificial World}, journal={Artificial Life}, year={2001}, month={Winter}, volume={7}, number={1}, pages={3-32}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/reggia01conditionsEnabling.html}, keywords={evolution of communication, multi-agent systems, animal communica-tion, animal signaling}, abstract={In the research described here we extend past computational investigations of animal signaling by studying an artificial world in which a population of initially noncommunicating agents evolves to communicate about food sources and predators. Signaling in this world can be either beneficial (e.g., warning of nearby predators) or costly (e.g., attracting predators or competing agents). Our goals were twofold: to examine systematically environmental conditions under which grounded signaling does or does not evolve, and to determine how variations in assumptions made about the evolutionary process influence the outcome. Among other things, we found that agents warning of nearby predators were a common occurrence whenever predators had a significant impact on survival and signaling could interfere with predator success. The setting most likely to lead to food signaling was found to be difficult-to-locate food sources that each have relatively large amounts of food. Deviations from the selection methods typically used in traditional genetic algorithms were also found to have a substantial impact on whether communication evolved. For example, constraining parent selection and child placement to physically neighboring areas facilitated evolution of signaling in general, whereas basing parent selection upon survival alone rather than survival plus fitness measured as success in food acquisition was more conducive to the emergence of predator alarm signals. We examine the mechanisms underlying these and other results, relate them to existing experimental data about animal signaling, and discuss their implications for artificial life research involving evolution of communication.} } @inproceedings{regier01theEmergence, author={T. Regier and B. Corrigan and C. Cabasaan and A. Woodward and M. Gasser and L. Smith}, title={The emergence of words}, year={2001}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Twenty-third Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/regier01theEmergence.html} } @article{ribeiroloula07symbols, author={S. Ribeiro and A. Loula and I. Araujo and R. Gudwin and J. Queiroz}, title={Symbols are not uniquely human}, journal={Biosystems}, year={2007}, doi={10.1016/j.biosystems.2006.09.030}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ribeiroloula07symbols.html}, keywords={symbols, semiotic and neurobiological constraints, computer simulation of symbol learning}, abstract={Modern semiotics is a branch of logics that formally defines symbol-based communication. In recent years, the semiotic classification of signs has been invoked to support the notion that symbols are uniquely human. Here we show that alarm-calls such as those used by African vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops), logically satisfy the semiotic definition of symbol. We also show that the acquisition of vocal symbols in vervet monkeys can be successfully simulated by a computer program based on minimal semiotic and neurobiological constraints. The simulations indicate that learning depends on the tutor-predator ratio, and that apprenticegenerated auditory mistakes in vocal symbol interpretation have little effect on the learning rates of apprentices (up to 80\% of mistakes are tolerated). In contrast, just 10\% of apprentice-generated visual mistakes in predator identification will prevent any vocal symbol to be correctly associated with a predator call in a stable manner. Tutor unreliability was also deleterious to vocal symbol learning: a mere 5\% of “lying” tutors were able to completely disrupt symbol learning, invariably leading to the acquisition of incorrect associations by apprentices. Our investigation corroborates the existence of vocal symbols in a non-human species, and indicates that symbolic competence emerges spontaneously from classical associative learning mechanisms when the conditioned stimuli are self-generated, arbitrary and socially efficacious. We propose that more exclusive properties of human language, such as syntax, may derive from the evolution of higher-order domains for neural association, more removed from both the sensory input and the motor output, able to support the gradual complexification of grammatical categories into syntax.} } @inproceedings{riga04ijcnn, author={T. Riga and A. Cangelosi and A. Greco}, title={Symbol grounding transfer with hybrid self-organizing/supervised neural networks}, year={2004}, month={July}, address={Budapest}, booktitle={IJCNN04 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/riga04ijcnn.html} } @article{ringe02IE-Cladistics, author={D. Ringe and Tandy Warnow and A. Taylor}, title={Indo-European and Computational Cladistics}, journal={Transactions of the Philological Society}, year={2002}, volume={100}, number={1}, pages={59-129}, doi={10.1111/1467-968X.00091}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ringe02IECladistics.html}, abstract={This paper reports the results of an attempt to recover the first-order subgrouping of the Indo-European family using a new computational method devised by the authors and based on a 'perfect phylogeny' algorithm. The methodology is also briefly described, and points of theory and methodology are addressed in connection with the experiment whose results are here reported.} } @book{ristad93theLanguage, author={Eric Sven Ristad}, title={The Language Complexity Game}, year={1993}, month={March}, publisher={MIT Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ristad93theLanguage.html} } @inproceedings{ritchie06ecologicalConditions, author={Graham Ritchie and Simon Kirby}, title={Modelling the transititon to learned communication: an initial investigation into the ecological conditions favouring cultural transmission}, year={2006}, pages={283-290}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ritchie06ecologicalConditions.html}, abstract={Vocal learning is a key component of the human language faculty, and is a behaviour we share with only a few other species in nature. Perhaps the most studied example of this phenomenon is bird song which displays a number of striking parallels with human language, particularly in its development. In this paper we present a simple computational model of bird song development and then use this in a model of evolution to investigate some of the ecological conditions under which vocal behaviour can become more or less reliant on cultural transmission.} } @inproceedings{ritchie05selection_EELC, author={Graham Ritchie and Simon Kirby}, title={Selection, domestication, and the emergence of learned communication systems}, year={2005}, booktitle={Second International Symposium on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ritchie05selection_EELC.html}, abstract={One of the most distinctive characteristics of human language is the extent to which it relies on learned vocal signals. Communication systems are ubiquitous in the natural world but vocal learning is a comparatively rare evolutionary development (Jarvis, 2004). In this paper we take one example of this phenomena, bird song, which displays some remarkable parallels with human language (Doupe \& Kuhl, 1999), and we focus on one particular case study, that of the Bengalese finch (Lonchura striata var. domestica), a domesticated species whose song behaviour differs strikingly from its feral ancestor in that it has complex syntax and is heavily influenced by early learning (Okanoya, 2002). We present a computational model of the evolutionary history of the Bengalese finch which demonstrates how an increase in song complexity and increased influence from early learning could evolve spontaneously as a result of domestication. We argue that this may provide an insight into how increased reliance on vocal learning could evolve in other communication systems, including human language.} } @article{rizzolatti98languageWithin, author={Giacomo Rizzolatti and Michael A. Arbib}, title={Language within our grasp}, journal={Trends in Neurosciences}, year={1998}, volume={21}, number={5}, pages={188-194}, doi={10.1016/S0166-2236(98)01260-0}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/rizzolatti98languageWithin.html}, keywords={premotor cortex; mirror neurons; action; language evolution}, abstract={In monkeys, the rostral part of ventral premotor cortex (area F5) contains neurons that discharge, both when the monkey grasps or manipulates objects and when it observes the experimenter making similar actions. These neurons (mirror neurons) appear to represent a system that matches observed events to similar, internally generated actions, and in this way forms a link between the observer and the actor. Transcranial magnetic stimulation and positron emission tomography (PET) experiments suggest that a mirror system for gesture recognition also exists in humans and includes Broca's area. We propose here that such an observation/execution matching system provides a necessary bridge from ‘doing' to ‘communicating', as the link between actor and observer becomes a link between the sender and the receiver of each message.} } @incollection{robertsonnischater04, author={M. Roberts and L. Onnis and N. Chater}, title={Acquisition and evolution of quasi-regular languages: two puzzles for the price of one}, year={2005}, chapter={15}, editor={Tallerman, M.}, publisher={}, booktitle={Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/robertsonnischater04.html} } @techreport{rocha99semioticAgent, author={Luis Mateus Rocha}, title={From Artificial Life to Semiotic Agent Models: Review and Research Directions}, year={1999}, institution={Los Alamos National Laboratory}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/rocha99semioticAgent.html} } @inproceedings{roesner03sublanguage, author={Dietmar Roesner and Manuela Kunze}, title={Exploiting Sublanguage and Domain Characteristics in a Bootstrapping Approach to Lexicon and Ontology Creation}, year={2002}, pages={68-73}, booktitle={Proceedings of the OntoLex 2002 - Ontologies and Lexical Knowledge Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/roesner03sublanguage.html}, abstract={It is very costly to build up lexical resources and domain ontologies. Especially when confronted with a new application domain lexical gaps and a poor coverage of domain concepts are a problem for the successful exploitation of natural language document analysis systems that need and exploit such knowledge sources. In this paper we report about ongoing experiments with `bootstrapping techniques' for lexicon and ontology creation.} } @incollection{romaine92theEvolution, author={Suzanne Romaine}, title={The Evolution of Linguistic Complexity in Pidgin and Creole Languages}, year={1992}, address={Reading, MA}, editor={Hawkins, John A. and Murray Gell-Mann}, series={SFI Studies in the Sciences of Complexity}, publisher={Addison-Wesley}, booktitle={The Evolution of Human Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/romaine92theEvolution.html} } @article{roy05groundingWordsTICS, author={Deb Roy}, title={Grounding words in perception and action: computational insights}, journal={Trends in Cognitive Sciences}, year={2005}, volume={9}, number={8}, pages={389--396}, doi={10.1016/j.tics.2005.06.013}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/roy05groundingWordsTICS.html}, abstract={We use words to communicate about things and kinds of things, their properties, relations and actions. Researchers are now creating robotic and simulated systems that ground language in machine perception and action, mirroring human abilities. A new kind of computational model is emerging from this work that bridges the symbolic realm of language with the physical realm of real-world referents. It explains aspects of context-dependent shifts of word meaning that cannot easily be explained by purely symbolic models. An exciting implication for cognitive modeling is the use of grounded systems to ‘step into the shoes’ of humans by directly processing first-person-perspective sensory data, providing a new methodology for testing various hypotheses of situated communication and learning.} } @unpublished{roy04groundingLanguage, author={Deb Roy}, title={Grounding Language in the World: Schema Theory Meets Semiotics}, year={2004}, note={Submitted to Artificial Intelligence}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/roy04groundingLanguage.html} } @article{roy01groundedWords, author={Deb Roy}, title={Learning visually grounded words and syntax of natural spoken language}, journal={Evolution of Communication}, year={2001}, volume={4}, number={1}, pages={33-56}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/roy01groundedWords.html} } @inproceedings{roy06humanSpeechomeEELC, author={Deb Roy and Rupal Patel and Philip DeCamp and Rony Kubat and Michael Fleischman and Brandon Roy and Nikolaos Mavridis and Stefanie Tellex and Alexia Salata and Jethran Guinness and Michael Levit and Peter Gorniak}, title={The Human Speechome Project}, year={2006}, pages={192-196}, editor={P. Vogt and et al.}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Symbol Grounding and Beyond: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, doi={10.1007/11880172_15}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/roy06humanSpeechomeEELC.html}, abstract={The Human Speechome Project is an effort to observe and computationally model the longitudinal course of language development for a single child at an unprecedented scale. We are collecting audio and video recordings for the first three years of one child’s life, in its near entirety, as it unfolds in the child’s home. A network of ceiling-mounted video cameras and microphones are generating approximately 300 gigabytes of observational data each day from the home. One of the worlds largest single-volume disk arrays is under construction to house approximately 400,000 hours of audio and video recordings that will accumulate over the three year study. To analyze the massive data set, we are developing new data mining technologies to help human analysts rapidly annotate and transcribe recordings using semi-automatic methods, and to detect and visualize salient patterns of behavior and interaction. To make sense of large-scale patterns that span across months or even years of observations, we are developing computational models of language acquisition that are able to learn from the childs experiential record. By creating and evaluating machine learning systems that step into the shoes of the child and sequentially process long stretches of perceptual experience, we will investigate possible language learning strategies used by children with an emphasis on early word learning.} } @article{roy05connectingLanguageToTheWorld, author={Deb Roy and Ehud Reiter}, title={Connecting language to the world}, journal={Artificial Intelligence}, year={2005}, month={September}, volume={167}, number={1-2}, pages={1-12}, doi={10.1016/j.artint.2005.06.002}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/roy05connectingLanguageToTheWorld.html} } @book{rubinstein00economicsAnd, author={Ariel Rubinstein}, title={Economics and Language}, year={2000}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/rubinstein00economicsAnd.html} } @unpublished{rubinstein98economicsAnd, author={Ariel Rubinstein}, title={Economics and Language}, year={1998}, note={The Schwartz Lecture, Northwestern University}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/rubinstein98economicsAnd.html} } @incollection{ruhlen05historicalLinguisitcs, author={Merritt Ruhlen}, title={Taxonomy, typology, and historical linguistics}, year={2005}, month={July}, editor={James W. Minett and William S.-Y. Wang}, publisher={City University of Hong Kong Press}, booktitle={Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ruhlen05historicalLinguisitcs.html} } @book{ruhlen94tracingMotherTongueBOOK, author={Merritt Ruhlen}, title={The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue}, year={1994}, publisher={Wiley}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ruhlen94tracingMotherTongueBOOK.html} } @incollection{ruhlen92anOverview, author={Merritt Ruhlen}, title={An Overview of Genetic Classification}, year={1992}, address={Reading, MA}, editor={Hawkins, John A. and Murray Gell-Mann}, publisher={Addison-Wesley}, booktitle={The Evolution of Human Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ruhlen92anOverview.html} } @inproceedings{ryan98grammaticalEvolution, author={Conor Ryan and J. J. Collins and Michael O'Neill}, title={Grammatical Evolution: Evolving Programs for an Arbitrary Language}, year={1998}, pages={83-96}, booktitle={EuroGP 1998}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ryan98grammaticalEvolution.html}, abstract={We describe a Genetic Algorithm that can evolve complete programs. Using a variable length linear genome to govern how a Backus Naur Form grammar definition is mapped to a program, expressions and programs of arbitrary complexity may be evolved. Other automatic programming methods are described, before our system, Grammatical Evolution, is applied to a symbolic regression problem.} } @inproceedings{sabah99experimentsIn, author={Gérard Sabah and Andrei Popescu-Belis}, title={Experiments in language acquisition by artificial systems}, year={1999}, address={Dublin, Ireland}, booktitle={Actes MIND-4}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/sabah99experimentsIn.html} } @article{sakai05languageAcquisitionSCIENCE, author={Kuniyoshi L. Sakai}, title={Language Acquisition and Brain Development}, journal={Science}, year={2005}, month={November}, volume={310}, number={5749}, pages={815-819}, doi={10.1126/science.1113530}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/sakai05languageAcquisitionSCIENCE.html}, abstract={Language acquisition is one of the most fundamental human traits, and it is obviously the brain that undergoes the developmental changes. During the years of language acquisition, the brain not only stores linguistic information but also adapts to the grammatical regularities of language. Recent advances in functional neuroimaging have substantially contributed to systems-level analyses of brain development. In this Viewpoint, I review the current understanding of how the 'final state' of language acquisition is represented in the mature brain and summarize new findings on cortical plasticity for second language acquisition, focusing particularly on the function of the grammar center.} } @inproceedings{sampath99anApplication, author={G. Sampath}, title={An application of neural nets to comparative linguistics (abstract only)}, year={1999}, pages={685}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 19th annual conference on Computer Science Conference (1991)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/sampath99anApplication.html} } @article{wendy05PNAS, author={Wendy Sandler and Irit Meir and Carol Padden and Mark Aronoff}, title={The emergence of grammar: Systematic structure in a new language}, journal={PNAS}, year={2005}, volume={102}, pages={2661-2665}, doi={10.1073/pnas.0405448102}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/wendy05PNAS.html}, keywords={language genesis;sign language;word order}, abstract={This report contains a linguistic description of a language created spontaneously without any apparent external influence in a stable existing community. We describe the syntactic structure of Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language, a language that has arisen in the last 70 years in an isolated endogamous community with a high incidence of nonsyndromic, genetically recessive, profound prelingual neurosensory deafness. In the space of one generation from its inception, systematic grammatical structure has emerged in the language. Going beyond a conventionalized list of words for actions, objects, people, characteristics, and so on, a systematic way of marking the grammatical relations among those elements has appeared in the form of highly regular word order. These systematic structures cannot be attributed to influence from other languages, because the particular word orders that appear in Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language differ from those found both in the ambient spoken languages in the community and in the other sign language found predominantly in the surrounding area. Therefore, the emerging grammatical structures should be regarded as an independent development within the language.} } @inproceedings{sasahara04ALife, author={Kazutoshi Sasahara and Takashi Ikegami}, title={Song Grammars as Complex Sexual Displays}, year={2004}, booktitle={Artificial Life IX}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/sasahara04ALife.html} } @inproceedings{sasahara03ecal, author={K. Sasahara and T. Ikegami}, title={Coevolution of Birdsong Grammar without Imitation}, year={2003}, pages={482-490}, booktitle={ECAL03}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/sasahara03ecal.html}, abstract={The mating song of the male Bengalese finch can be described by a finite-state grammar and has the feature that more complex songs are preferred by females [1]-[3]. These facts suggest that complex song grammars may have evolved via sexual selection. How, then, do the female birds gauge a song's complexity? Assuming that they can measure the complexity of a song while communicating with a male, but without making a model of the song, we studied the evolution of song grammars. In our simulation, it was demonstrated that song grammars became more complex through communication between coevolving males and females. Furthermore, when singing and listening were subject to fluctuations, peculiar features were observed in communication and evolution.} } @article{satterfield01towardA, author={T. Satterfield}, title={Toward a sociogenetic solution: Examining language formation processes through SWARM modeling}, journal={Social Science Computer Review}, year={2001}, month={FALL}, volume={19}, number={3}, pages={281-295}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/satterfield01towardA.html}, keywords={language contact, pidgins and creoles, language acquisition}, abstract={Creole languages are often a point of contention for theoretical linguistics. Broadly defined, creoles result from an amalgamation of two or more languages, when speakers of differing mother tongues need rudimentary communication during economic or social transactions. Creolization occurs if the invented system becomes the native language of the speech community. There are several hypotheses for how biological linguistic properties and social contact each bear on the formation of creoles; however, until recently, no reliable method for testing these complex interactions existed. Implementing SWARM 2.1.1, the current model consists of a multiagent population drawn from historical records of Surinamese sugar cane plantations. Each agent in this artificial society is endowed with a demographic profile and linguistic parameters. Three experiments using the SWARM model are described. The results provide viable motivation for advancing a sociogenetic solution for the emergence of prototypical creole languages.} } @techreport{satterfield00theSocio, author={Teresa Satterfield}, title={The Socio-Genetic Solution: A New Look At Language Genesis Through Swarm Modeling}, year={2000}, institution={Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan}, note={CSCS-2000-007}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/satterfield00theSocio.html} } @inproceedings{saunders96theEvolution, author={G. M. Saunders and J. B. Pollack}, title={The Evolution of communication schemes over continuous channels}, year={1996}, address={Cambridge MA}, editor={Maes, P. and Mataric, M. and Meyer, J.-A. and Pollack, J. and Wilson, S. W.}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={SAB96}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/saunders96theEvolution.html} } @techreport{saunders94techreport, author={Gregory M. Saunders and Jordan B. Pollack}, title={The Evolution of Communication in Adaptive Agents}, year={1994}, institution={Department of Computer and Information Science, The Ohio State University}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/saunders94techreport.html} } @incollection{savage-rumbaugh99apeLanguage, author={Sue Savage-Rumbaugh}, title={Ape Language: Between a Rock and a Hard Place}, year={1999}, chapter={5}, editor={Barbara J. King}, publisher={School of American Research Press}, booktitle={The Origins of Language: What Nonhuman Primates Can Tell Us}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/savagerumbaugh99apeLanguage.html} } @mastersthesis{saxton05thesisFacialVocal, author={Tamsin Saxton}, title={Facial and Vocal Attractiveness: a developmental and cross-modality study}, year={2005}, school={Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, The University of Edinburgh}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/saxton05thesisFacialVocal.html}, abstract={Research on physical attraction is often interpreted with reference to the theory that physical attraction enables adaptive mate choice behaviour. The sensation of physical attraction is thought to enable humans to select those mates who are most likely to help them bear the fittest offspring. The sexual behaviour associated with mate choice emerges at puberty, and so the present study investigated whether adult-like judgments of facial and vocal attractiveness arise at puberty. It found that children and adolescents differ from adults in their judgments of attractive faces and voices, and that pitch of voice cues different responses in the different age groups. It also found co-variance in the attractiveness of male faces and voices, suggesting that the modalities of face and voice are providing concordant signals as to mate quality.} } @inproceedings{schatten03ECAL, author={Rolf Schatten}, title={Systemic Architecture for Audio Signal Processing}, year={2003}, pages={491-498}, booktitle={ECAL03}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/schatten03ECAL.html}, abstract={This paper proposes a layered systemic architecture for audio signal processing. The described systems consists of several building blocks connected in different ways and thus enabling different behaviour. Three different systems are proposed constructed with almost the same building blocks fulfilling three different tasks of audio processing: learning to hear, learning to reproduce and learning to associate. The systemic architecture facilitates the connection of all three proposed subsystems to get one big system fulfilling all three proposed tasks of audio signal processing.} } @incollection{schoenemann05conceptualComplexity, author={P. Thomas Schoenemann}, title={Conceptual complexity and the brain: understanding language origins}, year={2005}, month={July}, editor={James W. Minett and William S.-Y. Wang}, publisher={City University of Hong Kong Press}, booktitle={Language Acquisition, Change and Emergence: Essays in Evolutionary Linguistics}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/schoenemann05conceptualComplexity.html}, abstract={The evolutionary process works by modifying pre-existing mechanisms, which makes continuity likely. A review of the evidence available to date suggests that there are many aspects of language that show evolutionary continuity, though the direct evidence for syntax and grammar is less clear. However, the universal features of grammar in modern human languages appear to be essentially descriptions of aspects of our basic conceptual universe. It is argued that the most parsimonious model of language evolution involves an increase in conceptual/semantic complexity, which in turn drove the acquisition of syntax and grammar. In this model, universal features of grammar are actually simply reflections of our internal conceptual universe, which are manifested culturally in a variety of ways that are consistent with our pre-linguistic cognitive abilities. This explains both why grammatical rules vary so much across languages, as well as the fact that the commonalities appear to be inherently semantic in nature. An understanding of the way in which concepts are instantiated in the brain, combined with a comparative perspective on brain structure/function relationships, suggest a tight relationship between increasing brain size during hominid evolution and increasing conceptual complexity. A simulation using populations of interacting artificial neural-net agents illustrating this hypothesis is described. The association of brain size and conceptual complexity suggests that language has a deep ancestry.} } @article{schoenemann99syntaxAs, author={P. T. Schoenemann}, title={Syntax as an emergent characteristic of the evolution of semantic complexity}, journal={Minds and Machines}, year={1999}, volume={9}, pages={309-346}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/schoenemann99syntaxAs.html} } @article{Schoenemann96BBS, author={P. T. Schoenemann and William S-Y. Wang}, title={Evolutionary Principles and the Emergence of Syntax}, journal={Behavioral and Brain Sciences}, year={1996}, volume={19}, number={4}, pages={646-47}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Schoenemann96BBS.html} } @inproceedings{schulz06AlifeX, author={Ruth Schulz and Paul Stockwell and Mark Wakabayashi and Janet Wiles}, title={Generalization in Languages Evolved for Mobile Robots}, year={2006}, pages={486-492}, editor={Luis M. Rocha and et al.}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Artificial Life X}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/schulz06AlifeX.html}, abstract={A set of simulations are presented that investigate generalization in languages evolved for mobile robots. The mobile robot platform is RatSLAM, a model for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping based on rodent hippocampus that uses visual and odometric information to build up a map of the explored environment. The language agents use information from this system as inputs and are based on simple recurrent neural networks. This paper describes two sets of experiments exploring the nature of generalization in evolved languages. The first study investigated languages evolved from visual inputs and the second study investigated languages evolved from position representations. These studies showed that processing the input prior to the language agent affects the expressivity of the languages and the performance of the agents. Some generalization occurs in these languages. Studies are ongoing to extend these simulations using the simulated world of the robots.} } @inproceedings{schulz06spatialLanguageRobots, author={Ruth Schulz and Paul Stockwell and Mark Wakabayashi and Janet Wiles}, title={Towards a spatial language for mobile robots}, year={2006}, pages={291-298}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/schulz06spatialLanguageRobots.html}, abstract={We present a framework and first set of simulations for evolving a language for communicating about space. The framework comprises two components: (1) An established mobile robot platform, RatSLAM, which has a 'brain' architecture based on rodent hippocampus with the ability to integrate visual and odometric cues to create internal maps of its environment. (2) A language learning system based on a neural network architecture that has been designed and implemented with the ability to evolve generalizable languages which can be learned by naive learners. A study using visual scenes and internal maps streamed from the simulated world of the robots to evolve languages is presented. This study investigated the structure of the evolved languages showing that with these inputs, expressive languages can effectively categorize the world. Ongoing studies are extending these investigations to evolve languages that use the full power of the robots representations in populations of agents.} } @unpublished{schulze07simulationAfterConquest, author={Christian Schulze and Dietrich Stauffer}, title={Language simulation after a conquest}, year={2007}, note={}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/schulze07simulationAfterConquest.html}, abstract={When a region is conquered by people speaking another language, we assume within the Schulze model that at each iteration each person with probability s shifts to the conquering language. The time needed for the conquering language to become dominating is about 2/s for directed Barabasi-Albert networks, but diverges on the square lattice for decreasing s at some critical value sc} } @article{schulze07languageCompetition, author={Christian Schulze and Dietrich Stauffer}, title={Competition of languages in the presence of a barrier}, journal={Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications}, year={2007}, month={6}, volume={379}, number={2}, pages={661-664}, doi={10.1016/j.physa.2007.02.071}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/schulze07languageCompetition.html}, abstract={Using the Schulze model for Monte Carlo simulations of language competition, we include a barrier between the top half and the bottom half of the lattice. We check under which conditions two different languages evolve as dominating in the two halves.} } @article{schulze05languageCompetitionByPhysicists, author={Christian Schulze and Dietrich Stauffer}, title={Recent Developments in Computer Simulations of Language Competition}, journal={Computing in Science and Engineering}, year={2006}, month={May-June}, volume={8}, number={3}, pages={60-67}, doi={10.1109/MCSE.2006.47}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/schulze05languageCompetitionByPhysicists.html}, keywords={Monte Carlo,language size distribution,model,simulation}, abstract={Will we all eventually speak the same language and its dialects? Here, we summarize several language models and present variants of our own language model in greater detail.} } @article{schulze06survivalOfMinorityLanguages, author={Christian Schulze and Dietrich Stauffer}, title={Monte Carlo simulation of survival for minority languages}, journal={Advances in complex systems}, year={2006}, month={SEP}, volume={9}, number={3}, pages={183-191}, doi={10.1142/S0219525906000719}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/schulze06survivalOfMinorityLanguages.html}, keywords={Language competition; Monte Carlo; Quebec}, abstract={Our earlier language model is modified to allow for the survival of a minority language without higher status, just because of the pride of its speakers in their linguistic identity. An appendix studies the roughness of the interface for linguistic regions when one language conquers the whole territory.} } @article{schulze04riseAndFallOfLanguages, author={Christian Schulze and Dietrich Stauffer}, title={Monte Carlo simulation of the rise and the fall of languages}, journal={International Journal of Modern Physics C}, year={2005}, volume={16}, number={5}, pages={781-787}, doi={10.1142/S0129183105007479}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/schulze04riseAndFallOfLanguages.html}, abstract={Similar to biological evolution and speciation we define a language through a string of 8 or 16 bits. The parent gives its language to its children, apart from a random mutation from zero to one or from one to zero; initially all bits are zero. The Verhulst deaths are taken as proportional to the total number of people, while in addition languages spoken by many people are preferred over small languages. For a fixed population size, a sharp phase transition is observed: For low mutation rates, one language contains nearly all people; for high mutation rates, no language dominates and the size distribution of languages is roughly log-normal as for present human languages. A simple scaling law is valid.} } @article{schwammle06phaseTransition, author={Veit Schwammle}, title={Phase transition in a sexual age-structured model of learning foreign languages}, journal={International Journal of Modern Physics C}, year={2006}, volume={17}, number={1}, pages={103-111}, doi={10.1142/S0129183106008807}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/schwammle06phaseTransition.html}, keywords={Language; aging; numerical model; phase transition}, abstract={The understanding of language competition helps us to predict extinction and survival of languages spoken by minorities. A simple agent-based model of a sexual population, based on the Penna model, is built in order to find out under which circumstances one language dominates other ones. This model considers that only young people learn foreign languages. The simulations show a first order phase transition of the ratio between the number of speakers of different languages with the mutation rate as control parameter.} } @article{schwammle05languageCompetition, author={Veit Schwammle}, title={Simulation for competition of languages with an ageing sexual population}, journal={International Journal of Modern Physics C}, year={2005}, month={October}, volume={16}, number={10}, pages={1519-1526}, doi={10.1142/S0129183105008084}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/schwammle05languageCompetition.html}, abstract={Recently, individual-based models originally used for biological purposes revealed interesting insights into processes of the competition of languages. Within this new field of population dynamics a model considering sexual populations with ageing is presented. The agents are situated on a lattice and each one speaks one of two languages or both. The stability and quantitative structure of an interface between two regions, initially speaking different languages, is studied. We find that individuals speaking both languages do not prefer any of these regions and have a different age structure than individuals speaking only one language.} } @inproceedings{phillips06evolang, author={Thomas C. Scott-Phillips}, title={Why talk? Speaking as selfish behaviour}, year={2006}, pages={299-306}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/phillips06evolang.html}, abstract={Many theories of language evolution assume a selection pressure for the communication of propositional content. However, if the content of such utterances is of value then information sharing is altruistic, in that it provides a benefit to others at possible expense to oneself. Close consideration of cross-disciplinary evidence suggests that speaking is in fact selfish, in that the speaker receives a direct payoff when successful communication takes place. This is congruent with the orthodox view of animal communication, and it is suggested that future research be conducted within this context.} } @mastersthesis{phillips05thesisWhyTalk, author={Thomas C. Scott-Phillips}, title={Why talk: an Adaptationist Approach}, year={2005}, school={Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, The University of Edinburgh}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/phillips05thesisWhyTalk.html} } @article{searls02languageOfGenes, author={David B. Searls}, title={The language of genes}, journal={Nature}, year={2002}, month={November}, volume={420}, pages={211-217}, doi={10.1038/nature01255}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/searls02languageOfGenes.html}, abstract={Linguistic metaphors have been woven into the fabric of molecular biology since its inception. The determination of the human genome sequence has brought these metaphors to the forefront of the popular imagination, with the natural extension of the notion of DNA as language to that of the genome as the 'book of life'. But do these analogies go deeper and, if so, can the methods developed for analysing languages be applied to molecular biology? In fact, many techniques used in bioinformatics, even if developed independently, may be seen to be grounded in linguistics. Further interweaving of these fields will be instrumental in extending our understanding of the language of life.} } @article{selten07languageEmergencePNAS, author={Reinhard Selten and Massimo Warglien}, title={The emergence of simple languages in an experimental coordination game}, journal={PNAS}, year={2007}, month={May}, volume={104}, number={18}, pages={7361-7366}, doi={10.1073/pnas.0702077104}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/selten07languageEmergencePNAS.html}, keywords={communication,compositionality,economics of language}, abstract={We investigate in a series of laboratory experiments how costs and benefits of linguistic communication affect the emergence of simple languages in a coordination task when no common language is available in the beginning. The experiment involved pairwise computerized communication between 152 subjects involved in at least 60 rounds. The subjects had to develop a common code referring to items in varying lists of geometrical figures distinguished by up to three features. A code had to be made of a limited repertoire of letters. Using letters had a cost. We are interested in the question of whether a common code is developed, and what enhances its emergence. Furthermore, we explore the emergence of compositional, protogrammatical structure in such codes. We compare environments that differ in terms of available linguistic resources (number of letters available) and in terms of stability of the task environment (variability in the set of figures). Our experiments show that a too small repertoire of letters causes coordination failures. Cost efficiency and role asymmetry are important factors enhancing communicative success. In stable environments, grammars do not seem to matter much, and instead efficient arbitrary codes often do better. However, in an environment with novelty, compositional grammars offer considerable coordination advantages and therefore are more likely to arise.} } @article{senghas03signLanguage, author={Ann Senghas}, title={Intergenerational influence and ontogenetic development in the emergence of spatial grammar in Nicaraguan Sign Language}, journal={Cognitive Development}, year={2003}, volume={18}, number={4}, pages={511-531}, doi={10.1016/j.cogdev.2003.09.006}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/senghas03signLanguage.html}, keywords={Language acquisition; Sign language; Language development; Spatial language; Language evolution; Language change; Spatial grammar}, abstract={The recent emergence of a new sign language among deaf children and adolescents in Nicaragua provides an opportunity to study how grammatical features of a language arise and spread, and how new language environments are constructed. The grammatical regularities that underlie language use reside largely outside the domain of explicit awareness. Nevertheless, knowledge of these regularities must be transmitted from one generation to the next to survive as part of the language. During this transmission, language form and use is shaped by both the characteristics of ontogenetic development within individual users and by historical changes in patterns of interaction between users. To capture this process, the present study follows the emergence of spatial modulations in Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL). A comprehension task examining interpretations of spatially modulated verbs reveals that new form-function mappings arise among children who functionally differentiate previously equivalent forms. The new mappings are then acquired by their age peers (who are also children), and by subsequent generations of children who learn the language, but not by adult contemporaries. As a result, language emergence is characterized by a convergence on form within each age cohort, and a mismatch in form from one age cohort to the cohort that follows. In this way, each age cohort, in sequence, transforms the language environment for the next, enabling each new cohort of learners to develop further than its predecessors.} } @article{senghas01NicaraguanSignLanguage, author={A. Senghas and M. Coppola}, title={Children creating language: how Nicaraguan sign language acquired a spatial grammar}, journal={Psychological Science}, year={2001}, volume={12}, pages={323-328}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/senghas01NicaraguanSignLanguage.html} } @article{senghas04sciencemag, author={Ann Senghas and Sotaro Kita and Asli Ozyurek}, title={Children Creating Core Properties of Language: Evidence from an Emerging Sign Language in Nicaragua}, journal={Science}, year={2004}, volume={305}, number={5691}, pages={1779-1782}, doi={10.1126/science.1100199}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/senghas04sciencemag.html}, abstract={A new sign language has been created by deaf Nicaraguans over the past 25 years, providing an opportunity to observe the inception of universal hallmarks of language. We found that in their initial creation of the language, children analyzed complex events into basic elements and sequenced these elements into hierarchically structured expressions according to principles not observed in gestures accompanying speech in the surrounding language. Successive cohorts of learners extended this procedure, transforming Nicaraguan signing from its early gestural form into a linguistic system. We propose that this early segmentation and recombination reflect mechanisms with which children learn, and thereby perpetuate, language. Thus, children naturally possess learning abilities capable of giving language its fundamental structure.} } @article{sereno91jtb, author={Marty Sereno}, title={Four analogies between biological and cultural/linguistic evolution}, journal={Journal of Theoretical Biology}, year={1991}, volume={151}, pages={467-507}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/sereno91jtb.html}, abstract={The intricate phenomena of biology on one hand, and language and culture on the other, have inspired many writers to draw analogies between these two evolutionary systems. These analogies can be divided into four principal types: species/language, organism/concept, genes/culture, and cell/person. I argue that the last analogy--between cells and persons--is the most profound in several respects, and, more importantly, can be used to generate a number of empirical predictions. In the first half of the paper, the four analogies are each evaluated after briefly describing criteria for a good predictive analogy. In the second half of the paper, the cell/person analogy and predictions deriving from it are explored in detail.} } @article{shukla05languageBiological, author={M. Shukla}, title={Language from a biological perspective}, journal={J Biosci}, year={2005}, month={February}, volume={30}, number={1}, pages={119-27}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/shukla05languageBiological.html}, abstract={The faculty of language is unique to the human species. This implies that there are human-specific biological changes that lie at the basis of human language. However, it is not clear what the nature of such changes are, and how they could be shaped by evolution. In this paper, emphasis is laid on describing language in a Chomskyan manner, as a mental object. This serves as a standpoint to speculate about the biological basis of the emergence and evolution of language.} } @article{siegal04sciencemag, author={Michael Siegal}, title={Signposts to the Essence of Language}, journal={Science}, year={2004}, volume={305}, number={5691}, pages={1720-1721}, doi={10.1126/science.1102894}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/siegal04sciencemag.html}, abstract={Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL), developed by deaf children in Managua over the past 35 years, has provided unprecedented insights into the innateness of language. In his Perspective, Siegal discusses the latest study of three age groups of NSL signers (Senghas et al.), which reveals that segmentation and sequencing, considered core properties of all languages, are clearly present in NSL.} } @inproceedings{sierra06logicEELC, author={Josefina Sierra-Santibanez}, title={Propositional Logic Syntax Acquisition}, year={2006}, pages={128-142}, editor={P. Vogt and et al.}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Symbol Grounding and Beyond: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, doi={10.1007/11880172_11}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/sierra06logicEELC.html}, abstract={This paper addresses the problem of the acquisition of the syntax of propositional logic. An approach based on general purpose cognitive capacities such as invention, adoption, parsing, generation and induction is proposed. Self-organisation principles are used to show how a shared set of preferred lexical entries and grammatical constructions, i.e., a language, can emerge in a population of autonomous agents which do not have any initial linguistic knowledge. Experiments in which a population of autonomous agents constructs a language that allows communicating the formulas of a propositional language are presented. This language although simple has interesting properties found in natural languages, such as compositionality and recursion.} } @article{sigman02pnas, author={M. Sigman and G.A. Cecchi}, title={Global organization of the Wordnet lexicon}, journal={PNAS}, year={2002}, volume={99}, number={3}, pages={1742-1747}, doi={10.1073/pnas.022341799}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/sigman02pnas.html}, abstract={The lexicon consists of a set of word meanings and their semantic relationships. A systematic representation of the English lexicon based in psycholinguistic considerations has been put together in the database Wordnet in a long-term collaborative effort. We present here a quantitative study of the graph structure of Wordnet to understand the global organization of the lexicon. Semantic links follow power-law, scale-invariant behaviors typical of self-organizing networks. Polysemy (the ambiguity of an individual word) is one of the links in the semantic network, relating the different meanings of a common word. Polysemous links have a profound impact in the organization of the semantic graph, conforming it as a small world network, with clusters of high traffic (hubs) representing abstract concepts such as line, head, or circle. Our results show that: (i) Wordnet has global properties common to many self-organized systems, and (ii) polysemy organizes the semantic graph in a compact and categorical representation, in a way that may explain the ubiquity of polysemy across languages.} } @incollection{sinha04inbook, author={Chris Sinha}, title={The Evolution of Language: From Signals to Symbols to System}, year={2004}, pages={217-236}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/sinha04inbook.html} } @article{siskind96learningWordMeaningMapping, author={Jeffrey Mark Siskind}, title={A computational study of cross-situational techniques for learning word-to-meaning mappings}, journal={Cognition}, year={1996}, month={Oct-Nov}, volume={61}, number={1-2}, pages={1-38}, doi={10.1016/S0010-0277(96)00728-7}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/siskind96learningWordMeaningMapping.html}, abstract={This paper presents a computational study of part of the lexical-acquisition task faced by children, namely the acquisition of word-to-meaning mappings. It first approximates this task as a formal mathematical problem. It then presents an implemented algorithm for solving this problem, illustrating its operation on a small example. This algorithm offers one precise interpretation of the intuitive notions of cross-situational learning and the principle of contrast applied between words in an utterance. It robustly learns a homonymous lexicon despite noisy multi-word input, in the presence of referential uncertainty, with no prior knowledge that is specific to the language being learned. Computational simulations demonstrate the robustness of this algorithm and illustrate how algorithms based on cross-situational learning and the principle of contrast might be able to solve lexical-acquisition problems of the size faced by children, under weak, worst-case assumptions about the type and quantity of data available.} } @inproceedings{admsmith06evolang, author={Andrew D. M. Smith}, title={Semantic reconstructibility and the complexification of language}, year={2006}, pages={307-314}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/admsmith06evolang.html}, abstract={Much of the current debate about the development of modern language from protolanguage focuses on whether the process was primarily synthetic or analytic. I investigate attested mech- anisms of language change and emphasise the uncertainty inherent in the inferential nature of communication. Both synthesis and analysis are involved in the complexification of language, but the most significant pressure is the need for meanings to be reconstructible from context.} } @incollection{admsmith04bookchapter, author={Andrew D. M. Smith}, title={Mutual Exclusivity: Communicative Success Despite Conceptual Divergence}, year={2005}, chapter={17}, editor={Maggie Tallerman}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/admsmith04bookchapter.html} } @article{admSmith05inferentialTransmissionABJ, author={Andrew D. M. Smith}, title={The Inferential Transmission of Language}, journal={Adaptive Behavior}, year={2005}, volume={13}, number={4}, pages={311-324}, doi={10.1177/105971230501300402}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/admSmith05inferentialTransmissionABJ.html}, keywords={language acquisition,language change,language evolution,meaning inference,cultural transmission,cross-situational learning}, abstract={Language is a symbolic, culturally transmitted system of communication, which is learnt through the inference of meaning. In this paper, I describe the importance of meaning inference, not only in language acquisition, but also in developing a unified explanation for language change and evolution. Using an agent-based computational model of meaning creation and communication, I show how the meanings of words can be inferred through disambiguation across multiple contexts, using cross-situational statistical learning. I demonstrate that the uncertainty inherent in the process of meaning inference, moreover, leads to stable variation in both conceptual and lexical structure, providing evidence which helps to explain how language changes rapidly without losing communicability. Finally, I describe how an inferential model of communication may provide important theoretical insights into plausible explanations of the bootstrapping of, and the subsequent progressive complexification of, cultural communication systems.} } @inproceedings{admsmith05stableCommunication_EELC, author={Andrew D. M. Smith}, title={Stable communication through dynamic language}, year={2005}, booktitle={Second International Symposium on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/admsmith05stableCommunication_EELC.html} } @phdthesis{admsmith03phdthesis, author={Andrew D. M. Smith}, title={Evolving Communication through the Inference of Meaning}, year={2003}, school={Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, The University of Edinburgh}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/admsmith03phdthesis.html}, abstract={In this thesis, I address the problem of how successful communication systems can emerge between agents who do not have innate or explicitly transferable meanings, cannot read the minds of their interlocutors, and are not provided with any feedback about the communication process. I develop a solution by focusing on the role of meanings within the framework of language evolution, and on communication through the repeated inference of meaning.

Much recent work on the evolution of language has concentrated on the emergence of compositional syntax as the crucial event which marked the genesis of language; all the experimental models which purport to demonstrate the emergence of syntax, however, rely on models of communication in which the signals are redundant and which contain pre-defined, structured meaning systems which provide an explicit blueprint against which the syntactic structure is built. Moreover, the vast majority of such meaning systems are truly semantic in name only, lacking even the basic semantic characteristics of sense and reference, and the agents must rely on mind-reading or feedback (or both) in order to learn how to communicate.

By contrast, at the heart of this thesis is a solution to the signal redundancy paradox based on the inference of meaning and the disambiguation of potential referents through exposure in multiple contexts. I describe computational models of meaning creation in which agents independently develop individual conceptual structures based on their own experiences of the environment, and show through experimental simulations that the agents can use their own individual meanings to communicate with each other about items in their environment. I demonstrate that the development of successful communication depends to a large extent on the synchronisation of the agents' conceptual structures, and that such synchronisation is significantly more likely to occur when the agents use an intelligent meaning creation strategy which can exploit the structure in the information in the environment.

Motivated by research into the acquisition of language by children, I go on to explore how the introduction of specific cognitive and lexical biases affects the level of communicative success. I show that if the agents are guided by an assumption of mutual exclusivity in word meanings, they do not need to have such high levels of meaning similarity, and can instead communicate successfully despite having very divergent conceptual structures.} } @article{smith02intelligentMeaning, author={Andrew D. M. Smith}, title={Intelligent Meaning Creation in A Clumpy World Helps Communication}, journal={Artificial Life}, year={2003}, volume={9}, number={2}, pages={175-190}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smith02intelligentMeaning.html}, keywords={Meaning similarity, meaning creation, communication, language evolution}, abstract={This paper investigates the problem of how language learners decipher what words mean. In most models of language evolution, agents are provided with meanings {\em a priori} and explicitly transfer them to each other as part of the communication process. By contrast, we investigate how successful communication systems can emerge without innate or transferable meanings, and show that this is dependent on the agents developing highly synchronised conceptual systems. We experiment with various cognitive, communicative and environmental factors which have an impact on the likelihood of agents achieving meaning synchronisation. We show that an intelligent meaning creation strategy in a clumpy world leads to the highest level of meaning similarity between agents.} } @inproceedings{admsmith03ecal, author={Andrew D. M. Smith}, title={Semantic Generalisation and the Inference of Meaning}, year={2003}, pages={499-506}, booktitle={ECAL03}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/admsmith03ecal.html}, abstract={In this paper, a computational model of a successful negotiated com­ munication system is presented, in which language agents develop their own meanings in response to their environment and attempt to infer the meanings of others' utterances. The inherent uncertainty in the process of meaning inference in the system leads to variation in the agents' internal semantic representations, which then itself drives language change in the form of semantic generalisation.} } @inproceedings{smith01establishingCommunication, author={Andrew D. M. Smith}, title={Establishing Communication Systems without Explicit Meaning Transmission}, year={2001}, month={September 10-14}, pages={381-390}, address={Prague}, editor={J. Kelemen and P. Sosík}, series={Lectures Notes in Computer Science}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={ECAL01}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smith01establishingCommunication.html}, abstract={This paper investigates the development of experience­based meaning creation and explores the problem of establishing successful communication systems in a population of agents. The aim of the work is to investigate how such systems can develop, without reliance on phe­ nomena not found in actual human language learning, such as the explicit transmission of meaning or the provision of reliable error feedback to guide learning. Agents develop individual, distinct meaning structures, and although they can communicate despite this, communicative success is closely related to the proportion of shared lexicalised meaning, and the communicative systems have a large degree of redundant synonymy.} } @inproceedings{smith07phonologicalReconstruction, author={Eric Smith}, title={Phonological Reconstruction of a Dead Language Using the Gradual Learning Algorithm}, year={2007}, month={June}, address={Prague, Czech Republic}, booktitle={Proceedings of Ninth Meeting of the ACL Special Interest Group in Computational Morphology and Phonology}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smith07phonologicalReconstruction.html}, abstract={This paper discusses the reconstruction of the Elamite languageâ™s phonology from its orthography using the Gradual Learning Algorithm, which was re-purposed to âœlearnâ underlying phonological forms from surface orthography. Practical issues are raised regarding the difficulty of mapping between orthography and phonology, and Optimality Theoryâ™s neglected Lexicon Optimization module is highlighted.} } @inproceedings{ksmith06evolang, author={Kenny Smith}, title={The protolanguage debate: bridging the gap?}, year={2006}, pages={315-322}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ksmith06evolang.html}, abstract={Synthetic and holistic theories of protolanguage are typically seen as being in opposition. In this paper I 1) evaluate a recent critique of holistic protolanguage 2) sketch how the differences between these two theories can be reconciled, 3) consider a more fundamental problem with the concept of protolanguage.} } @article{smith_EvoOfVocabulary, author={K. Smith}, title={The evolution of vocabulary}, journal={Journal of Theoretical Biology}, year={2004}, volume={228}, number={1}, pages={127-142}, doi={10.1016/j.jtbi.2003.12.016}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smith_EvoOfVocabulary.html}, keywords={language, communication, cultural evolution, learning bias}, abstract={Human language is unique among the communication systems of the natural world. The vocabulary of human language is unique in being both culturally-transmitted and symbolic. In this paper I present an investigation into the factors involved in the evolution of such vocabulary systems. I investigate both the cultural evolution of vocabulary systems and the biological evolution of learning rules for vocabulary acquisition.

Firstly, vocabularies are shown to evolve on a cultural time-scale so as to fit the expectations of learners — a population’s vocabulary adapts to the biases of the learners in that population. A learning bias in favour of one-to-one mappings between meanings and words leads to the cultural evolution of communicativelyoptimal vocabulary systems, even in the absence of any explicit pressure for communication. Furthermore, the pressure to conform to the biases of learners is shown to outweigh natural selection acting on cultural transmission. Human language learners appear to bring a one-to-one bias to the acquisition of vocabulary systems. The functionality of human vocabulary may therefore be a consequence of the biases of human language learners.

Secondly, the evolutionary stability of genetically-transmitted vocabulary learning biases is investigated using both static and dynamic models. A one-to-one learning bias, which leads to the cultural evolution of optimal communication, is shown to be evolutionarily stable. However, the evolution de novo of this bias is complicated by the cumulative nature of the cultural evolution of vocabulary systems. This suggests that the biases of human language learners may not have evolved specifically and exclusively for the acquisition of communicatively-functional vocabulary.} } @inproceedings{smith03ECAL, author={K. Smith}, title={Learning biases for the evolution of linguistic structure: an associative network model}, year={2003}, pages={517-524}, booktitle={ECAL03}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smith03ECAL.html}, abstract={Structural hallmarks of language can be explained in terms of adaptation, by language, to pressures arising during its cultural transmission. Here I present a model which explains the compositional structure of language as an adaptation in response to pressures arising from the poverty of the stimulus available to language learners and the biases of language learners themselves.} } @techreport{smith03techreport, author={K. Smith}, title={Compositionality from culture: the role of environment structure and learning bias}, year={2003}, institution={}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smith03techreport.html} } @phdthesis{smith03phdthesis, author={Kenny Smith}, title={The Transmission of Language: models of biological and cultural evolution}, year={2003}, school={Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, The University of Edinburgh}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smith03phdthesis.html}, abstract={Theories of language evolution typically attribute its unique structure to pressures acting on the genetic transmission of a language faculty and on the cultural transmission of language itself. In strongly biological accounts, natural selection acting on the genetic transmission of the language faculty is seen as the key determinant of linguistic structure, with culture relegated to a relatively minor role. Strongly cultural accounts place greater emphasis on the role of learning in shaping language, with little or no biological adaptation.

Formal modelling of the transmission of language, using mathematical or computational techniques, allows rigorous study of the impact of these two modes of transmission on the structure of language. In this thesis, computational models are used to investigate the evolution of symbolic vocabulary and compositional structure. To what extent can these aspects of language be explained in terms of purely biological or cultural evolution? Should we expect to see a fruitful interaction between these two adaptive processes in a dual transmission model?

As a first step towards addressing these questions, models which focus on the cultural transmission of language are developed. These models suggest that the conventionalised symbolic vocabulary and compositional structure of language can emerge through the adaptation of language itself in response to pressure to be learnable. This pressure arises during cultural transmission as a result of 1) the inductive bias of learners and 2) the poverty of the stimulus available to learners. Language-like systems emerge only when learners acquire their linguistic competence on the basis of sparse input and do so using learning procedures which are biased in favour of one-to-one mappings between meanings and signals. Children acquire language under precisely such circumstances.

As the second stage of inquiry, dual transmission models are developed to ascertain whether this cultural evolution of language interacts with the biological evolution of the language faculty. In these models an individual's learning bias is assumed to be genetically determined. Surprisingly, natural selection during the genetic transmission of this innate endowment does not reliably result in the development of learning biases which lead, through cultural processes, to language-like communication -- there is no synergistic interaction between biological and cultural evolution. The evolution of language may therefore best be explained in terms of cultural evolution on a domain-general or exapted innate substrate.} } @inproceedings{smith03esslli, author={K. Smith}, title={Learning biases and language evolution}, year={2003}, pages={22-31}, address={Vienna}, editor={Simon Kirby}, booktitle={Proceedings of Language Evolution and Computation Workshop/Course at ESSLLI}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smith03esslli.html} } @article{smith_naturalSelection, author={Kenny Smith}, title={Natural selection and cultural selection in the evolution of communication}, journal={Adaptive Behavior}, year={2002}, volume={10}, number={1}, pages={25-44}, doi={10.1177/10597123020101002}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smith_naturalSelection.html}, abstract={It has been postulated that aspects of human language are both genetically and culturally transmitted. How might these processes interact to determine the structure of language? An agent-based model designed to study gene-culture interactions in the evolution of communication is introduced. This model shows that cultural selection resulting from learner biases can be crucial in determining the structure of communication systems transmitted through both genetic and cultural processes. Furthermore, the learning bias which leads to the emergence of optimal communication in the model resembles the learning bias brought to the task of communication by human infants. This suggests that the iterated application of such human learning biases may explain much of the structure of human language.} } @article{smith_theCultural, author={Kenny Smith}, title={The cultural evolution of communication in a population of neural networks}, journal={Connection Science}, year={2002}, volume={14}, number={1}, pages={65-84}, doi={10.1080/09540090210164306}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smith_theCultural.html}, keywords={cultural evolution, communication, learning bias}, abstract={Human language is learned, symbolic and exhibits syntactic structure, a set of properties which make it unique among naturally-occurring communication systems. How did human language come to be as it is? Language is culturally transmitted and cultural processes may have played a role in shaping language. However, it has been suggested that the cultural transmission of language is constrained by some language-specific innate endowment. The primary objective of the research outlined in this paper is to investigate how such an endowment would influence the acquisition of language and the dynamics of the repeated cultural transmission of language. To this end, a new connectionist model of the cultural evolution of communication is presented. In this model an individual's innate endowment is considered to be a learning rule with an associated learning bias. The model allows manipulations to be made to this learning apparatus and the impact of such manipulations on the processes of language acquisition and language evolution to be explored. These investigations reveal that an innate endowment consisting of an ability to read the communicative intentions of others and a bias towards acquiring one-to-one mappings between meanings and signals results in the emergence, through purely cultural processes, of optimal communication. It has previously been suggested that humans possess just such an innate endowment. Properties of human language may therefore best be explained in terms of cultural evolution on an innate substrate.} } @unpublished{smith01theEvolution, author={Kenny Smith}, title={The evolution of learning mechanisms supporting symbolic communication}, year={2001}, note={}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smith01theEvolution.html} } @inproceedings{smith01theImportance, author={Kenny Smith}, title={The Importance of Rapid Cultural Convergence in the Evolution of Learned Symbolic Communication}, year={2001}, month={September 10-14}, pages={637-640}, address={Prague}, editor={J. Kelemen and P. Sosík}, series={Lectures Notes in Computer Science}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={ECAL01}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smith01theImportance.html}, abstract={Oliphant [5,6] contends that language is the only naturally-occurring, learned symbolic communication system, because only humans can accurately observe meaning during the cultural transmission of communication. This paper outlines several objections to Oliphant's argument. In particular, it is argued that the learning biases necessary to support learned symbolic communication may not be common and that the speed of cultural convergence during cultural evolution of communication may be a key factor in the evolution of such learning biases.} } @unpublished{smith00learnersAre, author={Kenny Smith}, title={Learners are losers: Natural selection and learning in the evolution of communication}, year={2000}, note={}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smith00learnersAre.html} } @mastersthesis{smith99cognitiveLinguistics, author={Kenny Smith}, title={Cognitive linguistics and connectionist models of language acquisition}, year={1999}, school={Department of Linguistics, University of Edinburgh}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smith99cognitiveLinguistics.html} } @article{smith03complexSystem, author={K. Smith and H. Brighton and S. Kirby}, title={Complex Systems in Language Evolution: the cultural emergence of compositional structure}, journal={Advances in Complex Systems}, year={2003}, month={12}, volume={6}, number={4}, pages={537-558}, doi={10.1142/S0219525903001055}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smith03complexSystem.html}, keywords={Language; cultural evolution; compositionality}, abstract={Language arises from the interaction of three complex adaptive systems — biological evolution, learning, and culture. We focus here on cultural evolution, and present an Iterated Learning Model of the emergence of compositionality, a fundamental structural property of language. Our main result is to show that the poverty of the stimulus available to language learners leads to a pressure for linguistic structure. When there is a bottleneck on cultural transmission, only a language which is generalizable from sparse input data is stable. Language itself evolves on a cultural time-scale, and compositionality is language's adaptation to stimulus poverty.} } @inproceedings{smithHurford03ECAL, author={K. Smith and J. Hurford}, title={Language Evolution in Populations: extending the Iterated Learning Model}, year={2003}, pages={507-516}, booktitle={ECAL03}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smithHurford03ECAL.html}, abstract={Models of the cultural evolution of language typically assume a very simplified population dynamic. In the most common modelling framework (the Iterated Learning Model) populations are modelled as consisting of a series of non-overlapping generations, with each generation consisting of a single agent. However, the literature on language birth and language change suggests that population dynamics play an important role in real-world linguistic evolution. We aim to develop computational models to investigate this interaction between population factors and language evolution. Here we present results of extending a well-known Iterated Learning Model to a population model which involves multiple individuals. This extension reveals problems with the model of grammar induction, but also shows that the fundamental results of Iterated Learning experiments still hold when we consider an extended population model.} } @article{sbk_ALife, author={K. Smith and S. Kirby and H. Brighton}, title={Iterated Learning: a framework for the emergence of language}, journal={Artificial Life}, year={2003}, volume={9}, number={4}, pages={371-386}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/sbk_ALife.html}, keywords={Iterated learning, cultural evolution, language, compositionality}, abstract={Language is culturally transmitted. Iterated Learning, the process by which the output of one individual's learning becomes the input to other individuals' learning, provides a framework for investigating the cultural evolution of linguistic structure. We present two models, based upon the Iterated Learning framework, which show that the poverty of the stimulus available to language learners leads to the emergence of linguistic structure. Compositionality is language's adaptation to stimulus poverty.} } @inproceedings{ksmith06learningEELC, author={Kenny Smith and Andrew D. M. Smith and Richard A. Blythe and Paul Vogt}, title={Cross-situational learning: a mathematical approach}, year={2006}, pages={31-44}, editor={P. Vogt and Y. Sugita and E. Tuci and C. Nehaniv}, publisher={Springer Berlin/Heidelberg}, booktitle={Symbol Grounding and Beyond: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, doi={10.1007/11880172_3}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ksmith06learningEELC.html}, abstract={We present a mathematical model of cross-situational learning, in which we quantify the learnability of words and vocabularies. We find that high levels of uncertainty are not an impediment to learning single words or whole vocabulary systems, as long as the level of uncertainty is somewhat lower than the total number of meanings in the system. We further note that even large vocabularies are learnable through cross-situational learning.} } @incollection{smith99childrenNoun, author={L. B. Smith}, title={Children's Noun Learning: How General Learning Processes Make Specialized Learning Mechanisms.}, year={1999}, address={Hillsdale, NJ}, editor={B. MacWhinney}, publisher={Lawrence Earlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Emergence of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smith99childrenNoun.html} } @incollection{snow99socialPerspectives, author={Catherine E. Snow}, title={Social Perspectives on the Emergence of Language.}, year={1999}, address={Hillsdale, NJ}, editor={B. MacWhinney}, publisher={Lawrence Earlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Emergence of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/snow99socialPerspectives.html} } @incollection{snowdon04inbook, author={Charles T. Snowdon}, title={Social Processes in the Evolution of Complex Cognition and Communication}, year={2004}, pages={131-150}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/snowdon04inbook.html} } @incollection{snowdon99primates, author={Charles T. Snowdon}, title={An Empiricist View of Language Evolution and Development}, year={1999}, chapter={4}, editor={Barbara J. King}, publisher={School of American Research Press}, booktitle={The Origins of Language: What Nonhuman Primates Can Tell Us}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/snowdon99primates.html} } @article{soares05networkOfSyllables, author={M. Medeiros Soares and C. Corso and L. S. Lucena}, title={Network of Syllables in Portuguese}, journal={Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications}, year={2005}, month={September}, volume={355}, number={2-4}, pages={678-684}, doi={10.1016/j.physa.2005.03.017}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/soares05networkOfSyllables.html}, keywords={Small-world network; Scale-free; Evolving networks; Quantitative linguistics}, abstract={We develop a network using the syllables of the Portuguese language. In this language the syllables are close to the basic phonetic unities. The nodes of the network are the syllables. The links are established each time two syllables form part of the same word. We use two different data sets to perform the numerics: a Portuguese dictionary and the complete work of the most important Brazilian writer—Machado de Assis. The syllabic network shows a low distance and a high clustering coefficient when compared with an associated Erdos–Renyi graph and with an associated random network with the same distribution of connectivity. The distribution of connectivity of the syllabic network follows a power law with exponent y=~1.4 indicating complex behavior.} } @article{solan05languageLearningPNAS, author={Zach Solan and David Horn and Eytan Ruppin and Shimon Edelman}, title={Unsupervised learning of natural languages}, journal={PNAS}, year={2005}, month={August}, volume={102}, number={33}, pages={11629-11634}, doi={10.1073/pnas.0409746102}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/solan05languageLearningPNAS.html}, keywords={computational linguistics, grammar induction, language acquisition, machine learning, protein classification}, abstract={We address the problem, fundamental to linguistics, bioinformatics, and certain other disciplines, of using corpora of raw symbolic sequential data to infer underlying rules that govern their production. Given a corpus of strings (such as text, transcribed speech, chromosome or protein sequence data, sheet music, etc.), our unsupervised algorithm recursively distills from it hierarchically structured patterns. The ADIOS (automatic distillation of structure) algorithm relies on a statistical method for pattern extraction and on structured generalization, two processes that have been implicated in language acquisition. It has been evaluated on artificial context-free grammars with thousands of rules, on natural languages as diverse as English and Chinese, and on protein data correlating sequence with function. This unsupervised algorithm is capable of learning complex syntax, generating grammatical novel sentences, and proving useful in other fields that call for structure discovery from raw data, such as bioinformatics.} } @inproceedings{solan03nips, author={Zach Solan and David Horn and Eytan Ruppin and Shimon Edelman}, title={Unsupervised Context Sensitive Language Acquisition from a Large Corpus}, year={2003}, booktitle={NIPS-2003}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/solan03nips.html} } @incollection{solan05diversity, author={Zach Solan and Eytan Ruppin and David Horn and Shimon Edelman}, title={Evolution of Language Diversity: Why fitness counts}, year={2005}, chapter={16}, editor={Maggie Tallerman}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/solan05diversity.html} } @inproceedings{solan02diversity, author={Zach Solan and Eytan Ruppin and David Horn and Shimon Edelman}, title={Evolution of language diversity: the survival of the fitness}, year={2002}, booktitle={Proccedings of the 4th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/solan02diversity.html}, abstract={We examined the role of fitness, commonly assumed without proof to be conferred by the mastery of language, in shaping the dynamics of language evolution. To that end, we introduced island migration (a concept borrowed from population genetics) into the shared lexicon model of communication (Nowak et al., 1999). The effect of fitness linear in language coherence was compared to a control condition of neutral drift. We found that in the neutral condition (no coherence-dependent fitness) even a small migration rate - less than 1% - suffices for one language to become dominant, albeit after a long time. In comparison, when fitness-based selection is introduced, the subpopulations stabilize quite rapidly to form several distinct languages. Our findings support the notion that language confers increased fitness. The possibility that a shared language evolved as a result of neutral drift appears less likely, unless migration rates over evolutionary times were extremely small.} } @incollection{sole_scalingLaw, author={Ricard V. Sole}, title={Scaling laws in language evolution}, year={2006}, editor={Claudio Cioffi-Revilla}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Power Laws in the Social Sciences}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/sole_scalingLaw.html}, abstract={The emergence of complex language is one of the fundamental hallmarks of human evolution. It shaped and constrained the emergence of social structures and makes us different from other animals. Beyond their differences, several remarkable features indicate the presence of fundamental principles of organization shared by all known languages. The best known is the so called Zipf's law, which states that the frequency of a word decays as a (universal) power law of its rank. A different, but related property of human language involves the architecture of word interactions. It has been recently shown that linguistic webs of different types display a global organization that is not very different from the ones observed in other natural and artificial complex networks, from the genome to the internet. In this chapter we explore the statistical features displayed by these seemingly universal laws and their possible origins. It is shown that fundamental principles of organization pervade the origin of power laws in human language and shape its evolutionary history.} } @article{sole05syntaxForFree, author={Ricard V. Sole}, title={Syntax for free?}, journal={Nature}, year={2005}, month={March}, volume={434}, pages={289}, doi={10.1038/434289a}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/sole05syntaxForFree.html}, abstract={Human language is based on syntax, a complex set of rules about how words can be combined. In theory, the emergence of syntactic communication might have been a comparatively straightforward process.} } @article{sole05languageNetworks, author={Ricard V. Sole and Bernat Corominas and Sergi Valverde and Luc Steels}, title={Language Networks: their structure, function and evolution}, journal={Trends in Cognitive Sciences}, year={2005}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/sole05languageNetworks.html}, keywords={Language, evolution, neural networks, complex networks, syntax}, abstract={Several important recent advances in various sciences (particularly biology and physics) are based on complex network analysis, which provides tools for characterizing statistical properties of networks and explaining how they may arise. This article examines the relevance of this trend for the study of human languages. We review some early efforts to build up language networks, characterize their properties, and show in which direction models are being developed to explain them. These insights are relevant, both for studying fundamental unsolved puzzles in cognitive science, in particular the origins and evolution of language, but also for recent data-driven statistical approaches to natural language.} } @incollection{spencer06phylogeneticMethods, author={Matthew Spencer and Heather F. Windram and Adrian C. Barbrook and Elizabeth A. Davidson and Christopher J. Howe}, title={Phylogenetic Analysis of Written Traditions}, year={2006}, pages={67-}, chapter={6}, editor={Peter Forster and Colin Renfrew}, publisher={}, booktitle={Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/spencer06phylogeneticMethods.html} } @article{staab02emergentSemantics, author={S. Staab and S. Santini and F. Nack and L. Steels and A. Maedche}, title={Emergent semantics}, journal={IEEE Intelligent Systems}, year={2002}, volume={17}, number={1}, pages={78-86}, doi={10.1109/5254.988491}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/staab02emergentSemantics.html} } @inproceedings{stabler03ecal, author={Edward P. Stabler and Travis C. Collier and Gregory M. Kobele and Yoosook Lee and Ying Lin and Jason Riggle and Yuan Yao and Charles E. Taylor}, title={The learning and emergence of mildly context sensitive languages}, year={2003}, pages={525-534}, booktitle={ECAL03}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/stabler03ecal.html}, abstract={This paper describes a framework for studies of the adaptive acquisition and evolution of language, with the following components: language learning begins by associating words with cognitively salient representations (``grounding''); the sentences of each language are determined by properties of lexical items, and so only these need to be transmitted by learning; the learnable languages allow multiple agreements, multiple crossing agreements, and reduplication, as mildly context sensitive and human languages do; infinitely many different languages are learnable; many of the learnable languages include infinitely many sentences; in each language, inferential processes can be defined over succinct representations of the derivations themselves; the languages can be extended by innovative responses to communicative demands. Preliminary analytic results and a robotic implementation are described.} } @article{stauffer06languageCompetition, author={Dietrich Stauffer and Xavier Castello and Victor M. Eguiluz and Maxi San Miguel}, title={Microscopic Abrams-Strogatz model of language competition}, journal={Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications}, year={2007}, month={FEB}, volume={374}, number={2}, pages={835-842}, doi={10.1016/j.physa.2006.07.036}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/stauffer06languageCompetition.html}, keywords={Monte Carlo; language competition}, abstract={The differential equation of Abrams and Strogatz for the competition between two languages is compared with agent-based Monte Carlo simulations for fully connected networks as well as for lattices in one, two and three dimensions, with up to 10(9) agents. In the case of socially equivalent languages, agent-based models and a mean-field approximation give grossly different results.} } @article{stauffer05languageCompetition, author={Dietrich Stauffer and Christian Schulze}, title={Microscopic and Macroscopic Simulation of Competition between Languages}, journal={Physics of Life Reviews}, year={2005}, month={June}, volume={2}, number={2}, pages={89-116}, doi={10.1016/j.plrev.2005.03.001}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/stauffer05languageCompetition.html}, keywords={Sociophysics; Linguistics; Phase transition; Bit-strings; Scaling}, abstract={The similarity of the evolution of human languages (or alphabets, bird songs, ...) to biological evolution of species is utilized to study with up to $10^9$ people the rise and fall of languages either by macroscopic differential equations similar to biological Lotka-Volterra equation, or by microscopic Monte Carlo simulations of bit-strings incorporating the birth, maturity, and death of every individual. For our bit-string model, depending on parameters either one language comprises the majority of speakers (dominance), or the population splits into many languages having in order of magnitude the same number of speakers (fragmentation); in the latter case the size distribution is log-normal, with upward deviations for small sizes, just as in reality for human languages. On a lattice two different dominating languages can coexist in neighbouring regions, without being favoured or disfavoured by different status. We deal with modifications and competition for existing languages, not with the evolution or learning of one language.} } @article{stauffer06nonequilibriumLanguageCompetition, author={D. Stauffer and C. Schulze and F.W.S. Lima and S. Wichmann and S. Solomon}, title={Non-equilibrium and Irreversible Simulation of Competition among Languages}, journal={Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications}, year={2006}, month={NOV}, volume={371}, number={2}, pages={719-724}, doi={10.1016/j.physa.2006.03.045}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/stauffer06nonequilibriumLanguageCompetition.html}, abstract={The bit-string model of Schulze and Stauffer (2005) is applied to non-equilibrium situations and then gives better agreement with the empirical distribution of language sizes. Here the size is the number of people having this language as mother tongue. In contrast, when equilibrium is combined with irreversible mutations of languages, one language always dominates and is spoken by at least 80 percent of the population.} } @article{steele99growing, author={Guy L. Steele}, title={Growing a Language}, journal={Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation}, year={1999}, month={October}, volume={12}, number={3}, pages={221-236}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steele99growing.html} } @incollection{steels07symbolGrounding, author={L. Steels}, title={The symbol grounding problem is solved, so what's next?}, year={2007}, editor={De Vega, M. and G. Glennberg and G. Graesser}, publisher={Academic Press, New Haven}, booktitle={Symbols, embodiment and meaning}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels07symbolGrounding.html}, abstract={In the nineteen eighties, a lot of ink was spent on the question of symbol grounding, largely triggered by Searleâ™s Chinese Room story. Searleâ™s article had the advantage of stirring up discussion about when and how symbols could be about things in the world, whether intelligence involves representations or not, what embodiment means and under what conditions cognition is embodied, etc. But almost twenty years of philosophical discussion have shed little light on the issue, partly because the discussion has been mixed up with arguments whether artificial intelligence was possible or not. Today I believe that sufficient progress has been made in cognitive science and AI that we can move forward and study the processes involved in representations instead of worrying about the general framework with which this should be done.} } @article{steels06tagging, author={Luc Steels}, title={Collaborative tagging as distributed cognition}, journal={Pragmatics and Cognition}, year={2006}, volume={14}, number={2}, pages={275-285}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels06tagging.html}, keywords={collaborative tagging, distributed cognition, semiotic dynamics}, abstract={The paper discusses recent developments in web technologies based on collaborative tagging. This approach is seen as a tremendously powerful way to coordinate the ontologies and views of a large number of individuals, thus constituting the most successful tool for distributed cognition so far.} } @inproceedings{steels06howToDoExperiments, author={Luc Steels}, title={How to do experiments in artificial language evolution and why}, year={2006}, pages={323-332}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels06howToDoExperiments.html}, abstract={The paper discusses methodological issues for developing computer simulations, analytic models, or experiments in artificial language evolution. It examines a few examples, evaluation criteria, and conclusions that can be drawn from such efforts.} } @article{steels06humanCommunicationTICS, author={Luc Steels}, title={Experiments on the emergence of human communication}, journal={Trends in Cognitive Sciences}, year={2006}, month={August}, volume={10}, number={8}, pages={347-349}, doi={10.1016/j.tics.2006.06.002}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels06humanCommunicationTICS.html}, abstract={Children learn language from their parents and then use the acquired system throughout the rest of their life with little change. At least that is commonly assumed. But a recent paper by Galantucci adds to the growing evidence that adults (and children) are able to create and negotiate complex communication systems from scratch and relatively quickly, without a prior model. This raises questions of what cognitive mechanisms are implied in this joint construction of communication systems, and what the implications are for the origins of human language.} } @article{steels06semioticDynamics, author={Luc Steels}, title={Semiotic Dynamics for Embodied Agents}, journal={IEEE Intelligent Systems}, year={2006}, month={Jan-Feb}, volume={21}, number={3}, pages={32-38}, doi={10.1109/MIS.2006.58}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels06semioticDynamics.html}, abstract={Semiotic dynamics involves the processes whereby groups of people or artificial agents collectively invent and negotiate shared semiotic systems, which they use for communication or information organization. Tagging systems (such as Flickr, CiteULike, del.icio.us, or connotea) offer examples of human semiotic dynamics at work, aided by technologies such as the Internet but also by a new sense of collective action in an increasingly connected world. Semiotic dynamics builds on many earlier AI developments: the insights into and technologies of semantic networks and knowledge representation from the seventies, the ideas on embodiment and grounding from the late eighties, and the perspective of multiagent systems from the nineties. But all these aspects join together into a new vision on intelligence, with the social, collective dynamics of representation-making at the center. These new AI developments don’t stand in isolation; they resonate with recent developments in linguistics, psychology, and the mathematical study of networks. This article briefly illustrates the current study of semiotic dynamics, the resulting technologies, and the field’s impact on current and future intelligent systems applications. This article is part of a special issue on the Future of AI.} } @unpublished{steels_constructionGrammar, author={Luc Steels}, title={The role of construction grammar in language grounding}, year={2005}, note={}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels_constructionGrammar.html}, abstract={The paper examines in how far Construction Grammar is a useful foundation by which artificial agents can self-organise language systems that are grounded in the real world through a sensori-motor embodiment and use syntactic structure to express certain aspects of meaning. It proposes a particular computational formalism, Fluid Construction Grammar, and mechanisms by which constructions can be progressively built up and shared by agents as they engage in verbal interactions about real world scenes.} } @inproceedings{steels05AISB_triggers, author={Luc Steels}, title={What Triggers the Emergence of Grammar?}, year={2005}, pages={143-150}, booktitle={AISB'05: Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication (EELC'05)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels05AISB_triggers.html}, abstract={The paper proposes that grammar emerges in order to reduce the computational complexity of semantic interpretation and discusses some details of simulations based on Fluid Construction Grammars.} } @article{Steels05linguisticStructure, author={Luc Steels}, title={The emergence and evolution of linguistic structure: from lexical to grammatical communication systems}, journal={Connection Science}, year={2005}, month={December}, volume={17}, number={3-4}, pages={213-230}, doi={10.1080/09540090500269088}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Steels05linguisticStructure.html}, keywords={Language evolution, Semiotic dynamics, Multi-agent learning}, abstract={In this paper, efforts to understand the self-organization and evolution of language from a cognitive modelling point of view are discussed. In particular, the paper focuses on efforts that use connectionist components to synthesize some of the major stages in the emergence of language and possible transitions between stages. New technical results are not introduced, but some dimensions for mapping out the research landscape are discussed.} } @incollection{steels04inbook, author={L. Steels}, title={Social and Cultural Learning in the Evolution of Human Communication}, year={2004}, pages={69-90}, editor={D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel}, publisher={The MIT Press, Cambridge MA}, booktitle={Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels04inbook.html} } @inproceedings{steels04ACL, author={L. Steels}, title={Constructivist Development of Grounded Construction Grammars}, year={2004}, address={Barcelona}, booktitle={Proceedings Annual Meeting Association for Computational Linguistics Conference}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels04ACL.html}, abstract={The paper develops an analogy between genomic evolution and language evolution, as it has been observed in the historical change of languages through time. The analogy suggests a reconceptualisation of evolution as a process that makes implicit meanings or functions explicit.} } @inproceedings{steels04ALife, author={L. Steels}, title={Analogies between Genome and Language Evolution}, year={2004}, editor={Pollack, J. et.al.}, publisher={The MIT Press Cambridge Ma.}, booktitle={Artificial Life IX}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels04ALife.html} } @incollection{steels03socialLanguage, author={L. Steels}, title={Social Language Learning}, year={2003}, editor={Tokoro, M. and L. Steels}, publisher={IOS Press, Amsterdam.}, booktitle={The Future of Learning}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels03socialLanguage.html} } @article{steels03pt, author={Luc Steels}, title={Intelligence with representation}, journal={Philosophical Transactions: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences}, year={2003}, volume={361}, number={1811}, pages={2381--2395}, doi={10.1098/rsta.2003.1257}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels03pt.html}, abstract={Behaviour-based robotics has always been inspired by earlier cybernetics work such as that of W. Grey Walter. It emphasizes that intelligence can be achieved without the kinds of representations common in symbolic AI systems. The paper argues that such representations might indeed not be needed for many aspects of sensory-motor intelligence but become a crucial issue when bootstrapping to higher levels of cognition. It proposes a scenario in the form of evolutionary language games by which embodied agents develop situated grounded representations adapted to their needs and the conventions emerging in the population.} } @inproceedings{steels03aamas, author={Luc Steels}, title={The Evolution of Communication Systems by Adaptive Agents}, year={2003}, pages={125-140}, editor={Alonso, E. and D. Kudenko and D. Kazakov}, publisher={Springer Verlag, Berlin}, booktitle={Adaptive Agents and Multi-Agent Systems: Adaptation and Multi-Agent Learning. LNAI 2636}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels03aamas.html}, abstract={The paper surveys some of the mechanisms that have been demonstrated to be relevant for evolving communication systems in software simulations or robotic experiments. In each case, precursors or parallels with work in the study of artificial life and adaptive behaviour are discussed.} } @article{steels03trends, author={Luc Steels}, title={Evolving Grounded Communication for Robots}, journal={Trends in Cognitive Sciences}, year={2003}, month={7}, volume={7}, number={7}, pages={308-312}, doi={10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00129-3}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels03trends.html}, abstract={The computational and robotic synthesis of language evolution is emerging as a new exciting field of research. The objective is to come up with precise operational models of how communities of agents, equipped with a cognitive apparatus, a sensori-motor system, and a body, can arrive at shared grounded communication systems. Such systems may have similar characteristics to animal communication or human language. Apart from its technological interest in building novel applications in the domain of human?robot or robot?robot interaction, this research is of interest to the many disciplines concerned with the origins and evolution of language and communication.} } @incollection{steels01groundingSymbols, author={Luc Steels}, title={Grounding Symbols through Evolutionary Language Games}, year={2002}, pages={211-226}, address={London}, chapter={10}, editor={Angelo Cangelosi and Domenico Parisi}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Simulating the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels01groundingSymbols.html} } @incollection{steels01socialLearning, author={L. Steels}, title={Social learning and language acquisition}, year={2001}, address={Oxford, UK}, editor={McFarland, D. and Holland, O.}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Social robots}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels01socialLearning.html} } @article{steels01languageGames, author={L. Steels}, title={Language games for autonomous robots}, journal={IEEE Intelligent systems}, year={2001}, month={October}, pages={16-22}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels01languageGames.html}, abstract={Integration and grounding are key AI challenges for human-robot dialogue. The author and his team are tackling these issues using language games and have experimented with them on progressively more complex platforms. The results of their work show that language games are a useful way to both understand and design human-robot interaction.} } @inproceedings{steels00aBrain, author={L. Steels}, title={A brain for language}, year={2000}, address={Paris}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Third Sony CSL Paris Symposium: The ecological brain}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels00aBrain.html}, keywords={semantics, grounding, evolutionary linguistics,Talking Heads, syntax} } @incollection{steels00mirrorNeurons, author={L. Steels}, title={Mirror Neurons and the Action Theory of Language Origins}, year={2000}, publisher={}, booktitle={Architectures of the Mind, Architectures of the Brain}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels00mirrorNeurons.html}, keywords={mirror neurons, evolutionary linguistics} } @article{steels99thePuzzle, author={L. Steels}, title={The puzzle of language evolution}, journal={Kognitionswissenschaft}, year={2000}, volume={8}, number={4}, pages={143-150}, doi={10.1007/s001970050001}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels99thePuzzle.html}, keywords={evolutionary linguistics, word-meaning, Talking Heads}, abstract={Linguistics must again concentrate on the evolutionary nature of language, so that language models are more realistic with respect to human natural languages and have a greater explanatory force. Multi-agent systems are proposed as a possible route to develop such evolutionary models and an example is given of a concrete experiment in the origins and evolution of word-meaning based on a multi-agent approach.} } @inproceedings{steels00theEmergence, author={Luc Steels}, title={The Emergence of Grammar in Communicating Autonomous Robotic Agents}, year={2000}, month={August}, pages={764-769}, address={Amsterdam}, editor={Horn, Werner}, publisher={IOS Press}, booktitle={ECAI2000}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels00theEmergence.html}, keywords={grammar, language evolution, robotics,communication}, abstract={Over the past five years, the topic of the origins of language is gaining prominence as one of the big unresolved questions of cognitive science. Artificial Intelligence can make a major contribution to this problem by working out precise, testable models using grounded robotic agents which interact with a real world environment and communicate among themselves or with humans about this environment. A potential side effect op this basic research are new technologies for man-machine interaction based on the negotiation of shared conventions.} } @inproceedings{steels00languageAs, author={Luc Steels}, title={Language as a Complex Adaptive System}, year={2000}, month={September}, address={Berlin, Germany}, editor={Schoenauer, M.}, series={Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, publisher={Springer-Verlag}, booktitle={Proceedings of PPSN VI}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels00languageAs.html}, keywords={level formation, coupling, language evolution,complex adaptive systems}, abstract={The paper surveys recent work on modeling the origins of communication systems in groups of autonomous distributed agents. It is shown that five principles gleaned from biology are crucial: reinforcement learning, self-organisation, selectionism, co-evolution through structural coupling, and level formation.} } @inproceedings{steels99theSpontaneous, author={Luc Steels}, title={The Spontaneous Self-organization of an Adaptive Language}, year={1999}, pages={205-224}, address={St. Catherine's College, Oxford}, editor={Koichi Furukawa and Donald Michie and Stephen Muggleton}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Machine Intelligence 15}, note={Machine Intelligence Workshop: July 1995}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels99theSpontaneous.html}, keywords={self-organization, evolutionary linguistics,language games} } @incollection{steels98synthesisingThe, author={L. Steels}, title={Synthesising the Origins of Language and Meaning Using Co-evolution, Self-organisation and Level formation}, year={1998}, pages={384-404}, editor={Hurford, J. and Knight, C. and Studdert-Kennedy, M.}, publisher={Edinburgh University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels98synthesisingThe.html}, keywords={origins of language, origins of meaning, self-organisation, distributed agents, open system}, abstract={The paper reports on experiments in which robotic agents and software agents are set up to originate language and meaning. The experiments test the hypothesis that mechanisms for generating complexity commonly found in biosystems, in particular self-organisation, co-evolution, and level formation, also may explain the spontaneous formation, adaptation, and growth in complexity of language.} } @incollection{steels98theOrigin, author={L. Steels}, title={The Origin of Linguistic Categories}, year={1998}, address={London}, publisher={}, booktitle={The Evolution of Language (Selected papers from 2nd International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels98theOrigin.html} } @article{steels98theOrigins2, author={L. Steels}, title={The origins of syntax in visually grounded robotic agents}, journal={Artificial Intelligence}, year={1998}, volume={103}, number={1-2}, pages={133-156}, doi={10.1016/S0004-3702(98)00066-6}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels98theOrigins2.html}, keywords={Symbolic models; Robotic agents; Origins of language and meaning}, abstract={The paper proposes a set of principles and a general architecture that may explain how language and meaning may originate and complexify in a group of physically grounded distributed agents. An experimental setup is introduced for concretising and validating specific mechanisms based on these principles. The setup consists of two robotic heads that watch static or dynamic scenes and engage in language games, in which one robot describes to the other what they see. The first results from experiments showing the emergence of distinctions, of a lexicon, and of primitive syntactic structures are reported.} } @inproceedings{steels98structuralCoupling, author={L. Steels}, title={Structural Coupling of Cognitive Memories Through Adaptive Language Games}, year={1998}, pages={263--269}, address={Cambridge, CA}, editor={Pfeifer, R. and Blumberg, B. and Meyer, J-A and Wilson, S.}, publisher={The MIT Press}, booktitle={SAB98}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels98structuralCoupling.html}, keywords={coupling, language games, evolutionary linguistics, agents, simulation} } @article{steels98theOrigins, author={L. Steels}, title={The Origins of Ontologies and Communication Conventions in Multi-Agent Systems}, journal={Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems}, year={1998}, month={October}, volume={1}, number={2}, pages={169-194}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels98theOrigins.html}, keywords={origins of language, self-organization, distributed agents, open systems}, abstract={The paper proposes a complex adaptive systems approach to the formation of an ontology and a shared lexicon in a group of distributed agents with only local interactions and no central control authority. The underlying mechanisms are explained in some detail and results of some experiments with robotic agents are briefly reported.} } @article{steels97theSynthetic, author={L. Steels}, title={The synthetic modeling of language origins}, journal={Evolution of Communication}, year={1997}, volume={1}, number={1}, pages={1-34}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels97theSynthetic.html}, keywords={evolutionary linguistics, simulation, agents,language games}, abstract={This paper surveys work on the computational modeling of the origins and evolution of language. The main approaches are described and some example experiments from the domains of the evolution of communication, phonetics, lexicon formation, and syntax are discussed.} } @inproceedings{steels97theOrigins, author={L. Steels}, title={The origins of syntax in visually grounded robotic agents}, year={1997}, address={Los Angeles}, editor={M. Pollack}, publisher={Morgan Kauffman Publishers}, booktitle={IJCAI97}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels97theOrigins.html} } @inproceedings{steels97languageLearning, author={L. Steels}, title={Language Learning and Language Contact}, year={1997}, pages={11-24}, address={Prague}, editor={Daelemans, W. and Van den Bosch, A. and Weijters, A.}, booktitle={Proceedings of the workshop on Empirical Approaches to Language Aquisition}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels97languageLearning.html}, keywords={language contact, evolutionary linguistics,language games, agents, simulation, language learning, evolutionary linguistics} } @inproceedings{steels97constructingAnd, author={L. Steels}, title={Constructing and sharing perceptual distinctions}, year={1997}, address={Berlin}, editor={M. van Someren and G. Widmer}, publisher={Springer-Verlag}, booktitle={Proceedings of the European Conference on Machine Learning}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels97constructingAnd.html}, keywords={perception, semantics, evolutionary linguistics, language games, categorization} } @inproceedings{steels96selfOrganizing, author={L. Steels}, title={Self-organizing vocabularies}, year={1996}, pages={179-184}, address={Nara, Japan}, editor={Christopher G. Langton and Katsunori Shimohara}, booktitle={Artificial Life V}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels96selfOrganizing.html}, keywords={self-organization, simulation, evolutionary linguistics, language games, lexicon, agents} } @inproceedings{steels96emergentAdaptive, author={L. Steels}, title={Emergent Adaptive Lexicons}, year={1996}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={Maes, P. and Mataric, M. and Meyer, J.-A. and Pollack, J. and Wilson, S. W.}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={SAB96}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels96emergentAdaptive.html}, keywords={self-organization, lexicons, agents,evolutionary linguistics, simulation} } @inproceedings{steels96perceptuallyGrounded, author={L. Steels}, title={Perceptually Grounded Meaning Creation}, year={1996}, editor={Tokoro, M.}, publisher={AAAI Press}, booktitle={ICMAS96}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels96perceptuallyGrounded.html}, keywords={grounding, evolutionary linguistics,categorization, agents, self-organization,meaning creation, perception} } @article{steels96aSelf, author={L. Steels}, title={A self-organizing spatial vocabulary}, journal={Artificial Life}, year={1995}, volume={2}, number={3}, pages={319-332}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels96aSelf.html}, keywords={lexicons, self-organization, language games,evolutionary linguistics}, abstract={Language is a shared set of conventions for mapping meanings to utterances. This paper explores self-organization as the primary mechanism for the formation of a vocabulary. It reports on a computational experiment in which a group of distributed agents develop ways to identify each other using names or spatial descriptions. It is also shown that the proposed mechanism copes with the acquisition of an existing vocabulary by new agents entering the community and with an expansion of the set of meanings.} } @article{steels03robotics, author={Luc Steels and Jean-Christophe Baillie}, title={Shared Grounding of Event Descriptions by Autonomous Robots}, journal={Robotics and Autonomous Systems}, year={2003}, volume={43}, number={2-3}, pages={163-173}, doi={10.1016/S0921-8890(02)00357-3}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels03robotics.html}, keywords={Autonomous robots; Event descriptions; Open-ended}, abstract={The paper describes a system for open-ended communication by autonomous robots about event descriptions anchored in reality through the robot's sensori-motor apparatus. The events are dynamic and agents must continually track changing situations at multiple levels of detail through their vision system. We are specifically concerned with the question how grounding can become shared through the use of external (symbolic) representations, such as natural language expressions.} } @article{steels_BBS_color, author={Luc Steels and Tony Belpaeme}, title={Coordinating Perceptually Grounded Categories through Language: A Case Study for Colour}, journal={Behavioral and Brain Sciences}, year={2005}, month={August}, volume={28}, number={4}, pages={469-89}, note={Target Paper, discussion 489-529}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels_BBS_color.html}, abstract={This article proposes a number of models to examine through which mechanisms a population of autonomous agents could arrive at a repertoire of perceptually grounded categories that is sufficiently shared to allow successful communication. The models are inspired by the main approaches to human categorisation being discussed in the literature: nativism, empiricism, and culturalism. Colour is taken as a case study. Although we take no stance on which position is to be accepted as final truth with respect to human categorisation and naming, we do point to theoretical constraints that make each position more or less likely and we make clear suggestions on what the best engineering solution would be. Specifically, we argue that the collective choice of a shared repertoire must integrate multiple constraints, including constraints coming from communication.} } @unpublished{steels02computationalSimulations, author={L. Steels and T. Belpaeme}, title={Computational Simulations of Colour Categorisation and Colour Naming}, year={2002}, note={Draft}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels02computationalSimulations.html} } @inproceedings{Steels06Unify_merge_FCG, author={Luc Steels and Joachim De Beule}, title={Unify and Merge in Fluid Construction Grammar}, year={2006}, pages={197-223}, editor={P. Vogt and et al.}, series={Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Symbol Grounding and Beyond: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, doi={10.1007/11880172_16}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Steels06Unify_merge_FCG.html}, abstract={Research into the evolution of grammar requires that we employ formalisms and processing mechanisms that are powerful enough to handle features found in human natural languages. But the formalism needs to have some additional properties compared to those used in other linguistics research that are specifically relevant for handling the emergence and progressive co-ordination of grammars in a population of agents. This document introduces Fluid Construction Grammar, a formalism with associated parsing, production, and learning processes designed for language evolution research. The present paper focuses on a formal definition of the unification and merging algorithms used in Fluid Construction Grammar. The complexity and soundness of the algorithms and their relation to unification in logic programming and other unification-based grammar formalisms are discussed.} } @book{steels94theArtificial, author={L. Steels and R. Brooks}, title={The artificial life route to artificial intelligence: Building Situated Embodied Agents}, year={1994}, address={New Haven}, publisher={Lawrence Erlbaum Ass}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels94theArtificial.html} } @inproceedings{Steels06Intro_FCG, author={Luc Steels and Joachim De Beule}, title={A (very) Brief Introduction to Fluid Construction Grammar}, year={2006}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Scalable Natural Language (ScaNaLu06)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Steels06Intro_FCG.html}, abstract={Fluid Construction Grammar (FCG) is a new linguistic formalism designed to explore in how far a construction grammar approach can be used for handling open-ended grounded dialogue, i.e. dialogue between or with autonomous embodied agents about the world as experienced through their sensory-motor apparatus. We seek scalable, open-ended language systems by giving agents both the ability to use existing conventions or ontologies, and to invent or learn new ones as the needs arise. This paper contains a brief introduction to the key ideas behind FCG and its current status.} } @inproceedings{steels05linkin_fluid_construc_gramm, author={Luc Steels and Joachim De Beule and Nicolas Neubauer}, title={Linking in Fluid Construction Grammar}, year={2005}, address={Brussels, Belgium}, publisher={Royal Flemish Academy for Science and Art}, booktitle={BNAIC-05}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels05linkin_fluid_construc_gramm.html}, abstract={One of the key problems in any language processing system is to establish an adequate syntax/semantics interface, and one of the major requirements of such an interface is that partial meanings contributed by individual words are properly linked with each other based on grammatical constructions. This paper reports how we deal with this problem within the context of Fluid Construction Grammars ({\sc fcg}). {\sc Fcg} is a general unification-based inference engine which has been designed to support experiments in the self-organisation of language in a population of interacting situated embodied agents. The paper focuses on technical details pertaining to the linking problem.} } @inproceedings{steels04fluidConstructionGrammars, author={L. Steels and J. De Beule and N. Neubauer and J. Van Looveren}, title={Fluid Construction Grammars}, year={2004}, booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Construction Grammars}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels04fluidConstructionGrammars.html} } @article{steels06emergentSemantics, author={Luc Steels and Peter Hanappe}, title={Interoperability through Emergent Semantics. A Semiotic Dynamics Approach}, journal={Journal on Data Semantics}, year={2006}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels06emergentSemantics.html}, abstract={We study the exchange of information in collective informa- tion systems mediated by information agents, focusing specifically on the problem of semantic interoperability. We advocate the use of mecha- nisms inspired from natural language, that enable each agent to develop a repertoire of grounded categories and labels for these categories and negotiate their use with other agents. The communication system as well as its semantics is hence emergent and adaptive instead of predefined. It is the result of a self-organised semiotic dynamics where relations be- tween data, labels for the data, and the categories associated with the labels undergo constant evolution.} } @incollection{steels02bootstrappingGrounded, author={L. Steels and F. Kaplan}, title={Bootstrapping grounded word semantics}, year={2002}, chapter={3}, editor={Ted Briscoe}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Linguistic Evolution through Language Acquisition: Formal and Computational Models}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels02bootstrappingGrounded.html}, keywords={semantics, grounding, evolutionary linguistics,Talking Heads} } @article{steels02aiboFirst, author={L. Steels and F. Kaplan}, title={AIBO's first words: The social learning of language and meaning}, journal={Evolution of Communication}, year={2001}, volume={4}, number={1}, pages={3-32}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels02aiboFirst.html}, keywords={AIBO, language games, social learning} } @inproceedings{steels99collectiveLearning, author={L. Steels and F. Kaplan}, title={Collective learning and semiotic dynamics}, year={1999}, pages={679-688}, editor={Floreano, D. and Nicoud, J-D and Mondada, F.}, publisher={Springer-Verlag}, booktitle={ECAL99}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels99collectiveLearning.html}, keywords={semantics, grounding, evolutionary linguistics,Talking Heads, semiotics} } @inproceedings{steels99situatedGrounded, author={Luc Steels and F. Kaplan}, title={Situated grounded word semantics}, year={1999}, editor={Dean, T.}, publisher={Morgan Kaufmann Publishers}, booktitle={IJCAI99}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels99situatedGrounded.html}, keywords={semantics, grounding, evolutionary linguistics,Talking Heads} } @inproceedings{steels98spontaneousLexicon, author={L. Steels and F. Kaplan}, title={Spontaneous Lexicon Change}, year={1998}, pages={1243-1249}, address={Montreal}, publisher={ACL}, booktitle={COLING-ACL98}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels98spontaneousLexicon.html}, keywords={lexicon change, self-organization, language games, evolutionary linguistics, agents, simulation} } @inproceedings{steels98stochasticityAs, author={L. Steels and F. Kaplan}, title={Stochasticity as a source of innovation in language games}, year={1998}, address={Los Angeles}, editor={C. Adami and R. Belew and H. Kitano and C. Taylor}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Artificial Life VI}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels98stochasticityAs.html}, keywords={language games, stochasticity, innovation,evolutionary linguistics} } @incollection{steels02crucialFactors, author={L. Steels and F. Kaplan and A. McIntyre and J. Van Looveren}, title={Crucial Factors in the Origins of Word-Meaning}, year={2002}, address={Oxford}, chapter={12}, editor={Alison Wray}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={The Transition to Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels02crucialFactors.html}, keywords={semantics, grounding, evolutionary linguistics,Talking Heads, meaning, categorization}, abstract={We have been conducting large-scale public experiments with artificial robotic agents to explore what the necessary and sufficient prerequisites are for word-meaning pairs to evolve autonomously in a population of agents through a self-organized process. We focus not so much on the question of why language has evolved but rather on how. Our hypothesis is that when agents engage in particular interactive behaviors which in turn require specific cognitive structures, they automatically arrive at a language system. We study this topic by performing experiments based on artificial systems. One such experiment, known as the Talking Heads Experiment, employs a set of visually grounded autonomous robots into which agents can install themselves to play language games with each other.} } @incollection{steels06spatialLanguage, author={Luc Steels and Martin Loetzsch}, title={Perspective Alignment in Spatial Language}, year={2007}, editor={Coventry, Kenny R. and Tenbrink, Thora and Bateman, John. A}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Spatial Language and Dialogue}, note={to appear}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels06spatialLanguage.html}, abstract={It is well known that perspective alignment plays a major role in the planning and interpretation of spatial language. In order to understand the role of perspective alignment and the cognitive processes involved, we have made precise complete cognitive models of situated embodied agents that self-organise a communication system for dialoging about the position and movement of real world objects in their immediate surroundings. We show in a series of robotic experiments which cognitive mechanisms are necessary and sufficient to achieve successful spatial language and why and how perspective alignment can take place, either implicitly or based on explicit marking.} } @unpublished{steels06markPerspective, author={Luc Steels and Martin Loetzsch and Benjamin Bergen}, title={Why Human Languages Mark Perspective}, year={2006}, note={}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels06markPerspective.html}, abstract={The fascinating question of the origins of human language is often approached by studying specific universal trends in language, such as the use of recursion (1), or the expression of predicate-argument structure (2). This article conducts such a case study for perspective reversal (as in English: your left versus my left) (3). It argues that this universal can be explained by hypothesising that individuals recruit cognitive subsystems into their language faculty (4) if doing so helps them to achieve greater communicative success with less cognitive effort. We present a model in the form of embodied robotic agents that play language games about events in their environments (5). The agents have basic capabilities to not only invent and negotiate perceptually grounded concepts and lexicons, but also to perform egocentric perspective transformation (6) and use it for language. In a breakthrough experiment we show how the model predicts that perspective marking is a better strategy for embodied gents in self-organized communication systems and hence why it has become a universal feature of human languages.} } @article{steels99spatiallyDistributed, author={L. Steels and A. McIntyre}, title={Spatially Distributed Naming Games}, journal={Advances in Complex Systems}, year={1999}, month={January}, volume={1}, number={4}, pages={301-323}, address={Paris}, doi={10.1142/S021952599800020X}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels99spatiallyDistributed.html}, keywords={Self-organization; evolutionary linguistics; language contact; language change}, abstract={The paper investigates the dynamical properties of spatially distributed naming games. Naming games are interactions between two agents, a speaker and a hearer, in which the speaker identifies an object using a name. Adaptive naming games imply that speaker and hearer update their lexicons to become better in future games. By engaging in adaptive naming games, a coherent shared vocabulary arises through self-organisation in a population of distributed agents. When the agents are spatially distributed, diversity can be shown to arise, and changes, in population contact lead to language changes.} } @inproceedings{steels00theCultural, author={L. Steels and P-Y. Oudeyer}, title={The cultural evolution of syntactic constraints in phonology}, year={2000}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Artificial Life VII}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels00theCultural.html}, keywords={evolutionary linguistics, phonology, syntactic constraints, agents, agents, embodiment} } @inproceedings{steels97groundingAdaptive, author={L. Steels and P. Vogt}, title={Grounding adaptive language games in robotic agents}, year={1997}, address={Cambridge, MA}, editor={I. Harvey and P. Husbands}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={ECAL97}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels97groundingAdaptive.html}, keywords={language games, grounding, evolutionary linguistics, perception, robotic agents}, abstract={The paper addresses the question how a group of physically embodied robotic agents may origi­ nate meaning and language through adaptive language games. The main principles underlying the approach are sketched as well as the steps needed to implement these principles on physical agents. Some experimen­ tal results based on this implementation are presented.} } @inproceedings{steels06grammarParsing, author={Luc Steels and Pieter Wellens}, title={How Grammar Emerges to Dampen Combinatorial Search in Parsing}, year={2006}, pages={76-88}, editor={P. Vogt and et al.}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Symbol Grounding and Beyond: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, doi={10.1007/11880172_7}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels06grammarParsing.html}, abstract={According to the functional approach to language evolution (inspired by cognitive linguistics and construction grammar), grammar arises to deal with issues in communication among autonomous agents, particularly maximisation of communicative success and expressive power and minimisation of cognitive effort. Experiments in the emergence of grammar should hence start from a simulation of communicative exchanges between embodied agents, and then show how a particular issue that arises can be solved or partially solved by introducing more grammar. This paper shows a case study of this approach, focusing on the issue of search during parsing. Multiple hypotheses arise in parsing when the same syntactic pattern can be used for multiple purposes or when one syntactic pattern partly overlaps with another one. It is well known that syntactic ambiguity rapidly leads to combinatorial explosions and hence an increase in memory use and processing power, possibly to a point where the sentence can no longer be handled. Additional grammar, such as syntactic or semantic subcategorisation or word order and agreement constraints can help to dampen search because it provides information to the hearer which hypotheses are the most likely. The paper shows an operational experiment where avoiding search is used as the driver for the introduction and negotiation of syntax. The experiment is also a demonstration of how Fluid Construction Grammar is well suited for experiments in language evolution.} } @inproceedings{steels07ECAL, author={Luc Steels and Remi van Trijp and Pieter Wellens}, title={Multi-Level Selection in the Emergence of Language Systematicity}, year={2007}, volume={4648}, pages={425-434}, editor={Almeida e Costa, F. and Rocha, L.M. and Costa, E. and Harvey, I}, series={LNAI}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={ECAL07}, doi={10.1007/978-3-540-74913-4_43}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steels07ECAL.html}, abstract={Language can be viewed as a complex adaptive system which is continuously shaped and reshaped by the actions of its users as they try to solve communicative problems. To maintain coherence in the overall system, different language elements (sounds, words, grammatical constructions) compete with each other for global acceptance. This paper examines what happens when a language system uses systematic structure, in the sense that certain meaning-form conventions are themselves parts of larger units. We argue that in this case multi-level selection occurs: at the level of elements (e.g. tense affixes) and at the level of larger units in which these elements are used (e.g. phrases). Achieving and maintaining linguistic coherence in the population under these conditions is non-trivial. This paper shows that it is nevertheless possible when agents take multiple levels into account both for processing meaning-form associations and for consolidating the language inventory after each interaction.} } @incollection{steklis76handMouth, author={H. Steklis and S. Harnad}, title={From hand to mouth: Some critical stages in the evolution of language}, year={1976}, pages={445--455}, editor={S. R. Harnad and H. D. Steklis and J. Lancaster}, publisher={}, booktitle={Origins and Evolution of Language and Speech. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 280}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/steklis76handMouth.html} } @incollection{stemberger99theEmergence, author={J. P. Stemberger and B. H. Bernhardt}, title={The Emergence of Faithfulness.}, year={1999}, address={Hillsdale, NJ}, editor={B. MacWhinney}, publisher={Lawrence Earlbaum Associates}, booktitle={Emergence of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/stemberger99theEmergence.html} } @inproceedings{sternberg06implicationOfBilingualism, author={Daniel A. Sternberg and Morten H. Christiansen}, title={The implications of bilingualism and multilingualism on potential evolved language mechanisms}, year={2006}, pages={333-340}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/sternberg06implicationOfBilingualism.html}, abstract={Simultaneous acquisition of multiple languages to a native level of fluency is common in many areas of the world. This ability must be represented in any cognitive mechanisms used for language. Potential explanations of the evolution of language must also account for the bilingual case. Surprisingly, this fact has not been widely considered in the literature on language origins and evolution. We consider any array of potential accounts for this phenomenon, including arguments by selectionists on the basis for language variation. We find scant evidence for specific selection of the multilingual ability prior to language origins. Thus it seems more parsimonious that bilingualism ``came for free'' along with whatever mechanisms did evolve. Sequential learning mechanisms may be able to accomplish multilingual acquisition without specific adaptations. In support of this perspective, we present a simple recurrent network model that is capable of learning two idealized grammars simultaneously. These results are compared with recent studies of bilingual processing using eyetracking and fMRI showing vast overlap in the areas in the brain used in processing two different languages.} } @inproceedings{stuckenschmidt02adaptionCommunication, author={Heiner Stuckenschmidt and Ingo J. Timm}, title={Adaption Communication Vocabularies using Shared Ontologies}, year={2002}, month={July}, day={15-19}, address={Bologna, Italy}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Ontologies in Agent Systems (OAS)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/stuckenschmidt02adaptionCommunication.html} } @incollection{studdertkennedy05discrete, author={Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, title={How Did Language go Discrete?}, year={2005}, chapter={3}, editor={Maggie Tallerman}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/studdertkennedy05discrete.html} } @incollection{studdert-kennedy00evolutionaryImplications, author={M. Studdert-Kennedy}, title={Evolutionary implications of the particulate principle: Imitation and the dissociation of phonetic form from semantic function}, year={2000}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Chris Knight and James R. Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/studdertkennedy00evolutionaryImplications.html} } @incollection{studdert-kennedy00introductionThe, author={M. Studdert-Kennedy}, title={Introduction -- The emergence of phonetic structure}, year={2000}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Chris Knight and James R. Hurford and Michael Studdert-Kennedy}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/studdertkennedy00introductionThe.html} } @incollection{studdert-kennedy98theParticulate, author={M. Studdert-Kennedy}, title={The particulate origins of language generativity: From syllable to gesture}, year={1998}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/studdertkennedy98theParticulate.html} } @incollection{studdert-kennedy98introductionThe, author={M. Studdert-Kennedy}, title={Introduction: The emergence of phonology}, year={1998}, address={Cambridge}, editor={Hurford, J. R. and Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight C.}, publisher={Cambridge University Press}, booktitle={Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/studdertkennedy98introductionThe.html} } @incollection{studdert-kennedy03launchingLanguage, author={M. Studdert-Kennedy and L. Goldstein}, title={Launching language: The gestural origin of discrete infinity}, year={2003}, editor={M.H. Christiansen and S. Kirby}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Evolution: The States of the Art}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/studdertkennedy03launchingLanguage.html} } @article{stumpf01tiee, author={Michael P. H. Stumpf}, title={Language's place in nature}, journal={Trends in Ecology and Evolution}, year={2001}, volume={16}, pages={475-476}, doi={10.1016/S0169-5347(01)02275-3}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/stumpf01tiee.html}, keywords={language; human evolution; quasi-species; game theory; major transitions}, abstract={Human language has enabled our species to exchange information and to formulate ideas; understanding how human linguistic faculties evolved is one of the great challenges in evolutionary theory. Studies of the evolution of human language can be broadly separated into two types of approaches: those that consider the (e.g. phylogenetic) relationships between existing languages and their common ancestors; and those that try to understand the evolution of the human language capacity itself. For the latter case, Martin Nowak and co-workers have now shown that evolutionary game theory provides a framework in which the evolution of linguistic elements, such as word formation and syntax, can be investigated. These recent studies show that natural selection will favour the evolution of such ‘human’ linguistic elements from simple animal communication if they enable more reliable exchange of relevant, that is fitness-enhancing, information.} } @article{sugita04ABJ, author={Yuuya Sugita and Jun Tani}, title={Learning Semantic Combinatoriality from the Interaction between Linguistic and Behavioral Processes}, journal={Adaptive Behavior}, year={2005}, month={March}, volume={13}, number={1}, pages={33--52}, doi={10.1177/105971230501300102}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/sugita04ABJ.html}, keywords={embodied language, compositionality, recurrent neural network, self-organization, dynamical systems, robot}, abstract={We present a novel connectionist model for acquiring the semantics of a simple language through the behavioral experiences of a real robot. We focus on the ``compositionality'' of semantics and examine how it can be generated through experiments. Our experimental results showed that the essential structures for situated semantics can self-organize themselves through dense interactions between linguistic and behavioral processes whereby a certain generalization in learning is achieved. Our analysis of the acquired dynamical structures indicates that an equivalence of compositionality appears in the combinatorial mechanics self-organized in the neuronal nonlinear dynamics. The manner in which this mechanism of compositionality, based on dynamical systems, differs from that considered in conventional linguistics and other synthetic computational models, is discussed in this paper.} } @inproceedings{sugita04nips16, author={Y. Sugita and J. Tani}, title={A Holistic Approach to Compositional Semantics: a connectionist model and robot experiments}, year={2004}, publisher={The MIT Press}, booktitle={Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 16}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/sugita04nips16.html}, abstract={We present a novel connectionist model for acquiring the semantics of language through the behavioral experiences of a real robot. We focus on the ``compositionality'' of semantics, which is a fundamental characteristic of human language, namely, the fact that we can understand the meaning of a sentence as a combination of the meanings of words. The essential claim is that a compositional semantic representation can be self-organized by generalizing correspondences between sentences and behavioral patterns. This claim is examined and confirmed through simple experiments in which a robot generates corresponding behaviors from unlearned sentences by analogy with the correspondences between learned sentences and behaviors.} } @inproceedings{sugita04SAB, author={Yuuya Sugita and Jun Tani}, title={A Connectionist Approach to Learn Association between Sentences and Behavioral Patterns of a Robot}, year={2004}, pages={467-476}, booktitle={SAB04}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/sugita04SAB.html}, abstract={We focus on the ``compositionality'' of semantics, a fundamental characteristic of human language, which is the ability to understand the meaning of a sentence as a combination of the meanings of words. We also pay much attention to the ``embodiment'' of a robot, which means that the robot should acquire semantics which matches its body, or sensory-motor system. The essential claim is that an embodied compositional semantic representation can be self-organized from generalized correspondences between sentences and behavioral patterns. This claim is examined and confirmed through simple experiments in which a robot generates corresponding behaviors from unlearned sentences by analogy with the correspondences between learned sentences and behaviors.} } @incollection{SurendranNiyogi06functionalLoad, author={Dinoj Surendran and Partha Niyogi}, title={Quantifying the Functional Load of Phonemic Oppositions, Distinctive Features, and Suprasegmentals}, year={2006}, editor={O. Nedergaard Thomsen}, publisher={John Benjamins}, booktitle={Competing Models of Language Change: Evolution and Beyond}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/SurendranNiyogi06functionalLoad.html} } @article{sutherland04extinctionNATURE, author={William J. Sutherland}, title={Parallel extinction risk and global distribution of languages and species}, journal={Nature}, year={2003}, month={May}, volume={423}, pages={276-279}, doi={10.1038/nature01607}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/sutherland04extinctionNATURE.html}, abstract={There are global threats to biodiversity with current extinction rates well above background levels1. Although less well publicized, numerous human languages have also become extinct, and others are threatened with extinction. However, estimates of the number of threatened languages vary considerably owing to the wide range of criteria used. For example, languages have been classified as threatened if the number of speakers is less than 100, 500, 1,000, 10,000, 20,000 or 100,000 (ref. 3). Here I show, by applying internationally agreed criteria for classifying species extinction risk4, that languages are more threatened than birds or mammals. Rare languages are more likely to show evidence of decline than commoner ones. Areas with high language diversity also have high bird and mammal diversity and all three show similar relationships to area, latitude, area of forest and, for languages and birds, maximum altitude. The time of human settlement has little effect on current language diversity. Although similar factors explain the diversity of languages and biodiversity, the factors explaining extinction risk for birds and mammals (high altitude, high human densities and insularity) do not explain the numbers of endangered languages.} } @inproceedings{swarup07roleOfAnticipation, author={Samarth Swarup and Les Gasser}, title={The Role of Anticipation in the Emergence of Language}, year={2007}, editor={M. Butz and O. Sigaud and G. Baldasarre and G Pezzulo}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Anticipatory Behavior in Adaptive Learning Systems, LNAI/LNCS}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/swarup07roleOfAnticipation.html}, abstract={We review some of the main theories about how language emerged. We suggest that including the study of the emergence of artificial languages, in simulation settings, allows us to ask a more general question, namely, what are the minimal initial conditions for the emergence of language? This is a very important question from a technological viewpoint, because it is very closely tied to questions of intelligence and autonomy. We identify anticipation as being a key underlying computational principle in the emergence of language. We suggest that this is in fact present implicitly in many of the theories in contention today. Focused simulations that address precise questions are necessary to isolate the roles of the minimal initial conditions for the emergence of language.} } @inproceedings{swarup06SAB, author={Samarth Swarup and Les Gasser}, title={Noisy Preferential Attachment and Language Evolution}, year={2006}, pages={765-776}, editor={Nolfi, S. and et al.}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={SAB06}, doi={10.1007/11840541_63}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/swarup06SAB.html}, abstract={We study the role of the agent interaction topology in distributed language learning. In particular, we utilize the replicator-mutator framework of language evolution for the creation of an emergent agent interaction topology that leads to quick convergence. In our system, it is the links between agents that are treated as the units of selection and replication, rather than the languages themselves. We use the Noisy Preferential Attachment algorithm, which is a special case of the replicator-mutator process, for generating the topology. The advantage of the NPA algorithm is that, in the short-term, it produces a scale-free interaction network, which is helpful for rapid exploration of the space of languages present in the population. A change of parameter settings then ensures convergence because it guarantees the emergence of a single dominant node which is chosen as teacher almost always} } @inproceedings{swarup06cumulativeLearningEELC, author={Samarth Swarup and Kiran Lakkaraju and Sylvian R. Ray and Les Gasser}, title={Symbol Grounding Through Cumulative Learning}, year={2006}, pages={180-191}, editor={P. Vogt and et al.}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Symbol Grounding and Beyond: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, doi={10.1007/11880172_14}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/swarup06cumulativeLearningEELC.html}, abstract={We suggest that the primary motivation for an agent to construct a symbol-meaning mapping is to solve a task. The meaning space of an agent should be derived from the tasks that it faces during the course of its lifetime. We outline a process in which agents learn to solve multiple tasks and extract a store of “cumulative knowledge” that helps them to solve each new task more quickly and accurately. This cumulative knowledge then forms the ontology or meaning space of the agent. We suggest that by grounding symbols to this extracted cumulative knowledge agents can gain a further performance benefit because they can guide each others’ learning process. In this version of the symbol grounding problem meanings cannot be directly communicated because they are internal to the agents, and they will be different for each agent. Also, the meanings may not correspond directly to objects in the environment. The communication process can also allow a symbol meaning mapping that is dynamic. We posit that these properties make this version of the symbol grounding problem realistic and natural. Finally, we discuss how symbols could be grounded to cumulative knowledge via a situation where a teacher selects tasks for a student to perform.} } @article{szamado06competingSelective, author={S. Szamado and E. Szathmary}, title={Selective scenarios for the emergence of natural language}, journal={Trends in Ecology and Evolution}, year={2006}, month={Oct}, volume={21}, number={10}, pages={555-61}, doi={10.1016/j.tree.2006.06.021}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/szamado06competingSelective.html}, abstract={The recent blossoming of evolutionary linguistics has resulted in a variety of theories that attempt to provide a selective scenario for the evolution of early language. However, their overabundance makes many researchers sceptical of such theorising. Here, we suggest that a more rigorous approach is needed towards their construction although, despite justified scepticism, there is no agreement as to the criteria that should be used to determine the validity of the various competing theories. We attempt to fill this gap by providing criteria upon which the various historical narratives can be judged. Although individually none of these criteria are highly constraining, taken together they could provide a useful evolutionary framework for thinking about the evolution of human language.} } @article{szamado04bookreview, author={Szabolcs Szamado and Eors Szathmary}, title={Book Review of ``Language Evolution'' by Christiansen and Kirby, 2003}, journal={PLoS Biol}, year={2004}, month={October}, volume={2}, number={10}, doi={10.1371/journal.pbio.0020346}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/szamado04bookreview.html} } @article{Szathmary00humboldt, author={Eors Szathmary}, title={In Humboldt's footsteps}, journal={Trends in Ecology and Evolution}, year={2000}, volume={15}, number={5}, pages={178-179}, doi={10.1016/S0169-5347(00)01836-X}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Szathmary00humboldt.html} } @inproceedings{taguchi06dialogEELC, author={Ryo Taguchi and Kouichi Katsurada and Tsuneo Nitta}, title={Dialog Strategy Acquisition and Its Evaluation for Efficient Learning of Word Meanings by Agents}, year={2006}, pages={45-56}, editor={P. Vogt and et al.}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Symbol Grounding and Beyond: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, doi={10.1007/11880172_4}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/taguchi06dialogEELC.html}, abstract={In word meaning acquisition through interactions among humans and agents, the efficiency of the learning depends largely on the dialog strategies the agents have. This paper describes automatic acquisition of dialog strategies through interaction between two agents. In the experiments, two agents infer each other’s comprehension level from its facial expressions and utterances to acquire efficient strategies. Q-learning is applied to a strategy acquisition mechanism. Firstly, experiments are carried out through the interaction between a mother agent, who knows all the word meanings, and a child agent with no initial word meaning. The experimental results showed that the mother agent acquires a teaching strategy, while the child agent acquires an asking strategy. Next, the experiments of interaction between a human and an agent are investigated to evaluate the acquired strategies. The results showed the effectiveness of both strategies of teaching and asking.} } @inproceedings{taguchi06children, author={Ryo Taguchi and Masashi Kimura and Shuji Shinohara and Kouichi Katsurada and Tsuneo Nitta}, title={Implementation of Biases Observed in Children's Language Development into Agents}, year={2006}, pages={89-99}, editor={P. Vogt and et al.}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Symbol Grounding and Beyond: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication}, doi={10.1007/11880172_8}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/taguchi06children.html}, abstract={This paper describes efficient word meaning acquisition for infant agents (IAs) based on learning biases that are observed in children’s language development. An IA acquires word meanings through learning the relations among visual features of objects and acoustic features of human speech. In this task, the IA has to find out which visual features are indicated by the speech. Previous works introduced stochastic approaches to do this, however, such approaches need many examples to achieve high accuracy. In this paper, firstly, we propose a word meaning acquisition method for the IA based on an Online-EM algorithm without learning biases. Then, we implement two types of biases into it to accelerate the word meaning acquisition. Experimental results show that the proposed method with biases can efficiently acquire word meanings.} } @article{tallerman07holisticProtolanguageLINGUA, author={Maggie Tallerman}, title={Did our ancestors speak a holistic protolanguage?}, journal={Lingua}, year={2007}, month={March}, volume={117}, number={3}, pages={579-604}, doi={10.1016/j.lingua.2005.05.004}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/tallerman07holisticProtolanguageLINGUA.html}, keywords={Protolanguage; Holistic protolanguage; Synthetic protolanguage; Formulaic language; Fractionation; Primate calls}, abstract={The dominant theory of the evolution of complex language from protolanguage can be termed the synthetic approach. Under this view, single words arose first in evolution, and were combined as syntax evolved. More recently, an alternative scenario for protolanguage has been proposed, which we can term the holistic approach. Scholars subscribing to this view propose that words emerge from longer, entirely arbitrary strings of sounds - non-compositional utterances - via a process of fractionation. Such holistic utterances initially have no internal structure, but represent whole messages. The idea is that over time, chance phonetic similarities are observed between sections of utterances, and that if similar meanings can be ascribed to these strings, then 'words' will emerge. This paper dissects the main ideas found in the holistic approach, and argues on a number of grounds that it is conceptually and empirically flawed. A proposal that protolanguage developed out of an earlier holistic primate communication system is hard to sustain, in view of differences between primate vocalization and language. Evidence against the holistic approach is offered on the basis of known facts about the historical development of natural languages, and a conclusion is drawn in favour of synthetic models of protolanguage.} } @book{tallerman-2005-editedbook, title={Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution}, year={2005}, editor={Maggie Tallerman}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/tallerman2005editedbook.html} } @incollection{tallerman05clauseEvolution, author={Maggie Tallerman}, title={Initial Syntax and Modern Syntax: Did the clause evolve from the syllable?}, year={2005}, chapter={6}, editor={Maggie Tallerman}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/tallerman05clauseEvolution.html} } @inproceedings{tamariz06evolang, author={Monica Tamariz}, title={Selection dynamics in language form and language meaning}, year={2006}, pages={341-347}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/tamariz06evolang.html}, abstract={This paper describes evolutionary dynamics in language and presents a genetic framework of language akin to those of Croft (2000) and Mufwene (2001), where language is a complex system that inhabits, interacts with and evolves in communities of human speakers. The novelty of the present framework resides in the separation between form (phonology and syntax) and meaning (semantics), which are described as two different selection systems, connected by symbolic association and by probabilistic encoding of information.} } @phdthesis{tamariz05phd, author={Monica Tamariz}, title={Exploring the Adaptive Structure of the Mental Lexicon}, year={2005}, school={Department of theoretical and applied linguistics, Univerisity of Edinburgh}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/tamariz05phd.html}, abstract={The mental lexicon is a complex structure organised in terms of phonology, semantics and syntax, among other levels. In this thesis I propose that this structure can be explained in terms of the pressures acting on it: every aspect of the organisation of the lexicon is an adaptation ultimately related to the function of language as a tool for human communication, or to the fact that language has to be learned by subsequent generations of people. A collection of methods, most of which are applied to a Spanish speech corpus, reveal structure at different levels of the lexicon. ...} } @article{tang07languageGame, author={Chuan-Long Tang and Bo-Yu Lin and Wen-Xu Wang and Mao-Bin Hu and Bing-Hong Wang}, title={Role of connectivity-induced weighted words in language games.}, journal={Physical Review E}, year={2007}, month={Feb}, volume={75}, pages={027101}, doi={10.1103/PhysRevE.75.027101}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/tang07languageGame.html}, abstract={We present a modified naming game by introducing weights of words in the evolution process. We assign the weight of a word spoken by an agent according to its connectivity, which is a natural reflection of the agent's influence in population. A tunable parameter is introduced, governing the word weight based on the connectivity of agents. We consider the scale-free topology and concentrate on the efficiency of reaching the final consensus, which is of high importance in the self-organized system. Interestingly, it is found that there exists an optimal parameter value, leading to the fastest convergence. This indicates appropriate hub's effects favor the achievement of consensus. The evolution of distinct words helps to give a qualitative explanation of this phenomena. Similar nontrivial phenomena are observed in the total memory of agents with a peak in the middle range of parameter values. Other relevant characters are provided as well, including the time evolution of total memory and success rate for different parameter values as well as the average degree of the network, which are helpful for understanding the dynamics of the modified naming game in detail.} } @mastersthesis{teal99ms, author={Tracy K. Teal}, title={The effects of compression on language acquisition and compression}, year={1999}, school={Department of Organisimic Biology, Ecology and Evolutionl. University of California, Los Angeles}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/teal99ms.html} } @inproceedings{teal99compressionAnd, author={Tracy K. Teal and Daniel Albro and Edward P. Stabler and Charles E. Taylor}, title={Compression and Adaptation}, year={1999}, pages={709-719}, address={Berlin}, editor={D. Floreano and J.-D. Nicoud and F. Mondada}, publisher={Springer-Verlag}, booktitle={ECAL99}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/teal99compressionAnd.html}, abstract={What permits some systems to evolve and adapt more effectively than others? Gell-Mann [3] has stressed the importance of ``com- pression'' for adaptive complex systems. Information about the environ- ment is not simply recorded as a look-up table, but is rather compressed in a theory or schema. Several conjectures are proposed: (I) compression aids in generalization; (II) compression occurs more easily in a ``smooth'', as opposed to a ``rugged'', string space; and (III) constraints from com- pression make it likely that natural languages evolve towards smooth string spaces. We have been examining the role of such compression for learning and evolution of formal languages by artificial agents. Our sys- tem does seem to conform generally to these expectations, but the trade- oóbetween compression and the errors that sometimes accompany it need careful consideration.} } @article{teal00effectsOf, author={Tracy K. Teal and Charles E. Taylor}, title={Effects of Compression on Language Evolution}, journal={Artificial Life}, year={2000}, month={Spring}, volume={6}, number={2}, pages={129-143}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/teal00effectsOf.html}, abstract={For many adaptive complex systems information about the environment is not simply recorded in a look-up table, but is rather encoded in a theory, schema, or model, which compresses the information. The grammar of a language can be viewed as such a schema or theory. In a prior study [Teal et al., 1999] we proposed several conjectures about the learning and evolution of language that should follow from these observations: (C1) compression aids in generalization; (C2) compression occurs more easily in a smooth, as opposed to a rugged, problem space; and (C3) constraints from compression make it likely that natural languages eveolve toward smooth string spaces. This previous work found general, if not complete support for these three conjectures. Here we build on that study to clarify the relationship between Minimum Description Length (MDL) and error in our model and examine evolution of certain languages in more detail. Our results suggest a fourth conjecture: that all else being equal, (C4) more complex languages change more rapidly during evolution.} } @article{temperley04music, author={David Temperley}, title={Communicative Pressure and the Evolution of Musical Styles}, journal={Music Perception}, year={2004}, volume={21}, number={3}, pages={313-337}, doi={10.1525/mp.2004.21.3.313}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/temperley04music.html}, abstract={Music functions, at least in part, to convey certain structures to the listener via a surface of notes. For communication to occur successfully, the structures must be recoverable from the surface. I argue that this consideration has been an important factor in the shaping of musical styles, and sheds light on a number of phenomena: the greater degree of syncopation and lower degree of rubato in traditional African music and rock versus common-practice music; the extensive use of rubato in pieces with consistent repeated patterns (e.g., much Romantic piano music); the rise of swing tempo and the higher degree of syncopation in jazz as opposed to ragtime; and the greater variety of chord-tones and lower tolerance for chordal inversion in jazz as opposed to common-practice music.} } @inproceedings{tereshko07ECAL, author={Valery Tereshko}, title={Language Learning Dynamics: Coexistence and Selection of Grammars}, year={2007}, pages={415-424}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={ECAL07}, doi={10.1007/978-3-540-74913-4_42}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/tereshko07ECAL.html}, abstract={Language learning dynamics is modelled by an ensemble of individuals consisting of the grammar carriers and the learners. Increasing the system population size results into the transition from the individual to the collective mode of learning. At low communication level, different grammars coexist in their own survival niches. Enhancement of the communication level in purely collective mode, when all individuals are the part of general communication network, leads to the selection of the fittest grammar. Adding the individual mode of learning results into the formation of the quasigrammar, with the dominant grammar prevailing over the set of coexisting grammars.} } @incollection{terrace02serialExpertise, author={H. S. Terrace}, title={Serial Expertise and the Evolution of Language}, year={2002}, address={Oxford}, chapter={4}, editor={Alison Wray}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={The Transition to Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/terrace02serialExpertise.html} } @article{tesileanu06HammingDistance, author={Tiberiu Tesileanu and Hildegard Meyer-Ortmanns}, title={Competition of Languages and their Hamming Distance}, journal={International Journal of Modern Physics C}, year={2006}, volume={17}, number={2}, pages={259-278}, doi={10.1142/S0129183106008765}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/tesileanu06HammingDistance.html}, keywords={Evolution of languages; population dynamics; bitstring models}, abstract={We consider the spreading and competition of languages that are spoken by a population of individuals. The individuals can change their mother tongue during their lifespan, pass on their language to their offspring and finally die. The languages are described by bitstrings, their mutual difference is expressed in terms of their Hamming distance. Language evolution is determined by mutation and adaptation rates. In particular we consider the case where the replacement of a language by another one is determined by their mutual Hamming distance. As a function of the mutation rate we find a sharp transition between a scenario with one dominant language and fragmentation into many language clusters. The transition is also reflected in the Hamming distance between the two languages with the largest and second to largest number of speakers. We also consider the case where the population is localized on a square lattice and the interaction of individuals is restricted to a certain geometrical domain. Here it is again the Hamming distance that plays an essential role in the final fate of a language of either surviving or being extinct.} } @inproceedings{theiner06AlifeX, author={Georg Theiner}, title={Collectivism and the Emergence of Linguistic Universals}, year={2006}, pages={473-479}, editor={Luis M. Rocha and et al.}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Artificial Life X}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/theiner06AlifeX.html} } @article{thelwall06spreadOfIdeas, author={Mike Thelwall and Liz Price}, title={Language evolution and the spread of ideas: A procedure for identifying emergent hybrid word family members}, journal={Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology}, year={2006}, volume={57}, number={10}, pages={1326-1337}, doi={10.1002/asi.20437}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/thelwall06spreadOfIdeas.html}, abstract={Word usage is of interest to linguists for its own sake as well as to social scientists and others seeking to track the spread of ideas, for example in public debates over political decisions. The historical evolution of language can be analysed with the tools of corpus linguistics through evolving corpora and the web. But word usage statistics can only be gathered for known words. In this article, techniques are described and tested for identifying new words from the web, focussing on the case when the words are related to a topic and have a hybrid form with a common sequence of letters. The results highlight the need to employ a combination of search techniques and show the wide potential of hybrid word family investigations in linguistics and social science.} } @unpublished{Thomforde04thesis, author={Emily Thomforde}, title={Secret Agents: Synthetic Approaches to Language Evolution}, year={2004}, note={thesis}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/Thomforde04thesis.html} } @book{tomasello03book, author={Michael Tomasello}, title={Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition}, year={2003}, publisher={Harvard University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/tomasello03book.html} } @incollection{tomasello03onTheDifferentOrigins, author={M. Tomasello}, title={On the different origins of symbols and grammar}, year={2003}, editor={M.H. Christiansen and S. Kirby}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={Language Evolution: The States of the Art}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/tomasello03onTheDifferentOrigins.html} } @incollection{tomasello01someFacts, author={Michael Tomasello}, title={Some Facts about Primate (including Human) Communication and Social Learning}, year={2002}, pages={327-340}, address={London}, chapter={15}, editor={Angelo Cangelosi and Domenico Parisi}, publisher={Springer Verlag}, booktitle={Simulating the Evolution of Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/tomasello01someFacts.html} } @book{tomasello00culturalOriginsBOOK, author={Michael Tomasello}, title={The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition}, year={1999}, publisher={Harvard University Press}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/tomasello00culturalOriginsBOOK.html} } @phdthesis{tonkes01onThe, author={Bradley Tonkes}, title={On the Origins of Linguistic Structure: Computational models of the evolution of language}, year={2001}, month={October}, school={School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Queensland, Australia}, note={Draft PhD thesis}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/tonkes01onThe.html}, abstract={This thesis explores a perspective for explaining the origins of linguistic structure that is based on considerations beyond the constraints of the language acquisition device. In contrast to the theory of Universal Grammar proposed by Chomsky, this perspective considers how the processes of language acquisition and use create a dynamical system that is capable of adapting linguistic structure to the inductive biases of learners. In this view it is possible to conceive of language adapting to aid its own survival: those languages that are more reliably and easily acquired will tend to persist for longer than their less easily learned counterparts. Thus, linguistic structures are seen as emergent, adaptive phenomena rather than preordained features of language.

The particular issue that this thesis investigates is the extent to which language adaptation can facilitate acquisition by general-purpose learners. In the Generative Grammar tradition much is made of the necessity for domain-specific constraints on the language acquisition device. (Indeed, that there must be a distinct mental com- ponent dedicated to language tasks.) This outlook is in contrast to the connectionist viewpoint, which posits far more moderately constrained, domain-general mecha- nisms. This thesis examines how language adaptation can give general-purpose, connectionist learners the appearance of being language-savvy learners.

A simulation framework is proposed in which agents attempt to communicate simple concepts to one another using sequential utterances. In earlier simulations we aim to maximise the learnability of a language for the communication task. Later simulations show how the processes of language production and acquisition, when iterated, are capable of producing such languages. In total, three series of simulations are performed.

The first series of simulations addresses the question of how linguistic structure adapts when sender and receiver disagree on the form of language that is easiest to learn. Analysis reveals that, if necessary, the structural properties of language can take on forms that compromise between the competing constraints on sender and receiver.

The second series of simulations considers the bottleneck of linguistic transmis- sion: the requirement that learners generalise from a limited set of observed utter- ances to the entire language. Results show that generalisability can be boosted in a naive, domain-general learner by allowing language to adapt to the inductive biases present in the learner.

The third and final series of simulations investigates how the dynamical charac- teristics of linguistic change depend on the properties that drive the dynamics. That is, we explore the range of conditions under which the iterated learning dynamic is suÆcient to establish a learnable language throughout the population. The results of these simulations show that the iterated learning dynamic is indeed able to act as a generator of languages that general-purpose learners are capable of acquiring.

The results from these studies suggest that through the dynamics of linguistic transmission, language can adapt to the capabilities and biases of its users. Fur- thermore, that language can exploit the inductive biases of general-purpose learning mechanisms to facilitate their own acquisition, contrary to Universal Grammar's hypothesised need for an innate, domain-specific acquisition mechanism.} } @techreport{tonkes98gettingThe, author={Bradley Tonkes}, title={Getting the Point Across: The Effect of Recurrent Network Biases on the Evolution of a Simple Language}, year={1998}, institution={}, note={Extended version of SEAL98 paper, 26 pages.}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/tonkes98gettingThe.html} } @inproceedings{tonkes00evolvingLearnable, author={Bradley Tonkes and Alan Blair and Janet Wiles}, title={Evolving learnable languages}, year={2000}, pages={66-72}, editor={S. A. Solla and T. K. Leen and K.-R.Muller}, publisher={MIT Press}, booktitle={Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 12, (NIPS*99)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/tonkes00evolvingLearnable.html}, abstract={Traditional theories of child language acquisition center around the existence of a language acquisition device which is specifically tuned for learning a particular class of languages. More recent proposals suggest that language acquisition is assisted by the evolution of languages towards forms that are easily learnable. In this paper, we evolve combinatorial languages which can be learned by a simple recurrent network quickly and from relatively few examples. Additionally, we evolve languages for generalization in different ``worlds'', and for generalization from specific examples. We find that languages can be evolved to facilitate different forms of impressive generalization for a minimally biased learner. The results provide empirical support for the theory that the language itself, as well as the language environment of a learner, plays a substantial role in learning: that there is far more to language acquisition than the language acquisition device.} } @inproceedings{tonkes98aParadox, author={B. Tonkes and A. Blair and J. Wiles}, title={A paradox of neural encoders and decoders, or, why don't we talk backwards?}, year={1998}, pages={357-364}, editor={B. McKay and X. Yao and C. S. Newton and J.-H. Kim and T. Furuhashi}, publisher={Springer}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Second Asia-Pacific Conference on Simulated Evolution and Learning (SEAL98)}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/tonkes98aParadox.html}, abstract={We develop a new framework for studying the biases that recurrent neural networks bring to language processing tasks. A semantic concept represented by a point in Euclidian space is translated into a symbol sequence by an encoder network. This sequence is then fed to a decoder network which attempts to translate it back to the original concept. We show how a pair of recurrent networks acting as encoder and decoder can develop their own symbolic language that is serially transmitted between them either forwards or backwards. The encoder and decoder bring different constraints to the task, and these early results indicate that the conflicting nature of these constraints may be reflected in the language that ultimately emerges, providing important clues to the structure of human languages.} } @incollection{tonkes02methodologicalIssues, author={Bradley Tonkes and Janet Wiles}, title={Methodological Issues in Simulating the Emergence of Language}, year={2002}, address={Oxford}, chapter={11}, editor={Alison Wray}, publisher={Oxford University Press}, booktitle={The Transition to Language}, url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/tonkes02methodologicalIssues.html}, abstract={Using computational modeling techniques, this paper explores the range of conditions under which structured, language-like communication systems can emerge. In particular, we reconsider Simon Kirby's learning bottleneck model of linguistic adaptation using a different learning mechanism and different semantic domain. We demonstrate how parameters such as population size and training corpus size affect the likelihood of a population reaching consensus on a structure communication system.} } @article{trapa00nashEquilibria, author={P. E. Trapa and M.