The Role of Biological and Linguistic Adaptation in Language Evolution
Florencia Reali and Morten H. Christiansen
Abstract
Determining the relative contribution of linguistic and biological adaptation in the
emergence of grammatical structure is an important issue in language evolution research.
Using evolutionary connectionist simulations, we explore linguistic adaptation through
cultural transmission over generations of language learners in the context of ongoing
biological adaptation. Consistent with most theoretical accounts, the simulations also
focus on the suggestion that language originated by piggybacking on pre-existing learning
mechanisms. Networks were first allowed to evolve "biologically" to improve their
sequential learning abilities, after which language was introduced into the population.
Crucially, both networks and language were able to change, allowing us to pitch biological
and linguistic adaptation against each other. The simulation results
suggest that when languages and network learners co-evolve - while maintaining a
pressure toward sequential learning - linguistic adaptation overpowers biological
adaptation. This dovetails with a growing body of work suggesting a key role for
linguistic adaptation in language evolution.
Please email suggestions/errors to mhc27@cornell.edu |