Kirby, S. (2000). Syntax without natural selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In C. Knight, J. Hurford, & M. Studdert-Kennedy (Eds.), The evolutionary emergence of language: Social function and the origins of linguistic form. Cambridge University Press.  Home/Search   Document Details and Download   Summary   Related Articles   Check

.... dialect contact, Kerswill Williams emphasise the importance of [t]he proportion of children to adults in the immediate post settlement years [7, p75] and [t]he presence of the possibility of forming There are implementations of the ILM which move away from the single agent population model [4, 9]. However, these models either suffer from a very rigid, tightly spatially organised population model (as in [9] or a strongly biased model of a learner (as in [4] new social networks among children and younger people: These possibilities are influenced by demographic factors such as high ....

.... post settlement years [7, p75] and [t]he presence of the possibility of forming There are implementations of the ILM which move away from the single agent population model [4, 9] However, these models either suffer from a very rigid, tightly spatially organised population model (as in [9]) or a strongly biased model of a learner (as in [4] new social networks among children and younger people: These possibilities are influenced by demographic factors such as high density of population, a critical mass of population, and the presence of universal schooling [7, p75] 3 The ....

S. Kirby. Syntax without natural selection: how compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In Knight et al. [11], pages 303--323.

....as extremely important that the space of possible things to talk about not be by assumption finite. Note that some research assumes finite meaning spaces [18] similarly, the architecture of [1] depends on finite association matrix manipulations and hence finite bounds on the number of meanings. [19] provides simulations in which compositionality emerges within a system about which 100 meanings are available. In our system there is no guarantee that even with extremely long runs that an event will recur with identical arguments to the relation. It is not possible to ensure ultimate success by ....

....empirical findings with human communicators do. There is no initial grammar that constrains the system, neither explicitly, nor implicitly in the structure of semantic representations of events. There are only associations of meaning sequences with phoneme sequences (compare with [30] 26] [19]) Clearly, although there are hard coded assumptions like a lack of distortion in the speech signal, the responsibility of the speaker to comment on the entirety of an event and of the hearer to find a meaning for each part of an utterance, there is a lot of room for things to go wrong. ....

Simon Kirby, "Syntax without natural selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners," in The Evolutionary Emergence of Language, Chris Knight, Michael Studdert-Kennedy, and James Hurford, Eds., pp. 303--323. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

....is clearly huge. A related discussion of modelcoordination can be found in [AdJM00, Ago00] Our approach is closed in spirit to the framework of the language games, namely, models of language change and language evolution in populations of communicating agents. Some reference are [Ste96, Bat00, Kir00] Language games, however, focus much more on language creation and evoution than our models. Moreover, a formal comparison with language games would only be possible if we enriched our basic paradigm with an explicit system of pay o s, so as to explicitly relate agent s actions and beliefs. ....

S. Kirby. Syntax without natural selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In C. Knight, J. Hurford, and M. Studdert-Kennedy, editors, The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social function and the origins of linguistic form. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000.

.... illustrates the theory with the case study of the origins and learnability of syllable systems, which are thought to be a fundamental unit of the complex phonological systems of human languages ( 18] We present a computational model in the spirit of past work on the origins of language ( 24] [12]) Among related existing models of the origins of sound systems, there exists two models of the origins of vowel systems: Lindblom [14] showed that the optimization of a number of analytically de ned perceptual constraints could predict the most frequent vowel systems, whereas de Boer ( 4] ....

Kirby, S., Syntax without natural selection: how compositionnality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners, in Hurford, J., Studdert-Kennedy M., Knight C. (eds.), Approaches to the evolution of language, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (1998).

....issues in syntax. Nevertheless, we hope to show that language games offer an appealing framework to study other aspects of language as well. Language games that do incorporate grammar are being studied and are starting to yield interesting results (Batali, 1998; Steels, 1998; Batali, 2000; Kirby, 2000). The models we discuss are necessarily and deliberately simple. We do not intend to provide a scenario for language evolution or to simulate a historical development. Rather, we aim at calling attention to the enormous potential for spontaneous pattern formation (selforganization) in populations ....

....(i) a linguistic representation, ii) an interaction protocol, and (iii) a learning algorithm. Linguistic Representation With representation we mean here a formalism to represent the linguistic abilities of agents, ranging from recurrent neural networks (Batali, 1998) or rewriting grammars (Kirby, 2000) to a simple associative memory (Hurford, 1989; Steels, 1996; Oliphant Batali, 1996; De Boer, 1999; Kaplan, 2000) In the model described in this paper, we will use a simple list of associations between linguistics forms (words) and their meanings. Each association has a score that represents ....

[Article contains additional citation context not shown here]

KIRBY, S. (2000). Syntax without natural selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In: The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social function and the origins of linguistic form ( Knight, C., Hurford, J. & Studdert-Kennedy, M., eds.). Cambridge University Press.

.... each other and with mathematical models (the review papers [8, 3] are exceptions, although they unfortunately do not discuss 2 mathematical models) In this paper we explore the similarities between a recently published mathematical model [6] our own A life simulations [9] and the model of Kirby [5]. We believe that such an approach can eventually both avoid the problematic simpli cations of mathematical models, and the ad hoc ness of many A life models. In the conference presentation we will also discuss some shortcomings of verbal theories as revealed by A life models. 2 The ....

....their analysis they have not taken into account that the choice of the grammar that a child has to learn is biased by how well previous generations have been able to learn and maintain it. In a follow up of the study above, we have implemented a variant of the iterated learning model of Kirby [5], in which agents are endowed with a language acquisition algorithm to learn the context free grammars. Kirby found that in the process of iterated cultural transmission the language adapts itself to be better learnable by individual agents. Concretely, this means that the language becomes ....

Simon Kirby. Syntax without natural selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In C. Knight, J. Hurford, and M. StuddertKennedy, editors, The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social function and the origins of linguistic form. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

....of auxiliary verbs in an English sentence. Rather, these models can give insights in the origins of some general but fundamental aspects of natural language. e.g. the facts that human language is (in nitely) expressive; for a large part speci c [10, 21, 18] and distinctive [6] compositional [1, 16, 2, 12]; recursive [8, 11, 24] diverse on a global scale, but uniform on a local scale; dynamic, constantly subject to innovations. And that languages share universal tendencies [13, 6] and are used for very diverse purposes, including information exchange (communication) but also expression, ....

....only on one axis and where the similarity between grammars is determined by the distance on that axis. Under these circumstances, there is still a coherence threshold 10 but the dynamics show quite di erent characteristics. Some results are shown in the left panel of gure 2. In models such as [12, 24] also the expressiveness of the grammar types di ers. The language ability in these models is represented with context free grammars, which can both implement non syntactic idiosyncratic languages, and syntactic, compositional languages. These models shed light on the emergence of compositionality ....

[Article contains additional citation context not shown here]

S. Kirby. Syntax without natural selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In C. Knight, J. Hurford, and M. StuddertKennedy, editors, The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social function and the origins of linguistic form. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

....unique set of selection pressures favouring the evolution of syntax in humans to explain the uniqueness of language. Cultural adaptation of language in favour of compositionality, due to cultural selection resulting from language learner biases during cultural transmission of communication (e.g. [1, 3]) Such models are not primarily concerned with the origin of the language learner s biases but appeal to a uniquely human preexisting mental capacity to explain the uniqueness of language. Recent work by Oliphant [5, 6] building on pioneering work by Hurford [2] focuses on the more basic issue ....

S. Kirby. Syntax without natural selection: how compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In Chris Knight, Michael Studdert-Kennedy, and James R. Hurford, editors, The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form, pages 303--323. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000.

....is based on the theory that self organization in a population of language users drives sound systems towards optimality. It is based on the theories of Luc Steels of language as a complex dynamic system [17, 18, 19] and is also related to other work on the origins and the evolution of language [7, 9]. In the theories of Luc Steels language is considered as much to be a phenomenon of a population as it is knowledge of individuals. This approach does not consider language in terms of abstract ideal knowledge of an individual, nor does it deal with idealized speaker hearer interactions. Rather, ....

Kirby, Simon (to appear) Syntax without natural selection: how compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In Chris knight & Jim Hurford (eds.) The evolution of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

....can be explained in terms of a unique set of selection pressures experienced by the ancestors of modern humans. Cultural adaptation of language in favour of compositionality, due to cultural selection resulting from language learner biases during cultural transmission of communication (e.g. [1, 3]) Such models are not primarily concerned with the origin of the language learner s biases. If cultural adaptation is the key 2 adaptive process, there are at least two possible explanations for the uniqueness of human language only our ancestors underwent the mutation or set of mutations ....

S. Kirby. Syntax without natural selection: how compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In Chris Knight, Michael Studdert-Kennedy, and James R. Hurford, editors, The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form, pages 303--323. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000.

.... offered by syntactic communication (e.g. Nowak, Plotkin and Jansen, 2000; Pinker Bloom, 1990) Cultural adaptation of language in favour of compositionality, due to cultural selection resulting from language learner biases during cultural transmission of communication (e.g. Batali, in press; Kirby, 2000). Such models are not primarily concerned with the origin of the language learner s biases. These two opposing styles of explanation offer different accounts of the uniqueness of human language. Explanations viewing the language organ as adaptive would argue that our ancestors were the only ....

Kirby, S. (2000). Syntax without Natural Selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In C. Knight, M. Studdert-Kennedy & J.R. Hurford (Eds.), The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social function and the origins of linguistic form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

....points of detail, but typically seem to assume that individual constants are the evolutionary sources of Proper Nouns, and perhaps also of Common Nouns, while the predicate constants are the sources of Verbs. One account which is completely explicit on this point is found in the computer models of Kirby (2000a, 2000b) and here is it clear that individual constants are the evolutionary source of what emerge as Proper Nouns, and predicate constants the source of Verbs. Such an apparatus for prelinguistic mental representation is implausibly rich. I will argue that a reduced apparatus is more plausible. ....

Kirby, Simon 2000b Syntax without natural selection: how compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In Knight, C., M. Studdert-Kennedy and Hurford, J.R. (eds) The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form, 302-323. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

....receivers are selected to get the best mates possible. The meaning of the mating display is not shared by signaller and receiver since the job of the sexual ornament is not the same for both parties. Human Language Within models of the evolution of human language (e.g. Kirby Hurford, 1997; Kirby, 1998, 2000; Batali, 1998; Steels, 1998) there is often little attention to the possibility of deceit (but see Noble, 2000) These accounts either implicitly or explicitly presuppose that the agents involved are taking part in an essentially co operative enterprise. Language is used by these agents to ....

Kirby, S. (2000). Syntax without natural selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In Knight et al. (2000).

....[2 4] To date, relatively few empirical studies have explored how such adaptation of language works in practice. Hare and Elman [5] demonstrated that classes of past tense forms could evolve over simulated generations in response to changes in the frequency of verbs, using neural networks. Kirby [6] showed, using a symbolic system, how compositional languages are more likely to emerge when learning is constrained to a limited set of examples. Batali [7] has evolved recurrent networks that communicate simple structured concepts. Our argument is not that humans are general purpose learners. ....

S. Kirby. Syntax without natural selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. Under review, 1998.

No context found.

Kirby, S. (2000). Syntax without natural selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners . In C. Knight, M. Studdert-Kennedy, & J. R. Hurford (Eds.), The evolutionary emergence of language: Social function and the origins of linguistic form (pp. 303--323). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

....regularly tackled issues such as: communication, learning, and biological adaptation. However, the case for ALife as an approach has become stronger in recent years as a number of authors have suggested that the evolved learner approach understates the complexity of language in a fundamental way [7, 29]. In the Chomskyan framework, the key to answering the why question is the idealisation that LLAD LPH . However, this can only be true under conditions where the data to the learner are drawn from a single stationary target language, and all languages in LLAD are equally learnable. The extensive ....

Kirby, S. (2000). Syntax without natural selection: how compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In C. Knight, M. StuddertKennedy, and J.R. Hurford, (eds.), The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 303-323. 32

....information is transmitted down generations through communication. For example, Kirby demonstrates that two linguistic properties unique to human language, compositional and recursive syntax, can be explained in terms of cultural evolution coupled with a general purpose learning mechanism [3, 4]. In this article we too treat human language as a complex adaptive system. Central to our analysis is the iterated learning model a framework in which each generation of language user acquires its linguistic competence by observing the behavior of the previous generation. The behavior ....

....where the meaning of a signal is a function of the signal as a whole the signal cannot be decomposed to identify fragments of the meaning, only the whole signal stands for any kind of meaning. Previous studies which investigate the cultural evolution of compositional syntax (for example, [3] and [1] have been criticized because the manner in which agents in the simulations select the hypothesis for the observed data is strongly biased the results are striking yet inevitable [10] In this section we appeal to a well understood model of induction the Minimum Description Length ....

S. Kirby. Syntax without natural selection: how compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In Chris Knight, Michael Studdert-Kennedy, and James R. Hurford, editors, The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form, pages 303--323. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000.

....related to meaning. Ultimately, these types of explanation typically derive features of the meaning string mapping from communicative pressures that in uenced our proto human ancestors [4] This paper follows on from recent computational work that takes a di erent approach [5] 6] 7] [8], 9] 10] 11] 12] 13] Instead of concetrating on the biological evolution of an innate language faculty, this line of research places more explanatory emphasis on languages themselves as adaptive systems. Human languages are arguably unique not only for their compositionality but also in ....

....can parse the string with the same meaning as the speaker) chosen meaning. Notice, that although there are only 25 meanings, the chances of all 25 being exempli ed in the learner s input are lower than one. 3 This feature of the ILM has been termed the bottleneck in linguistic transmission [8]. Although the bottleneck is not particularly tight here, it plays a more important role in later experiments. Figure 1 shows a plot of the simulation converging from the initial condition on a language that is stable, covers the complete meaning space, and allows for perfect communication. ....

[Article contains additional citation context not shown here]

S. Kirby, \Syntax without natural selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners," in The Evolutionary Emergence of Language, C. Knight, M. StuddertKennedy, and J. R. Hurford, Eds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, in press.

No context found.

Kirby, S. (2000). Syntax without natural selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In C. Knight, J. Hurford, & M. Studdert-Kennedy (Eds.), The evolutionary emergence of language: Social function and the origins of linguistic form. Cambridge University Press.

No context found.

Kirby, S. (2000). Syntax without natural selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In Knight, C., Hurford, J., and Studdert-Kennedy, M., editors, The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social function and the origins of linguistic form. Cambridge University Press.

No context found.

Simon Kirby. Syntax without natural selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In C. Knight et al., editors, The Evolutionary Emergence of Language. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

No context found.

Kirby, S. (2000b). Syntax without natural selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In C. Knight, M. StuddertKennedy & J. Hurford (Eds.), The evolutionary emergence of language: Social function and the origins of linguistic forms. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press.

No context found.

KIRBY, S. (1999b). Syntax without natural selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In: The emergence of language ( Knight, C., Hurford, J. & Studdert-Kennedy, M., eds.). (?).

No context found.

Kirby, S. (This volume) Syntax without natural selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. Ladefoged, P. & Maddieson, I. (1996) The Sounds of the World's Languages, Oxford: Blackwell.

No context found.

Kirby, S. (1998b). Syntax without natural selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. Under review.

First 50 documents

Online articles have much greater impact   More about CiteSeer.IST   Add search form to your site   Submit documents   Feedback  

CiteSeer.IST - Copyright Penn State and NEC