Innateness and culture in the evolution of language
Innateness and culture in the evolution of language
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.0608222104
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发表时间：
2007-03-20
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Griffiths, Thomas L.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kirby, Simon;Dowman, Mike;Griffiths, Thomas L.
人类语言产生于生物进化、个体学习和文化传播，但这三个过程的相互作用尚未得到广泛研究。我们制定了一个分析文化传播的正式框架，使我们能够研究先天学习偏差与语言的普遍属性之间的关系。我们表明，文化传播可以将微弱的偏见放大为强大的语言普遍性，从而破坏了语言学习的强大先天限制的论点之一。因此，先天偏见的强度可以免受自然选择的影响，从而使这些基因发生漂移。此外，即使没有自然选择，文化传播也能产生明显的适应。因此，文化传播为人类语言属性提供了传统本土主义和适应主义解释的另一种选择。
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.