Words as alleles: connecting language evolution with Bayesian learners to models of genetic drift
Words as alleles: connecting language evolution with Bayesian learners to models of genetic drift
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单词作为等位基因：将语言进化与贝叶斯学习者与遗传漂变模型联系起来
DOI：
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发表时间：
2010
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通讯作者：
T. Griffiths
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作者：
Florencia Reali;T. Griffiths
研究语言如何随时间变化的科学家经常将生物进化和文化进化进行类比，单词或语法的行为就像受到自然选择影响的特征一样。最近的工作利用生物进化模型来解释语言和其他文化制品的特性，从而利用了这种类比。然而，生物进化和文化进化的机制却截然不同：生物特征通过基因在代际间传递，而语言和概念则通过学习传递。在这里，我们证明这些不同的机制可以产生相同的结果，证明贝叶斯学习者在语言形式变体上的频率分布传递相当于遗传漂变的莱特-费舍尔模型。因此，这种简单的学习机制为在研究语言进化中使用遗传漂变模型提供了理由。除了提供生物进化和文化进化之间的明确联系之外，这还使我们能够定义一个“中性”模型，该模型表明在语言变体层面缺乏选择的情况下语言如何变化。我们证明这个中性模型可以解释三种现象：语言变化的S形曲线、词频分布以及词频与消退率之间的关系。
Scientists studying how languages change over time often make an analogy between biological and cultural evolution, with words or grammars behaving like traits subject to natural selection. Recent work has exploited this analogy by using models of biological evolution to explain the properties of languages and other cultural artefacts. However, the mechanisms of biological and cultural evolution are very different: biological traits are passed between generations by genes, while languages and concepts are transmitted through learning. Here we show that these different mechanisms can have the same results, demonstrating that the transmission of frequency distributions over variants of linguistic forms by Bayesian learners is equivalent to the Wright–Fisher model of genetic drift. This simple learning mechanism thus provides a justification for the use of models of genetic drift in studying language evolution. In addition to providing an explicit connection between biological and cultural evolution, this allows us to define a ‘neutral’ model that indicates how languages can change in the absence of selection at the level of linguistic variants. We demonstrate that this neutral model can account for three phenomena: the s-shaped curve of language change, the distribution of word frequencies, and the relationship between word frequencies and extinction rates.