Animacy Distinctions Arise from Iterated Learning
Animacy Distinctions Arise from Iterated Learning
复制标题
迭代学习带来的活力差异
DOI：
10.1515/opli-2018-0027
复制
发表时间：
2018
期刊：
影响因子：
0.8
通讯作者：
S. Kirby
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Virve Vihman;D. Nelson;S. Kirby
摘要语言生命性反映了世界上遇到的生物差异的一种特殊的联系，通过文化和认知的过滤器。这项研究探讨了我们对生命的理解如何被编码到人类语言的语法中。我们进行了一个迭代学习实验，研究生命性对语言传递的影响。参与者参与了一项简单的人工语言学习任务，在这项任务中，他们被要求学习语言中每个名词的词缀。虽然最初是随机的，每个参与者在测试中产生的语言成为一个链中的后续参与者接受培训的语言。实验结果进行了分析，根据可学习性，通过响应的准确性和结构，使用熵测量。我们发现，正如预期的那样，语言的可学习性随着世代的推移而增加，但熵并没有减少。语言在形式上并没有随着时间的推移而变得简单。相反，结构是通过围绕基于生命的类别重组名词类而出现的。语义生命性区别的使用使语言在保持形态复杂性的同时变得更容易学习。我们的研究表明，生命性差异的语法反射可以单独从学习中产生，基于生命性的语法结构可以使语言更容易学习。
Abstract Linguistic animacy reflects a particular construal of biological distinctions encountered in the world, passed through cultural and cognitive filters. This study explores the process by which our construal of animacy becomes encoded in the grammars of human languages. We ran an iterated learning experiment investigating the effect of animacy on language transmission. Participants engaged in a simple artificial language learning task in which they were asked to learn which affix was assigned to each noun in the language. Though initially random, the language each participant produced at test became the language that the subsequent participant in a chain was trained on. Results of the experiment were analysed in terms of learnability, measured through the accuracy of responses, and structure, using an entropy measure. We found that the learnability of languages increased over generations, as expected, but entropy did not decrease. Languages did not become formally simpler over time. Instead, structure emerged through a reorganisation of noun classes around animacy-based categories. The use of semantic animacy distinctions allowed languages to retain morphological complexity while becoming more learnable. Our study shows that grammatical reflexes of animacy distinctions can arise out of learning alone, and that structuring grammar based on animacy can make languages more learnable.