Direction and directedness in language change : an evolutionary model of selection by trend-amplification
Human languages are not static entities. Linguistic conventions, whose social and communicative meaning are understood by all members of a speech community, are gradually altered or replaced, whether by changing their forms, meanings, or by the loss of or introduction of altogether new distinctions. How do large speech communities go about re-negotiating arbitrary associations in the absence of centralised coordination? This thesis first provides an overview of the plethora of explanations that have been given for language change. Approaching language change in a quantitative and evolutionary framework, mathematical and computational modelling is put forward as a tool to investigate and compare these different accounts and their purported underlying mechanisms in a rigorous fashion. The central part of the thesis investigates a relatively recent addition to the pool of mechanisms that have been proposed to influence language change: I will compare previous accounts with a momentum-based selection account of language change, a replicator-neutral model where the popularity of a variant is modulated by its momentum, i.e. its change in frequency of use in the recent past. I will discuss results from a multi-agent
Stadler, Kevin
language change ; language evolution ; trends ; linguistic trends ; syntactic change ; trend amplification
Direction and directedness in language change : an evolutionary model of selection by trend-amplification. Human languages are not static entities. Linguistic conventions, whose social and communicative meaning are understood by all members of a speech community, are gradually altered or replaced, whether by changing their forms, meanings, or by the loss of or introduction of altogether new distinctions. How do large speech communities go about re-negotiating arbitrary associations in the absence of centralised coordination? This thesis first provides an overview of the plethora of explanations that have been given for language change. Approaching language change in a quantitative and evolutionary framework, mathematical and computational modelling is put forward as a tool to investigate and compare these different accounts and their purported underlying mechanisms in a rigorous fashion. The central part of the thesis investigates a relatively recent addition to the pool of mechanisms that have been proposed to influence language change: I will compare previous accounts with a momentum-based selection account of language change, a replicator-neutral model where the popularity of a variant is modulated by its momentum, i.e. its change in frequency of use in the recent past. I will discuss results from a multi-agent
direction language_change evolutionary_model selection trend human languages static entity linguistic_convention whose social communicative meaning understood member speech_community gradually alter replace whether change form_meaning loss introduction altogether new distinction large speech_community negotiating arbitrary association absence centralise coordination first provide_overview plethora explanation give language_change approaching language_change quantitative evolutionary framework mathematical computational modelling put_forward tool_investigate compare different account purport underlying mechanism rigorous fashion central_part investigate relatively_recent addition pool mechanism propose influence language_change compare previous account momentum based selection account language_change neutral model popularity variant modulate momentum change frequency use recent_past discus multi agent