Origins of recursive phrase structure through cultural self-organisation and selection
Many human languages in the world exhibit phrase structure. Phrase structure combines words, phrases, and both, into phrases, and it may empower language systems to exploit recursion. This thesis pushes forward the hypothesis that phrase structure is not an accidental structural property of language...
| Autor: | |
|---|---|
| Tipo de recurso: | tesis doctoral |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2018 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | CBUC, CESCA |
| Repositorio: | TDR. Tesis Doctorales en Red |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:www.tdx.cat:10803/664937 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10803/664937 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Language evolution Language games Agent-based models Self-organisation Fluid construction grammar Evolució del llenguatge Jocs de llenguatge Models basats en agents Autoorganització Gramàtica fluida de construccions 80 |
| Sumario: | Many human languages in the world exhibit phrase structure. Phrase structure combines words, phrases, and both, into phrases, and it may empower language systems to exploit recursion. This thesis pushes forward the hypothesis that phrase structure is not an accidental structural property of language, but rather an adaptation of language systems to enable the computation of language. I propose a minimal operational model of communication as a specific language game, which together with concrete learning operators shows how a population of artificial agents is able to self-organise a system exhibiting phrase structure. After demonstrating that phrase structure reduces the complexity of language computation, I propose concrete mechanisms in the form of learning operators whose application introduces variation in the language of the agents and selection on the reduction of the computational cost. The mechanisms are implemented and tested in computer simulations as evolutionary explanation for the emergence of phrase structure, including cases exploiting recursion. |
|---|