Exploring the relationship between learnability and linguistic universals

Anna N. Rafferty, Thomas L. Griffiths, Marc Ettlinger

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Greater learnability has been offered as an explanation as to why certain properties appear in human languages more frequently than others. Languages with greater learnability are more likely to be accurately transmitted from one generation of learners to the next. We explore whether such a learnability bias is sufficient to result in a property becoming prevalent across languages by formalizing language transmission using a linear model. We then examine the outcome of repeated transmission of languages using a mathematical analysis, a computer simulation, and an experiment with human participants, and show several ways in which greater learnability may not result in a property becoming prevalent. Both the ways in which transmission failures occur and the relative number of languages with and without a property can affect whether the relationship between learnability and prevalence holds. Our results show that simply finding a learnability bias is not sufficient to explain why a particular property is a linguistic universal, or even frequent among human languages.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationWorkshop on Cognitive Modeling and Computational Linguistics, CMCL 2011 at the 49th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics
Subtitle of host publicationHuman Language Technologies, ACL-HLT 2011 - Proceedings
EditorsFrank Keller, David Reitter
PublisherAssociation for Computational Linguistics (ACL)
Pages49-57
Number of pages9
ISBN (Electronic)9781932432954
StatePublished - 2011
Externally publishedYes
Event2nd Workshop on Cognitive Modeling and Computational Linguistics, CMCL 2011 at the 49th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies, ACL-HLT 2011 - Portland, United States
Duration: Jun 23 2011 → …

Publication series

NameProceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics
Volume2011-June
ISSN (Print)0736-587X

Conference

Conference2nd Workshop on Cognitive Modeling and Computational Linguistics, CMCL 2011 at the 49th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies, ACL-HLT 2011
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPortland
Period6/23/11 → …

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Computer Science Applications
  • Linguistics and Language
  • Language and Linguistics

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