Protolanguages that are Semi-holophrastic

1
Protolanguages that are Semi-holophrastic
Mike Dowman mike_at_sacral.c.u-tokyo.ac.jpCo
mplex Systems and Artificial Life Lab, University
of Tokyo

• 1. What were Pre-syntactic Languages Like?
• Words for entities and actions (Bickerton)
• ? Strings of words with no syntax
• One word for whole complex meaning (Wray)

• 2. Modelling Protolanguage
• Meanings made from ten semantic primitives
• Complex meanings made from a set of three
  primitives
• Agents could use a limited number of words
• Agents remembered words
• and the meanings they were
• used to express

• 3. Iterated Learning
• Agent in each of 10 generations names 1000
  randomly selected meanings
• Each time they choose the best match to the
  meaning, based on past uses of the words they know

4. Many Meanings, Few Words Ten words, ten
semantic primitives ? Most words denoted
single concepts
5. Many Words, Few Meanings 150 words, ten
semantic primitives ? All words were
holophrastic
6. A Semi-holophrastic Protolanguage 50 words,
ten semantic primitives Words varied
in their degree of holophrasticity
7. Coevolution

• 8. Conclusions
• Words dont have to denote single concepts or
  holophrases
• ? There are all sorts of possibilities in between
• Protolanguages could have contained mixtures of
  different types of words
• Protolanguages probably changed gradually over
  the course of human history