Learning Biases for the Evolution of Linguistic Structure: An Associative Network Model

Abstract. Structural hallmarks of language can be explained in terms of adaptation, by language, to pressures arising during its cultural transmission. Here I present a model which explains the compositional structure of language as an adaptation in response to pressures arising from the poverty of the stimulus available to language learners and the biases of language learners themselves.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: ECAL
• Authors: Kenny Smith
• Keywords: Cultural Transmission, ECAL 2003, Language Learners, Structural Hallmarks