AN AGENT-BASED MODEL TO EXPLAIN EMERGENCE OF DOMINANT WORD ORDERS IN TODAY’S LANGUAGES

Date

2023-7-21

Author

Çınar, Burcu

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

85
views

54
downloads

Cite This

In this study, we propose a computational model to explain the emergence of dominant word orders and distributions used by today's languages. This model combines the preferences for word orders results of small deaf communities that had to produce new languages without traditional language inputs and other up-to-date experimental studies with the concept of iterated learning without real data as a thought experiment. With iterated learning the model reflects the process through of a person picks up new behaviors after being exposed to those others. The model tries to explain how we transfer our word order preferences to our environment. It simulates the biological reproduction and development of communities while also incorporating our thought to be innate biases. It also examines the effects of the natural pressures of language like education, network structures on generations. Furthermore, it presents and tries to explain the results of possible scenarios with different parameters like community size, distribution of biases, communication network types and pressure effects.

Subject Keywords

dominant word order, communicational networks, agent-based model, iterated learning, language evolution

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/105235

Collections

Graduate School of Informatics, Thesis