The communicative function of ambiguity in language
Name
Piantadosi, Tily & Gibson Cognition 2012 preprint.pdf
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163.56 KB
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Author(s)
Piantadosi, Steven T.
Tily, Harry
Gibson, Edward A.
Date Issued
December 2011
Journal
Cognition
Publisher
Elsevier
Citation
Piantadosi, Steven T., Harry Tily, and Edward Gibson. “The Communicative Function of Ambiguity in Language.” Cognition 122, no. 3 (March 2012): 280–91.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
We present a general information-theoretic argument that all efficient communication systems will be ambiguous, assuming that context is informative about meaning. We also argue that ambiguity allows for greater ease of processing by permitting efficient linguistic units to be re-used. We test predictions of this theory in English, German, and Dutch. Our results and theoretical analysis suggest that ambiguity is a functional property of language that allows for greater communicative efficiency. This provides theoretical and empirical arguments against recent suggestions that core features of linguistic systems are not designed for communication.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2011.10.004
