How Efficiency Shapes Human Language
Name
Gibson et al 2019 TICS.pdf
Size
3.22 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
7d436914f553de3886fcae30eb50f7f4
Author(s)
Gibson, Edward A
Futrell, Richard
Piantadosi, Steven
Dautriche, Isabelle
Mahowald, Kyle
Bergen, Leon
Levy, Roger Philip
Levy, Roger P
Alternative Title
How Efficiency Shapes Human Language, TICS 2019
Date Issued
February 2019
Publisher
Center for Open Science
Citation
Gibson, Edward, et al. “How Efficiency Shapes Human Language, TICS 2019.” PsyArXiv, 23 Feb. 2019. Web.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Cognitive science applies diverse tools and perspectives to study human language. Recently, an exciting body of work has examined linguistic phenomena through the lens of efficiency in usage: what otherwise puzzling features of language find explanation in formal accounts of how language might be optimized for communication and learning? Here, we review studies that deploy formal tools from probability and information theory to understand how and why language works the way that it does, focusing on phenomena ranging from the lexicon through syntax. These studies show how apervasive pressure for efficiency guides the forms of natural language and indicate that a rich future for language research lies in connecting linguistics to cognitive psychology and mathematical theories of communication and inference. Keywords: communication; cross-linguistic universals; language complexity; language efficiency; language evolution; language learnability
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/10.31234/osf.io/w5m38
