{"id":2184,"date":"2011-04-15T23:09:18","date_gmt":"2011-04-15T21:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/?p=2184"},"modified":"2024-02-24T10:57:43","modified_gmt":"2024-02-24T09:57:43","slug":"cultural-evolution-of-linguistic-structures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/blogs\/icci-blog\/cultural-evolution-of-linguistic-structures\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural evolution of linguistic structures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Forthcoming in <em>Nature<\/em> an article by Michael Dunn, Simon J. Greenhill, Stephen C. Levinson and Russell D. Gray entitled \u201cEvolved structure of language shows lineage-specific trends in word-order universals\u201d available <a href=\"http:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/Dunn_nature09923.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Abstract:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Languages vary widely but not without limit. The central goal of linguistics is to describe the diversity of human languages and explain the constraints on that diversity. Generative linguists following Chomsky have claimed that linguistic diversity must be constrained by innate parameters that are set as a child learns a language. In contrast, other linguists following Greenberg have claimed that there are statistical tendencies for co-occurrence of traits reflecting universal systems biases, rather than absolute constraints or parametric variation. Here we use computational phylogenetic methods to address the nature of constraints on linguistic diversity in an evolutionary framework . First, contrary to the generative account of parameter setting, we show that the evolution of only a few word-order features of languages are strongly correlated. Second, contrary to the Greenbergian generalizations, we show that most observed functional dependencies between traits are lineage-specific rather than universal tendencies. These findings support the view that\u2014at least with respect to word order\u2014cultural evolution is the primary factor that determines linguistic structure, with the current state of a linguistic system shaping and constraining future states.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forthcoming in Nature an article by Michael Dunn, Simon J. Greenhill, Stephen C. Levinson and Russell D. Gray entitled \u201cEvolved structure of language shows lineage-specific trends in word-order universals\u201d available here. Abstract: Languages vary widely but not without limit. The central goal of linguistics is to describe the diversity of human languages and explain the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":685,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v15.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cultural evolution of linguistic structures - International Cognition and Culture Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scary-committee.localsite.io\/blogs\/icci-blog\/cultural-evolution-of-linguistic-structures\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cultural evolution of linguistic structures - International Cognition and Culture Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Forthcoming in Nature an article by Michael Dunn, Simon J. Greenhill, Stephen C. Levinson and Russell D. Gray entitled \u201cEvolved structure of language shows lineage-specific trends in word-order universals\u201d available here. Abstract: Languages vary widely but not without limit. The central goal of linguistics is to describe the diversity of human languages and explain the [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/scary-committee.localsite.io\/blogs\/icci-blog\/cultural-evolution-of-linguistic-structures\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"International Cognition and Culture Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-04-15T21:09:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-02-24T09:57:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"The ICCI Team\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\">\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/\",\"name\":\"International Cognition and Culture Institute\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/scary-committee.localsite.io\/blogs\/icci-blog\/cultural-evolution-of-linguistic-structures\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/scary-committee.localsite.io\/blogs\/icci-blog\/cultural-evolution-of-linguistic-structures\/\",\"name\":\"Cultural evolution of linguistic structures - International Cognition and Culture Institute\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-04-15T21:09:18+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-02-24T09:57:43+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#\/schema\/person\/3663e04874ff7df2f070d2982a1474ad\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/scary-committee.localsite.io\/blogs\/icci-blog\/cultural-evolution-of-linguistic-structures\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#\/schema\/person\/3663e04874ff7df2f070d2982a1474ad\",\"name\":\"The ICCI Team\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cdc7166b2c4c44441b1c2c13cea716e8?s=96&d=http%3A%2F%2Fcognitionandculture.local%2Fwp-content%2Fthemes%2Fbelle%2Fuser.png&r=g\",\"caption\":\"The ICCI Team\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2184"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/685"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2184"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18481,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2184\/revisions\/18481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}