A simulation study on word order bias
The majority of the extant languages have one of three dominant basic word orders: SVO, SOV or VSO. Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain this word order bias, including the existence of a universal grammar, the learnability imposed by cognitive constraints, the descent of
modern languages from an ancestral protolanguage, and the constraints from functional principles. We run simulations using a multi-agent computational model to study this bias. Following a local order approach, the model simulates individual language processing mechanisms in production and
comprehension. The simulation results demonstrate that the semantic structures that a language encodes can constrain the global syntax, and that local syntax can help trigger bias towards the global order SOV/SVO (or VOS/OVS).
Keywords: computational simulation; global order; local order; semantics; word order bias
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 24 March 2009
- Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems
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