Evolutionary linguistics: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:50, 29 August 2005

Revision as of 14:52, 29 August 2005

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The Stammbautheorie proved to be very productive for [[comparative linguistics]], but didn’t solve the major problem of evolutionary linguistics: the lack of fossil records. The field was quickly abandoned until recent developments in technology has enabled researchers to implement and test evolutionary language models.

One of these researchers is Professor Dr. [[Luc Steels]], head of the research units of [Sony CSL] in [[Paris]] and the [AI Lab] at the Free University of Brussels ([[VUB]]). He and his team are investigating ways in which artificial agents self-organize languages with natural-like properties and how meaning can co-evolve with language. Their research is based on the hypothesis that language is a complex adaptive system that emerges through adaptive interactions between agents and continues to evolve in order to remain adapted to the needs and capabilities of the agents. This ongoing research has cumulated over the past ten years and has been implemented in [[Fluid Construction Grammar (FCG)]], a formalism for construction grammars that has especially been designed for the origins and evolution of language.

The approach of computational modeling and the use of robotic agents grounded in real life is theory independent. It enables the researcher to find out exactly what cognitive capacities are needed for certain language phenomena to emerge. It also forces the researcher to formulate his hypotheses in a precise and exact manner, whereas theoretic models often stay very vague. The precision and theory independence of these kinds of experiments make them of great value for the scientific debate.