Publication Date:
2001-01-06
Description:
Universal grammar specifies the mechanism of language acquisition. It determines the range of grammatical hypothesis that children entertain during language learning and the procedure they use for evaluating input sentences. How universal grammar arose is a major challenge for evolutionary biology. We present a mathematical framework for the evolutionary dynamics of grammar learning. The central result is a coherence threshold, which specifies the condition for a universal grammar to induce coherent communication within a population. We study selection of grammars within the same universal grammar and competition between different universal grammars. We calculate the condition under which natural selection favors the emergence of rule-based, generative grammars that underlie complex language.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Nowak, M A -- Komarova, N L -- Niyogi, P -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2001 Jan 5;291(5501):114-8.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Institute for Advanced Study, Einstein Drive, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA. nowak@ias.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11141560" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Algorithms
;
*Biological Evolution
;
Child
;
Humans
;
Language
;
*Learning
;
*Linguistics
;
Mathematics
;
Memory
;
Selection, Genetic
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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