Loreto Vittorio, Gravino Pietro, Servedio Vito D P, Tria Francesca
Physics Department, Sapienza University of Rome.
Institute for Scientific Interchange ISI.
Top Cogn Sci. 2016 Apr;8(2):469-80. doi: 10.1111/tops.12193. Epub 2016 Mar 11.
The complex organization of syntax in hierarchical structures is one of the core design features of human language. Duality of patterning refers, for instance, to the organization of the meaningful elements in a language at two distinct levels: a combinatorial level, where meaningless forms are combined into meaningful forms; and a compositional level, where meaningful forms are composed into larger lexical units. The question remains wide open regarding how such structures could have emerged. The aim of this paper is to address these two aspects in a self-consistent way. First, we introduce suitable measures to quantify the level of combinatoriality and compositionality in a language, and we present a framework to estimate these observables in human natural languages. Second, we show that a recently introduced multi-agent modeling scheme, namely the Blending Game, provides a mathematical framework to address the problem of how a population of individuals can bootstrap combinatoriality and compositionality. Theoretical predictions based on this model turn out to be in good agreement with empirical data. It is remarkable that the two sides of duality of patterning emerge simultaneously as a consequence of a pure cultural dynamics in a simulated environment that contains meaningful relations, provided a simple constraint on message transmission fidelity is also considered.
层次结构中句法的复杂组织是人类语言的核心设计特征之一。例如，模式双重性指的是语言中有意义元素在两个不同层次上的组织：一个是组合层次，即无意义的形式组合成有意义的形式；另一个是合成层次，即有意义的形式组合成更大的词汇单位。关于这样的结构是如何出现的问题仍然悬而未决。本文的目的是以一种自洽的方式解决这两个方面的问题。首先，我们引入合适的度量来量化一种语言中的组合性和合成性水平，并提出一个框架来估计人类自然语言中的这些可观察量。其次，我们表明，最近引入的一种多智能体建模方案，即融合博弈，提供了一个数学框架来解决个体群体如何自发产生组合性和合成性的问题。基于该模型的理论预测结果与实证数据高度吻合。值得注意的是，在一个包含有意义关系的模拟环境中，只要考虑对消息传输保真度的一个简单约束，模式双重性的两个方面就会作为一种纯粹文化动态的结果同时出现。
