Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam.
Department of Linguistics, University of Tübingen.
Cogn Sci. 2018 Nov;42(8):2757-2789. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12681. Epub 2018 Oct 7.
According to standard linguistic theory, the meaning of an utterance is the product of conventional semantic meaning and general pragmatic rules on language use. We investigate how such a division of labor between semantics and pragmatics could evolve under general processes of selection and learning. We present a game-theoretic model of the competition between types of language users, each endowed with certain lexical representations and a particular pragmatic disposition to act on them. Our model traces two evolutionary forces and their interaction: (i) pressure toward communicative efficiency and (ii) transmission perturbations during the acquisition of linguistic knowledge. We illustrate the model based on a case study on scalar implicatures, which suggests that the relationship between underspecified semantics and pragmatic inference is one of coevolution.
根据标准语言理论，话语的意义是常规语义意义和语言使用一般语用规则的产物。我们研究了这种语义和语用之间的分工如何在一般的选择和学习过程中演变。我们提出了一个语言使用者类型之间竞争的博弈论模型，每个类型都具有一定的词汇表示和对其进行操作的特定语用倾向。我们的模型追踪了两种进化力量及其相互作用：（i）朝着交际效率的压力和（ii）在语言知识获取过程中的传输干扰。我们基于对数量蕴含的案例研究来说明该模型，这表明未充分指定的语义和语用推断之间的关系是共同进化的关系。
