Coevolution of Lexical Meaning and Pragmatic Use

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Evolutionary Game Theory
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Standard linguistic theory posits that utterance meaning arises from conventional semantics and pragmatic rules.
• The evolutionary origins of this semantic-pragmatic division remain underexplored.
• Understanding language evolution requires investigating the interplay of learning and selection pressures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To model the coevolution of semantics and pragmatics under selection and learning.
• To investigate the roles of communicative efficiency and transmission perturbations in language evolution.
• To apply the model to scalar implicatures as a case study.

Main Methods:

• Developed a game-theoretic model simulating competition between language users with varying lexical representations and pragmatic strategies.
• Incorporated evolutionary forces of communicative efficiency and acquisition-related transmission perturbations.
• Analyzed the model's dynamics using a case study on scalar implicatures.

Main Results:

• The model demonstrates how semantic underspecification and pragmatic inference can coevolve.
• Communicative efficiency drives the system towards pragmatic enrichment of underspecified meanings.
• Transmission perturbations can influence the balance between semantic explicitness and pragmatic inference.

Conclusions:

• The division of labor between semantics and pragmatics is shaped by evolutionary pressures.
• Scalar implicatures exemplify the coevolutionary relationship between underspecified semantics and pragmatic inference.
• This framework offers insights into the dynamic nature of language meaning and use.