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Updated: Feb 4, 2026

Comparing the Frequency Effect Between the Lexical Decision and Naming Tasks in Chinese
Published on: April 1, 2016
Coevolution of Lexical Meaning and Pragmatic Use
Thomas Brochhagen1, Michael Franke2,3, Robert van Rooij3
1Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam.
Abstract:
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.
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