The consequences of Zipf's law for syntax and symbolic reference

被引:53
作者
Cancho, RFI
Riordan, O
Bollobás, B
机构
[1] Univ Roma La Sapienza, Dipartimento Fis, INFM udR Roma 1, I-00185 Rome, Italy
[2] UPF, IMIM, ICREA, Complex Syst Lab, Barcelona 08003, Spain
[3] Univ Cambridge Trinity Coll, Dept Pure Math & Math Stat, Cambridge CB2 1TQ, England
[4] Univ Memphis, Dept Math Sci, Memphis, TN 38152 USA
关键词
Zipf's law; syntax; symbolic reference; human language;
D O I
10.1098/rspb.2004.2957
中图分类号
Q [生物科学];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
Although many species possess rudimentary communication systems, humans seem to be unique with regard to making use of syntax and symbolic reference. Recent approaches to the evolution of language formalize why syntax is selectively advantageous compared with isolated signal communication systems, but do not explain how signals naturally combine. Even more recent work has shown that if a communication system maximizes communicative efficiency while minimizing the cost of communication, or if a communication system constrains ambiguity in a non-trivial way while a certain entropy is maximized, signal frequencies will be distributed according to Zipf's law. Here we show that such communication principles give rise not only to signals that have many traits in common with the linking words in real human languages, but also to a rudimentary sort of syntax and symbolic reference.
引用
收藏
页码:561 / 565
页数:5
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