Dye, M., Milin, P. orcid.org/0000-0001-9708-7031, Futrell, R. et al. (1 more author) (2018) Alternative solutions to a language design problem: the role of adjectives and gender marking in efficient communication. Topics in Cognitive Science, 10 (1). pp. 209-224. ISSN 1756-8757
Abstract
A central goal of typological research is to characterize linguistic features in terms of both their functional role and their fit to social and cognitive systems. One long-standing puzzle concerns why certain languages employ grammatical gender. In an information theoretic analysis of German noun classification, Dye, Milin, Futrell, and Ramscar (2017) enumerated a number of important processing advantages gender confers. Yet this raises a further puzzle: If gender systems are so beneficial to processing, what does this mean for languages that make do without them? Here, we compare the communicative function of gender marking in German (a deterministic system) to that of prenominal adjectives in English (a probabilistic one), finding that despite their differences, both systems act to efficiently smooth information over discourse, making nouns more equally predictable in context. We examine why evolutionary pressures may favor one system over another and discuss the implications for compositional accounts of meaning and Gricean principles of communication.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Topics in Cognitive Science. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Prenominal adjectives; Grammatical gender; Language comprehension; Language evolution; Information theory; Typology; Word order; Formal semantics |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Journalism Studies (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 13 Dec 2017 15:29 |
Last Modified: | 21 Dec 2023 15:48 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/tops.12316 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:125109 |