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The emergence of internal agreement systems

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Abstract

Grammatical agreement means that two linguistic units share certain syntactic or semantic features such as gender, number or person. Agreement has a variety of grammatical functions. One of them, called internal agreement, is to signal which words are grouped together as part of the same phrase. This chapter explores how a population might self-organize such an agreement system. We argue that this happens when speakers attempt to reduce processing effort and avoid ambiguities.

Abstract

Grammatical agreement means that two linguistic units share certain syntactic or semantic features such as gender, number or person. Agreement has a variety of grammatical functions. One of them, called internal agreement, is to signal which words are grouped together as part of the same phrase. This chapter explores how a population might self-organize such an agreement system. We argue that this happens when speakers attempt to reduce processing effort and avoid ambiguities.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Foreword vii
  4. Introduction. Self-organization and selection in cultural language evolution 1
  5. Part I. Emergence of perceptually grounded vocabularies
  6. The Grounded Naming Game 41
  7. Language strategies for color 61
  8. Emergent mirror systems for body language 87
  9. The co-evolution of basic spatial terms and categories 111
  10. Multi-dimensional meanings in lexicon formation 143
  11. Part II. Emergence of grammatical systems
  12. The evolution of case systems for marking event structure 169
  13. Emergent functional grammar for space 207
  14. The emergence of internal agreement systems 233
  15. A language strategy for aspect 257
  16. The emergence of quantifiers 277
  17. Index 305
Experiments in Cultural Language Evolution
This chapter is in the book Experiments in Cultural Language Evolution
https://doi.org/10.1075/ais.3.12beu

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Foreword vii
  4. Introduction. Self-organization and selection in cultural language evolution 1
  5. Part I. Emergence of perceptually grounded vocabularies
  6. The Grounded Naming Game 41
  7. Language strategies for color 61
  8. Emergent mirror systems for body language 87
  9. The co-evolution of basic spatial terms and categories 111
  10. Multi-dimensional meanings in lexicon formation 143
  11. Part II. Emergence of grammatical systems
  12. The evolution of case systems for marking event structure 169
  13. Emergent functional grammar for space 207
  14. The emergence of internal agreement systems 233
  15. A language strategy for aspect 257
  16. The emergence of quantifiers 277
  17. Index 305
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