Learning, Culture and Evolution in the Origin of Linguistic Constraints

This paper presents a computational model of language learning, transmission, and evolution. We contrast two explanations for the observed t of language universals with language function that are prominent in the linguistics literature, and which appear to rely on very diierent explanatory mechanisms | innate constraints on the one hand, and parsing innuenced language change on the other. We show using our model that both explanations can be subsumed under one mechanism of diierential take up of competing forms in the language community and subsequent evolution of the learning mechanism to eeciently learn regularities in the input.