Learning biases predict a word order universal.
How recurrent typological patterns, or universals, emerge from the extensive diversity found across the world's languages constitutes a central question for linguistics and cognitive science. Recent challenges to a fundamental assumption of generative linguistics-that universal properties of the human language acquisition faculty constrain the types of grammatical systems which can occur-suggest the need for new types of empirical evidence connecting typology to biases of learners. Using an artificial language learning paradigm in which adult subjects are exposed to a mix of grammatical systems (similar to a period of linguistic change), we show that learners' biases mirror a word-order universal, first proposed by Joseph Greenberg, which constrains typological patterns of adjective, numeral, and noun ordering. We briefly summarize the results of a probabilistic model of the hypothesized biases and their effect on learning, and discuss the broader implications of the results for current theories of the origins of cross-linguistic word-order preferences.
Cognitive Science Department, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA. jculbertson@bcs.rochester.edu
Jennifer
J
Culbertson
Paul
P
Smolensky
Géraldine
G
Legendre
D000328:Adult; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007858:Learning; D008037:Linguistics; D018910:Video Games