Abstract
Language universals have long been attributed to an innate Universal Grammar. An alternative explanation states that linguistic universals emerged independently in every language in response to shared cognitive or perceptual biases. A computational model has recently shown how this could be the case, focusing on the paradigmatic example of the universal properties of colour naming patterns, and producing results in quantitative agreement with the experimental data. Here we investigate the role of an individual perceptual bias in the framework of the model. We study how, and to what extent, the structure of the bias influences the corresponding linguistic universal patterns. We show that the cultural history of a group of speakers introduces population-specific constraints that act against the pressure for uniformity arising from the individual bias, and we clarify the interplay between these two forces.
Publication types
-
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
MeSH terms
-
Color
-
Humans
-
Individuality
-
Language*
-
Linguistics / methods*
-
Models, Theoretical*
-
Surveys and Questionnaires
Grants and funding
The authors are grateful to Animesh Mukherjee and Francesca Tria for helpful discussions. V.L. acknowledges support from the EveryAware European project nr. 265432 under FP7-ICT-2009-C and DRUST project funded by the European Science Foundation under EuroUnderstanding Collaborative Research Projects and the KREYON project funded by the Templeton Foundation under contract N. 51663. SONY-CSL provided support in the form of salaries for author VL, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of the authors are articulated in the "author contributions" section. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.