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Published in:
The Game of Complexity and Linguistic Theorization Read chapter Read first chapter

2017 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

3. Modeling Language Change: The Pitfall of Grammaticalization

Authors : Quentin Feltgen, Benjamin Fagard, Jean-Pierre Nadal

Published in: Language in Complexity

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Language evolution is the subject of various theoretical studies, following two main paths: one, where language is viewed as a code between meanings and forms to express them, with a focus on language as a social convention; and the other defining language as a set of grammatical rules governing the production of utterances, evolution being the outcome of mistakes in the acquisition process. We claim that none of the current models provides a satisfactory account of the grammaticalization phenomenon, a linguistic process by which words acquire a grammatical status. We argue that this limitation is mainly due to the way these models represent language and communication mechanisms. We therefore introduce a new framework, the “grammatheme,” as a tool which formalizes in an unambiguous way different concepts and mechanisms involved in grammaticalization. The model especially includes an inference mechanism triggering new grammaticalization processes. We present promising preliminary results of a numerical implementation and discuss a possible research program based on this framework.

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previous chapter Continuity in the Interactions Between Linguistic Units
next chapter The Case for Cognitive Plausibility
Footnotes
1
Note that some models are hard to classify; for instance, the Iterative Learning Model (Kirby and Hurford 2002), while closer to transformational grammar in its approach, falls into the first category.
 
2
See however (Victorri and Fuchs 1996) on how such links may evolve and generate polysemy.
 
3
With a few exceptions: the most notable one, the category game, yields a glassy behavior which blocks the language in an ever though slowly changing, non-stable state (Mukherjee et al. 2011); the Fagard and Omodei model (Omodei and Fagard 2013) implements an ad hoc mechanism to ensure that language always changes (a form which is well established comes to carry new meanings); another model (Nadal and Pierrehumbert, unpublished) leads to a state where language yields an unchanging hierarchical structure, but where words constantly exchange their respective roles within this hierarchy.
 
4
All pairings are not relevant. Some of them may be excluded when representing a situation of interest.
 
5
From the Greek root “zêtê” meaning “information”.
 
6
As the themata were both the territorial districts of the Empire, and the armies occupying them, the grammatheme deals both with zetemes (the ‘territory’ of grammar), and with occurrences ‘populating’ the associated sites; as the number of the themata and the borders of the Empire were fluctuating, depending on whether the Byzantine army was keeping them or not, the condition of being expressed determine the belonging of a given zeteme to the grammatheme, the ‘borders’ of the latter being subject to change.
 
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Metadata
Title
Modeling Language Change: The Pitfall of Grammaticalization
Authors
Quentin Feltgen
Benjamin Fagard
Jean-Pierre Nadal
Copyright Year
2017
Book
Language in Complexity

Print ISBN: 978-3-319-29481-0

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-29483-4

Copyright Year: 2017

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29483-4_3

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