Modeling language contact with the Iterated Learning Model
<|reference_start|>Modeling language contact with the Iterated Learning Model: Contact between languages has the potential to transmit vocabulary and other language features; however, this does not always happen. Here, an iterated learning model is used to examine, in a simple way, the resistance of languages to change during language contact. Iterated learning models are agent-based models of language change, they demonstrate that languages that are expressive and compositional arise spontaneously as a consequence of a language transmission bottleneck. A recently introduced type of iterated learning model, the Semi-Supervised ILM is used to simulate language contact. These simulations do not include many of the complex factors involved in language contact and do not model a population of speakers; nonetheless the model demonstrates that the dynamics which lead languages in the model to spontaneously become expressive and compositional, also cause a language to maintain its core traits even after mixing with another language.<|reference_end|>
@article{bullock2024modeling,
    title={Modeling language contact with the Iterated Learning Model},
    author={Seth Bullock and Conor Houghton},
    journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.06878},
    year={2024},
    archivePrefix={arXiv},
    eprint={2406.06878},
    primaryClass={cs.CL}
}