Imperfect language learning reduces morphological overspecification: Experimental evidence.

ABSTRACT: It is often claimed that languages with more non-native speakers tend to become morphologically simpler, presumably because non-native speakers learn the language imperfectly. A growing number of studies support this claim, but there is a dearth of experiments that evaluate it and the suggested explanatory mechanisms. We performed a large-scale experiment which directly tested whether imperfect language learning simplifies linguistic structure and whether this effect is amplified by iterated learning. Members of 45 transmission chains, each consisting of 10 one-person generations, learned artificial mini-languages and transmitted them to the next generation. Manipulating the learning time showed that when transmission chains contained generations of imperfect learners, the decrease in morp

SUBMITTER: Berdicevskis A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8794192 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature