频率影响语言结构演化，高频语义可摆脱语法束缚。
Evolving language compositionality in a frequency-structured meaning space
- 通过迭代学习模拟语言传递，研究语义频率对组合性的影响。
- 高频语义可脱离低频语义的语法约束，符合自然语言规律。
- 频率需作用于完整语义单元，否则无法支持语言稳定传承。
迭代学习模型被用于研究语言演化：人类语言特征如何部分由使用者间的反复传递塑造。关键发现是，语言组合性可自发产生于语言学习瓶颈的重复传递中。本文探讨改变不同语义出现频率（某些语义远比其他频繁）对组合性的影响。结果表明，正如自然语言所见，高频语义可规避低频语义所受的语法压力。然而，当频率结构施加于语义向量的组成部分而非整体时，语言无法在代际间有效传递，尽管最频繁的成分仍被可靠习得。这表明，频率仅当作用于学习者可整体获取的形式-意义单位时，才能塑造涌现的语言结构；若频率分布于更小单元，则无法支撑组合泛化所需的关联结构，从而阻碍稳定语言传递。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
The iterated learning model was introduced to investigate language evolution: the way in which the characteristic properties of human languages have been shaped, at least partly, by repeated transmission from one language user to another. The key finding is that language compositionality can arise spontaneously as a consequence of language being passed repeatedly through a language learning bottleneck. Here we explore how changing the frequency of different meanings, so that some meanings occur much more frequently than others, affects the character of its compositionality. We find that, as observed in natural languages, high-frequency meanings can escape the pressure to conform to the grammar that characterizes lower-frequency meanings. However, when the frequency structure is instead imposed on parts rather than on whole meaning vectors, the language fails to transmit across generations. This occurs despite the fact that the most frequent elements are reliably learned. These results suggest that frequency can shape emergent linguistic structure only when the frequency distribution is defined over form-meaning units that learners can acquire holistically. When frequency is instead distributed over smaller units, it fails to support the relational structure required for compositional generalisation, thereby preventing stable language transmission.
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