Abstract:One proposed mechanism of language change concerns the role played by secondlanguage (L2) learners in situations of language contact. If sufficiently many L2 speakers are present in a speech community in relation to the number of first-language (L1) speakers, then those features which present a difficulty in L2 acquisition may be prone to disappearing from the language. This paper proposes a mathematical model of such contact situations based on reinforcement learning and nonlinear dynamics. The equilibria of … Show more
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