The emergence of word order conventions: improvisation, interaction and transmission

Abstract

When people improvise to convey information by using only gesture and no speech (‘silent gesture’), they show language-independent word order preferences: SOV for extensional events (e.g., boy-ball-throw), but SVO for intensional events (e.g., boy-search-ball). Real languages tend not to condition word order on this kind of semantic distinction but instead use the same order irrespective of event type. Word order therefore exemplifies a contrast between naturalness in improvisation and conventionalised regularity in linguistic systems. We present an experimental paradigm in which initially-improvised silent gesture is both used for communication and culturally transmitted through artificial generations of lab participants. In experiments 1 and 2 we investigate the respective contributions of communicative interaction and cultural transmission on natural word order behaviour. We show that both interaction and iterated learning lead to a simplification of the word order regime, and the way in which this unfolds over time is surprisingly similar under the two mechanisms. The resulting dominant word order is mostly SVO, the order of the native language of our participants. In experiment 3, we manipulate the frequency of different semantic event types, and show that this can allow SOV order, rather than SVO order, to conventionalise. Taken together, our experiments demonstrate that where pressures for naturalness and regularity are in conflict, naturalness will give way to regularity as word order becomes conventionalised through repeated usage.

The Natural Order of Events: speakers of Polish do not follow the pattern

“…As we discussed earlier, studies in newly emerging sign languages, as well as nonverbal research, suggest that there is a particular order of events that is preferred over others in nonverbal communication, the Subject-Object-Verb order, in which the action is the last information given (Goldin-Meadow et al, 2008;Schouwstra et al, 2020). We hence argue that pantomime should be a medium preferred in the natural order of events research exactly because it is omnipresent across cultures and is independent of spoken language.…”

From improvisation to learning: how naturalness and systematicity shape language evolution

“…Some participants from both language backgrounds produced gesture sequences with different orders, conditioned on the semantics of the eventextensional events were produced most frequently with SOV-like order, while intensional events were produced with SVO-like order. We, among others (Goldin-Meadow et al, 2008;Schouwstra et al, 2020), suggest that this pattern represents a natural preference, reflecting the preferences for ordering patterns at the level of the item (here individual events) that occur in the absence of conventions. Proposals for why SOV and SVO orders represent a natural preference have been made based on a cognitive bias to present entity information (i.e.…”

The effects of iconicity and conventionalisation on word order preferences

“…In summary, the evidence from both natural languages and experimental research suggests that how we order the basic constituents of language are influenced by the interplay of different factors related to event representations, linguistic context and the social-communicative function of language. Here, we investigate how preferences for semantically-conditioned orders, as found by Schouwstra and colleagues (Schouwstra et al, 2019(Schouwstra et al, , 2020Schouwstra & de Swart, 2014), are affected by iconicity, conventionalisation and prior linguistic experience. Across the set of experiments we report, we use an online forced-choice paradigm to test participants' ordering preferences for extensional and intensional events.…”

“…In particular, across several studies, Schouwstra and colleagues (Schouwstra et al, 2019(Schouwstra et al, , 2020Schouwstra & de Swart, 2014) have demonstrated differential preferences for SOV and SVO-like orders for two semantically distinct event typesextensional events and intensional events.…”

“…This can be most clearly seen in the case of creation events such as knit, bake and draw. In production and comprehension studies, as well as forced-choice selection tasks, participants have expressed preferences for gestures ordered in SOV-like sequences for extensional events, and in SVO-like sequences for intensional events (Schouwstra et al, 2019(Schouwstra et al, , 2020Schouwstra & de Swart, 2014), reflecting a natural ordering preference conditioned on event semantics. However, few natural languages report such semantically-conditioned ordering preferences, instead favouring systematic ordering patterns, where the same word order is used regardless of event semantics.…”