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Language and Society: How Social Pressures Shape Grammatical Structure Language and society: How social pressures shape grammatical structure © 2020, Limor Raviv ISBN: 978-94-92910-12-7 Cover picture: Drawing by Nick Lowndes Printed and bound by Ipskamp Drukkers b.v. This research was supported by the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, Munich, Germany. The educational component of the doctoral training was provided by the International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) for Language Sciences. The graduate school is a joint initiative between the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and two partner institutes at Radboud University – the Centre for Language Studies, and the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour. The IMPRS curriculum, which is funded by the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, ensures that each member receives interdisciplinary training in the language sciences and develops a well-rounded skill set in preparation for fulfilling careers in academia and beyond. Language and society: How social pressures shape grammatical structure Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op gezag van de rector magnificus prof. dr. J.H.J.M. van Krieken, volgens besluit van het college van decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op donderdag 7 mei 2020 om 12.30 uur precies door Limor Raviv geboren op 21 oktober 1985 te Petah Tikva (Israël) Promotor: Prof. dr. Antje S. Meyer Copromotor: Dr. Shiri Lev-Ari (Royal Holloway University of London, Verenigd Koninkrijk) Manuscriptcommissie: Prof. dr. Asli Ozyurek Prof. dr. Caroline F. Rowland Dr. Mark Dingemanse Language and society: How social pressures shape grammatical structure Doctoral Thesis to obtain the degree of doctor from Radboud University Nijmegen on the authority of the Rector Magnificus prof. dr. J.H.J.M. van Krieken, according to the decision of the Council of Deans to be defended in public on Thursday, May 7, 2020 at 12.30 hours by Limor Raviv born on October 21, 1985 in Petah Tikva (Israel) Supervisor: Prof. dr. Antje S. Meyer Co-supervisor: Dr. Shiri Lev-Ari (Royal Holloway University of London, UK) Doctoral Thesis Committee: Prof. dr. Asli Ozyurek Prof. dr. Caroline F. Rowland Dr. Mark Dingemanse To my amazing grandmother Rita Table of Contents 1 General Introduction 11 2 Compositional structure can emerge without generational 25 transmission 3 Larger communities create more systematic languages 69 4 The role of social network structure in the emergence of 105 linguistic structure 5 What makes a language easy to learn? A preregistered 157 study on how systematic structure and community size affect language learnability 6 General Discussion 215 References 257 English summary 281 283 )סיכום בעברית( Hebrew Summary Dutch Summary (Nederlandse samenvatting) 285 Acknowledgements 287 Curriculum vitae 295 Publications 297 MPI Series in Psycholinguistics 299 11 1 General Introduction “I find it fascinating that there are seven thousand different ways to do what we’re doing right now.” John McWhorter The evolution of language and the origin of linguistic diversity have been occupying people since the dawn of days. Multiple myths and folk tales attempt to explain how languages began, and why they became so different from each other. According to the biblical account, all humans once spoke the same language (Genesis 11:1-9). Having only one shared language allowed people to cooperate with one another and engage in large-scale endeavors to challenge God (i.e., The Tower of Babel). In return, God punished the people by “confusing”1 their languages and scattering them around the world, ensuring that humankind would no longer be able to globally understand each other. This biblical story is probably the most well-known origin myth regarding the evolution of language and the source of linguistic diversity today, but is far from being the only one: very similar tales have been documented in Sumerian mythology, Ancient Greek mythology, Central American religions and tribal legends in Africa (Boas, Teit, Farrand, Gould, & Spinden, 1917; Kramer, 1968; Maher, 2017; Teit, 1917). But was there really once a single language that all people could understand? The truth is that linguists just don’t know. The biggest challenge in the field of language evolution is the lack of direct evidence regarding the origin and development of the first human languages: we do not have access to the minds and languages of our ancestors who lived hundreds of thousands of years ago. We therefore have no information on how the very first language (or languages) looked like: did early humans use gestures or vocalizations? Did they imitate sounds they heard in their environment, or babbled randomly until certain sounds took on meaning? Without a time-travel device, none of these questions can be answered directly. Therefore, all evidence favoring one theory or another comes from indirect and analogous observations, ranging from babies’ language development trajectories, to the communication systems of primates and 1 The name of the city Babel is derived from the Hebrew verb root B.B.L, which means “confuse”. 12 other non-human animals, to computational models and experimental paradigms mimicking the transition from a state of no language or proto- language to a state of complex language. Although the origin of languages remains mysterious, the thought of everyone in the world speaking the same language is an interesting one. If we view language as evolving primarily for the sake of communication, it seems very reasonable that we should all be able to understand each other and use one common tongue. It is easy to imagine how the past and present world would benefit from speaking a universal language. Indeed, in the past centuries there have been multiple attempts to impose a Lingua Franca (e.g., Latin), and even several attempts to artificially create such a language (e.g., Esperanto). But despite the theoretical (though unlikely) possibility of all languages deriving from a single origin, and despite the potential appeal of having a universal language, that is obviously not the case: There are about 7,000 different languages around the world today, and these languages vary greatly from one another2. The origins of linguistic diversity Why are there so many different languages? What are the sources of this astonishing linguistic diversity? While some questions about the evolution of language are impossible to answer, it turns out that we can provide some answers to these two questions. People speculate that languages differ due to cultural differences, environmental differences, historical changes, etc. The main principle underlying these intuitions is that languages are constantly changing: even if we had a common language once, it would probably not be the same 200 years later. Moreover, if groups of people split and migrate to different areas and engage in different activities, these changes would probably not look the same across different groups. Languages develop under different conditions, and such differences may lead to the formation of different languages and to ongoing changes in their sounds, their lexicon and their grammar. In short, languages are dynamic and adapt to their environment. One explanation for why languages differ is that they exist in diverse physical environments: languages are used in mountains and in open 2 Of course, one can also focus on the similarities between languages (i.e., linguistic universals): all natural languages serve communicative goals and are constrained by humans’ cognitive capacities; therefore, they inevitably share some features (Hockett, 1960). 13 plains, in deserts and in forests, in tropical climates and in freezing weather conditions. Importantly, these environmental differences can shape the languages that evolve in each region. Specifically, several geographic–linguistic correlational studies have tested the association between environmental features (such as climate and altitude) and linguistic features (such as sound systems). These studies report significant differences between languages evolving under different physical conditions, and highlight the physical affordances of various climates and landscapes. Specifically, our bodies react differently to different temperatures and air pressures: organs that are involved in the process of language production and comprehension (e.g., lungs, lips, vocal cords, ears) may respond differently to different conditions, making some linguistic elements harder or easier to produce and comprehend. For example, languages that are spoken in dry and cold climates are less likely to develop a tonal distinction between words, like that found in Chinese (Everett, Blasi, & Roberts, 2015). This is because in such dry climates, it is slightly harder to control the vocal cords and, consequentially, the tone of our voice. As such, almost all languages that make use of complex tones (and therefore require precise manipulation of pitch) are found in more humid regions. Another example is the prevalence of ejective consonants almost uniquely in mountain areas (Everett, 2013). Ejective consonants, which are produced by compressing a pocket of air in the throat instead of the lungs, are very common in high elevation regions around the world, but are very rare in other landscapes. This geographic correlation is mainly attributed to the fact that ejectives are much easier to produce in high altitudes, since low air pressure dramatically reduces the physiological effort required for the compression of air in the
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