Cover not available
Article published In:
Interaction and Iconicity in the Evolution of Language
Edited by Stefan Hartmann, Michael Pleyer, James Winters and Jordan Zlatev
[Interaction Studies 18:3] 2017
► pp. 402–442

Conversation, cognition and cultural evolution

A model of the cultural evolution of word order through pressures imposed from turn taking in conversation

 | University of Bristol | University of Bristol | Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics | Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics |
 | Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics | Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics | Radboud University | Radboud University |
This paper outlines a first attempt to model the special constraints that arise in language processing in conversation, and to explore the implications such functional considerations may have on language typology and language change. In particular, we focus on processing pressures imposed by conversational turn-taking and their consequences for the cultural evolution of the structural properties of language. We present an agent-based model of cultural evolution where agents take turns at talk in conversation. When the start of planning for the next turn is constrained by the position of the verb, the stable distribution of dominant word orders across languages evolves to match the actual distribution reasonably well. We suggest that the interface of cognition and interaction should be a more central part of the story of language evolution.
Keywords: turn taking, pragmatics, typology, word order, cultural evolution
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1A cognitive pressure derived from turn taking
    • 1.2Linking processing and pragmatics
  • 2.Identifying the target phenomenon
  • 3.A computational agent based model of turn taking
    • 3.1Cultural evolution
    • 3.2Sentence particles
    • 3.3Summary of assumptions
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Sentence final particles
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Relationship with other theories and future work
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 December 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/is.18.3.06rob
References (82)
References
Altmann, G. T. M. (1999). Thematic role assignment in context. Journal of Memory and Language, 411, 124–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2004) Language-mediated eye movements in the absence of a visual world: The ‘blank screen paradigm’. Cognition, 931, 79–87. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Austin, P. (2001). Word order in a free word order language: the case of Jiwarli. In J. Simpson, D. Nash, M. Laughren, P. Austin, & B. Alpher (Eds.), Forty years on: Ken Hale and Australian languages (pp. 205–323). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Barthel, M., Sauppe, S., Levinson, S. C., & Meyer, A. S. (2016). The timing of utterance planning in task-oriented dialogue: Evidence from a novel list-completion paradigm. Frontiers in Psychology, 71, 1858. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bentz, C., & Christiansen, M. H. (2010). Linguistic adaptation at work? The change of word order and case system from Latin to the Romance languages. In A. Smith, M. Schouwstra, B. de Boer, & K. Smith (Eds.), Proceedings of the eighth international conference on the evolution of language (pp. 26–33). London: World Scientific.Google Scholar
Bowern, C. (2012). A grammar of Bardi. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blasi, D. E., Wichmann, S., Hammarström, H., Stadler, P. F., & Christiansen, M. H. (2016). Sound–meaning association biases evidenced across thousands of languages. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(39): 10818–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bögels, S., Kendrick, K. H., & Levinson, S. C. (2015). Never Say No… How the brain interprets the pregnant pause in conversation. PloS One, 10(12), e0145474. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bögels, S., & Levinson, S. C. (2016). The brain behind the response: Insights into turn-taking in conversation from neuroimaging. Research on Language and Social Interaction. Advance online publication.Google Scholar
Bögels, S., Magyari, L., & Levinson, S. C. (2015). Neural signatures of response planning occur midway through an incoming question in conversation. Scientific Reports, 51, 12881. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Christensen, P., Fusaroli, R., & Tylén, K. (2016). Environmental constraints shaping constituent order in emerging communication systems: Structural iconicity, interactive alignment and conventionalization. Cognition, 1461, 67–80. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Christiansen, M. H., & Chater, N. (2008). Language as shaped by the brain. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31(5), 489–509. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Croft, W. (2000). Explaining language change: An evolutionary approach. Harlow, Essex: Longman.Google Scholar
Dingemanse, M., Roberts, S. G., Baranova, J., Blythe, J., Drew, P., Floyd, S., Gisladottir, R. S., Kendrick, K. H., Levinson, S. C., Manrique, E., Rossi, G., & Enfield, N. J. (2015). Universal principles in the repair of communication problems. PloS One, 10(9), e0136100. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Donders, F. C. (1868). La vitesse des actes psychiques. Archives Néerlandaise, 31, 269–317.Google Scholar
Dryer, M. S. (2013a). Order of subject, object and verb. In Matthew S. Dryer & M. Haspelmath (Eds.), The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Available online: [URL], Accessed on 2017-01-11.Google Scholar
(2013b). Position of polar question particles. In Matthew S. Dryer & M. Haspelmath (Eds.), The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Available online: [URL], Accessed on 2017-01-13.Google Scholar
Dunn, M., Greenhill, S. J., Levinson, S. C., & Gray, R. D. (2011). Evolved structure of language shows lineage-specific trends in word-order universals. Nature, 473(7345), 79–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duranti, A. (1981). The Samoan fono: A sociolinguistic study (No. 80). Pacific Linguistics Series B, 801. Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Enfield, N. J. (2008). Language as shaped by social interaction. Behavioral and brain sciences, 31(5), 519–520. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fedzechkina, M., Jaeger, T. F., & Newport, E. L. (2012). Language learners restructure their input to facilitate efficient communication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(44), 17897–17902. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ferrer-i Cancho, R. (2008). Some word order biases from limited brain resources: A mathematical approach. Advances in Complex Systems, 11(3), 393–414. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ferrer-i-Cancho, R. (2014). Why might SOV be initially preferred and then lost or recovered? A theoretical framework. In E. A. Cartmill, S. Roberts, H. Lyn, & H. Cornish (Eds.), The evolution of language – Proceedings of the 10th International Conference (EVOLANG10), Evolution of Language Conference (Evolang 2014) (pp. 66–73). Vienna, Austria, April 14–17.Google Scholar
(2015). The placement of the head that minimizes online memory. A complex systems approach. Language Dynamics and Change, 5(1), 114–137. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2016) Kauffman's adjacent possible in word order evolution. In S. G. Roberts, C. Cuskley, L. McCrohon, L. Barceló-Coblijn, O. Fehér, & T. Verhoef (Eds.), The evolution of language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11) . Available online: [URL].
Garrod, S., & Pickering, M. J. (2009). Joint action, interactive alignment, and dialog. Topics in Cognitive Science, 1(2), 292–304. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gell-Mann, M., & Ruhlen, M. (2011). The origin and evolution of word order. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(42), 17290–17295. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gibson, E., Piantadosi, S. T., Brink, K., Bergen, L., Lim, E., & Saxe, R. (2013). A noisy-channel account of crosslinguistic word-order variation. Psychological Science, 24(7), 1079–1088. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gisladottir, R. S., Chwilla, D., & Levinson, S. C. (2015). Conversation electrified: ERP correlates of speech act recognition in underspecified utterances. PLoS One, 10(3), e0120068. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Givón, T. (1983a) Topic continuity in discourse: A quantitative cross-language study. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1983b). Topic continuity in discourse: An Introduction. In T. Givón (Ed.), Topic continuity in discourseTopic continuity in discourse: A quantitative cross-language study. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, S., So, W. C., Özyürek, A., & Mylander, C. (2008). The natural order of events: How speakers of different languages represent events non- verbally. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(27), 9163–9168. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hale, K. (1992). Basic word order in two “free word order” languages. In D. Payne (Ed.), Pragmatics of word order flexibility (pp. 63–82). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haspelmath, M., Dryer, M. S., Gil, D., & Comrie, B. (2008). World Atlas of Language Structures. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library. Available online: [URL]. Accessed on 2013-04-18.Google Scholar
Hawkins, J. (1994). A performance theory of order and constituency. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hawkins, J. A. (2004). Efficiency and complexity in grammars. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hick, W. E. (1952). On the rate of gain of information. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 4(1), 11–26. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Horn, L. (1984). Toward a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference: Q-based and R-based implicature. In D. Schiffrin (Ed.), Meaning, form, and use in context: Linguistic applications (pp. 11–42). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Reprinted in Kasher (ed., 1998), vol. IV: 389–418.Google Scholar
Indefrey, P. (2011). The spatial and temporal signatures of word production components: A critical update. Frontiers in Psychology, 2(255), 1–16. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jaeger, T. F. (2010). Redundancy and reduction: Speakers manage syntactic information density. Cognitive Psychology, 61(1), 23–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jaeger, T. F., & Levy, R. P. (2006). Speakers optimize information density through syntactic reduction. In P. B. Schölkopf, J. C. Platt, & T. Hoffman (Eds.), Advances in neural information processing systems 19 (pp. 849–856). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kamide, Y. (2008). Anticipatory processes in sentence processing. Language and Linguistics Compass, 2(4), 647–670. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kamide, Y., Altmann, G. T., & Haywood, S. L. (2003). The time-course of prediction in incremental sentence processing: Evidence from anticipatory eye-movements. Journal of Memory and Language, 491, 133–159. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kendrick, K. H. (2012). Particles at the transition space. Talk presented at the Interactional Foundations of Language Meeting , Kreuth, Germany, 2012-11-01–2012-11-02.
(2015). The intersection of turn-taking and repair: The timing of other-initiations of repair in conversation. Frontiers in psychology, 61, 250. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kendrick, K. H., & Torreira, F. (2015). The timing and construction of preference: A quantitative study. Discourse Processes, 52(4), 255–289. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kirby, S., Griffiths, T., & Smith, K. (2014). Iterated learning and the evolution of language. Current opinion in neurobiology, 281, 108–114. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Knoeferle, P., Crocker, M. W., Scheepers, C., & Pickering, M. J. (2005). The influence of the immediate visual context on in cremental thematic role assignment: Evidence from eye-movements in depicted events. Cognition, 951, 95–127. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krupa, V. (1982). Syntactic typology and linearization. Language, 58(3), 639–645. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Langus, A., & Nespor, M. (2010). Cognitive systems struggling for word order. Cognitive Psychology, 60(4), 291–318. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levelt, W. J., Roelofs, A., & Meyer, A. S. (1999). A theory of lexical access in speech production. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22(1), 1–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levinson, S. (2006). On the human interaction engine. In N. Enfield & S. Levinson (Eds.), Roots of human sociality: Culture, cognition and human interaction (pp. 39–69). Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2016). Turn-taking in human communication–origins and implications for language processing. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(1), 6–14. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lupyan, G., & Christiansen, M. H. (2002). Case, word order, and language learnability: Insights from connectionist modeling. In Proceedings of the 24th annual conference of the cognitive science society (pp. 596–601). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Maurits, L., Perfors, A., & Navarro, D. (2010). Why are some word orders more common than others? A uniform information density account. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 231, 1585–1593.Google Scholar
Mithun, M. (1992). Is basic word order universal? In D. Payne (Ed.), Pragmatics of word order flexibility (pp. 15–62). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nowak, I., & Baggio, G. (2016). The emergence of word order and morphology in compositional languages via multigenerational signaling games. Journal of Language Evolution, 1(2), 137–150. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ochs, E. (1982). Ergativity and word order in Samoan child language. Language, 58(3), 646–671. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ochs, E., Schegloff, E. A., & Thompson, S. A. (1996). Interaction and grammar, Vol. 131. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Piantadosi, S. T., Tily, H., & Gibson, E. (2011). Word lengths are optimized for efficient communication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(9), 3526–3529. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reali, F., & Christiansen, M. H. (2009). Sequential learning and the interaction between biological and linguistic adaptation in language evolution. Interaction Studies, 101, 5–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roberts, F., Margutti, P., & Takano, S. (2011). Judgments concerning the valence of inter-turn silence across speakers of American English, Italian, and Japanese. Discourse Processes, 48(5), 331–354. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roberts, S. G., Torreira, F., & Levinson, S. C. (2015). The effects of processing and sequence organisation on the timing of turn taking: A corpus study. Frontiers in Psychology, 61, 509. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roberts, S., & Winters, J. (2013). Linguistic diversity and traffic accidents: Lessons from statistical studies of cultural traits. PloS One, 8(8), e70902. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de Ruiter, J. P., Mitterer, H., & Enfield, N. J. (2006). Projecting the end of a speaker's turn: A cognitive cornerstone of conversation. Language, 82(3), 515–535. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 40(4), 696–735. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sauppe, S. (2016). Verbal semantics drives early anticipatory eye movements during the comprehension of verb-initial sentences. Frontiers in Psychology, 71, 95. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, E. A. (1989). Reflections on language, development, and the interactional character of talk-in-interaction. In M. Bornstein & J. S. Bruner (Eds.), Interaction in human development (pp. 139–153). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Schegloff, E. A., Jefferson, G., & Sacks, H. (1977). The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language, 531, 361–382. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schouwstra, M., & de Swart, H. (2014). The semantic origins of word order. Cognition, 131(3), 431–436. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Steels, L., & Belpaeme, T. (2005). Coordinating perceptually grounded categories through language: a case study for colour. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28(4), 469–489. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stivers, T., Enfield, N. J., Brown, P., Englert, C., Hayashi, M., Heinemann, T., Hoymann, G., Rossano, F., De Ruiter, J. P., Yoon, K.-E., & Levinson, S. C. (2009). Universals and cultural variation in turn-taking in conversation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(26), 10587–10592. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Swartz, S. (1987) Pragmatic structure and word order in Warlpiri. Papers in Australian linguistics, 171, 151–166.Google Scholar
Tamariz, Mónica, et al.. (2017). “The Interactive Origin of Iconicity.” Cognitive Science. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tanaka, H. (2000). Turn projection in Japanese talk-in-interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 33(1), 1–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2005). Grammar and the “timing” of social action: Word order and preference organization in Japanese. Language in Society, 34(3), 389–430. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thompson, S. A. (1998). A discourse explanation for the cross-linguistic differences in the grammar of interrogation and negation. In A. Siewierska & J. J. Song (Eds.), Case, typology and grammar: In honor of Barry J. Blake (pp. 307–341). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tomlin, R. S. (1986). Basic word order: Functional principles. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Van Valin, R. D., & LaPolla, R. J. (1997). Syntax: Structure, meaning, and function. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Verhoef, T., Roberts, S. G. & Dingemanse, M. (2015). Emergence of systematic iconicity: transmission, interaction and analogy. In Proceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society , 2481–2486. Cognitive Science Society. [URL]
Zipf, G. K. (1949). Human behavior and the principle of least effort. Oxford, England: Addison-Wesley Press.Google Scholar
Cited by (11)

Cited by 11 other publications

Rühlemann, Christoph & Mathias Barthel
2024. Word frequency and cognitive effort in turns-at-talk: turn structure affects processing load in natural conversation. Frontiers in Psychology 15 DOI logo
Trujillo, James P. & Judith Holler
2024. Information distribution patterns in naturalistic dialogue differ across languages. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 31:4 ► pp. 1723 ff. DOI logo
Enfield, N. J.
2022. Enchrony. WIREs Cognitive Science 13:4 DOI logo
Motamedi, Yasamin, Kathryn Montemurro, Natasha Abner, Molly Flaherty, Simon Kirby & Susan Goldin-Meadow
2022. The Seeds of the Noun–Verb Distinction in the Manual Modality: Improvisation and Interaction in the Emergence of Grammatical Categories. Languages 7:2 ► pp. 95 ff. DOI logo
Shi, Da, Yawen Shan, Zhiyue Zhao & Shuhan Zhang
2022. Identification and Influence of Tourism Rituals: Analysis of Eye Movement Recognition of Tourism Images. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research 46:1 ► pp. 147 ff. DOI logo
Dingemanse, Mark
2020. Resource-rationality beyond individual minds: the case of interactive language use. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 43 DOI logo
Rühlemann, Christoph
2020. Turn structure and inserts. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 25:2 ► pp. 186 ff. DOI logo
Rühlemann, Christoph
2020. Visual Linguistics with R, DOI logo
Barthel, Mathias & Sebastian Sauppe
2019. Speech Planning at Turn Transitions in Dialog Is Associated With Increased Processing Load. Cognitive Science 43:7 DOI logo
Kempson, Ruth, Eleni Gregoromichelaki & Christine Howes
2019. Language as Mechanisms for Interaction: Towards an Evolutionary Tale. In Language, Logic, and Computation [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 11456], ► pp. 209 ff. DOI logo
Slonimska, Anita & Seán G. Roberts
2017. A case for systematic sound symbolism in pragmatics: Universals in wh-words. Journal of Pragmatics 116 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 20 november 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.