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Self-organization in linguistics

Self-organization refers to a property by which complex systems spontaneously generate

organized structures"[21]

. It is the spontaneous formation of well organized structures, patterns, orbehaviors, from random initial conditions. It is the process of macroscopic outcomes emerging

from local interactions of components of the system, but the global organizational properties arenot to be found at the local level. The systems used to study this phenomenon are referred to asdynamical systems: state-determined systems. They possess a large number of elements or

variables, and thus very large state spaces.

Traditional framework of good science is reductionist, in the sense that sub-parts are studied

individually to understand the bigger part. However, many natural systems cannot simply be

explained by a reductionist study of their parts. Self-organization is not studying the whole

structure by breaking it down to smaller sub-parts which are then studied individually. Theemphasis of the self-organization is, rather, the process of how a super macro global structure

evolves from local interactions.

"The self that gets organized should not be just the language ability but the cluster of

competencies through which it emerges. These probably include a variety of cognitive, social,

affective, and motor skills."[22]

The human brains, and thus the phenomena of sensation andthought, are also under the strong influence of features of spontaneous organization in their

structure. Indeed, the brain, composed of billions of neurons dynamically interacting among

themselves and with the outside world, is the prototype of a complex system. A good example ofself organization in linguistics is the evolution ofNicaraguan Sign Language. Examples of

linguistic questions in the light of self organization are are: e.g. the decentralized generation of

lexical and semantic conventions in populations of agents.[23][24]

;the formation of

conventionalized syntactic structures[25]

; the conditions under which combinatoriality, the

property of systematic reuse, can be selected

[26]

; shared inventories of vowels or syllables ingroups of agents, with features of structural regularities greatly resembling those of human

languages[27][28]

[edit] Methodology

In many complex systems in nature, there are global phenomena that are the irreducible result of

local interactions between components whose individual study would not allow us to see the

global properties of the whole combined system. Thus, a growing number of researchers thinkthat many properties of language are not directly encoded by any of the components involved,

but are the self-organized outcomes of the interactions of the components.

Building mathematical models in the context of research into language origins and the evolution

of languages is enjoying growing popularity in the scientific community, because it is a crucial

tool for studying the phenomena of language in relation to the complex interactions of itscomponents. These systems are put to two main types of use: 1) they serve to evaluate the

internal coherence of verbally expressed theories already proposed by clarifying all their

hypotheses and verifying that they do indeed lead to the proposed conclusions ; 2) they serve to

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explore and generate new theories, which themselves often appear when one simply tries to build

an artificial system reproducing the verbal behavior of humans.

Therefore, constructing operational models to test hypothesis in linguistics is gaining popularity

these days. An operational model is one which defines the set of its assumptions explicitly and

above all shows how to calculate their consequences, that is, to prove that they lead to a certainset of conclusions.

[edit] In the emergence of language

The emergence of language in the human species has been described in a game-theoreticframework based on a model of senders and receivers of information (Clark 2009

[29], following

Skyrms 2004[30]

). The evolution of certain properties of language such as inference follow from

this sort of framework (with the parameters stating that information transmitted can be partial or

redundant, and the underlying assumption that the sender and receiver each want to take theaction in his/her best interest)

[31]. Likewise, models have shown that compositionality, a central

component of human language, emerges dynamically during linguistic evolution, and need notbe introduced by biological evolution (Kirby 2000)[32]

. Tomasello (1999)[33]

argues that through

one evolutionary step, the ability to sustain culture, the groundwork for the evolution of humanlanguage was laid. The ability to ratchet cultural advances cumulatively allowed for the complex

development of human cognition unseen in other animals.

[edit] In language acquisition

Within a species' ontogeny, the acquisition of language has also been shown to self-organize.

Through the ability to see others as intentional agents (theory of mind), and actions such as 'joint

attention,' human children have the scaffolding they need to learn the language of those around

them (Tomasello 1999)

[34]

.

[edit] In articulatory phonology

Articulatory phonology takes the approach that speech production consists of a coordinated

series ofgestures, called 'constellations,' which are themselves dynamical systems. In this theory,linguistic contrast comes from the distinction between such gestural units, which can be

described on a low-dimensional level in the abstract. However, these structures are necessarily

context-dependent in real-time production. Thus the context-dependence emerges naturally from

the dynamical systems themselves.

[edit] In diachrony and synchrony

Several mathematical models of language change rely on self-organizing or dynamical systems.

Abrams and Strogatz (2003)[35]

produced a model of language change that focused on languagedeath- the process by which a speech community merges into the surrounding speech

communities. Nakamura et al. (2008)[36]

proposed a variant of this model that incorporates

spatial dynamics into language contact transactions in order to describe the emergence of creoles.

Both of these models proceed from the assumption that language change, like any self-

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organizing system, is a large-scale act or entity (in this case the creation or death of a language,

or changes in its boundaries) that emerges from many actions on a micro-level. The microlevel in

this example is the everyday production and comprehension of language by speakers in areas oflanguage contact.