Rational Communication Shapes Morphological Composition
Researchers have developed a model that predicts how languages form new words by combining existing morphemes. The study, using the Rational Speech Act framework and historical English corpora, suggests that a balance between listener understanding and speaker effort influences these word formations. This approach outperforms models based solely on meaning or cost, indicating that lexicalization is a trade-off between expressiveness and efficiency. AI
IMPACT Provides a computational framework for understanding language evolution, potentially informing future natural language processing models.