The Evolution of Combinatorial Phonology
Willem Zuidema, Bart de Boer

Abstract:
A fundamental, universal property of human language is that its
phonology is combinatorial. That is, one can identify a set of basic,
distinct units (phonemes, syllables) that can be productively combined
in many di-b®erent ways. In this paper, we review a number of theories-A
and models that have been developed to explain the evolutionary
transition from holistic to combinatorial signal systems, but -b¯nd that-A
in all problematic linguistic assumptions are made, or crucial
components of evolutionary explanations are omitted. We present a
novel model to investigate the hypothesis that combinatorial phonology
results from optimising signal systems for perceptual
distinctiveness. Our model di-b®ers from previous models in two-A
important respects. First, signals are modelled as trajectories
through acoustic space. Hence, both holistic and combinatorial signals
have a temporal structure. Second, we use the methodology from
evolutionary game theory. Crucially, we show a path of ever increasing
-b¯tness from holistic to combinatorial signals, where every innovation-A
represents an advantage even if no-one else in a population has yet
obtained it.

Keywords: evolution of language, evolutionary game theory, combinatorial phonology