theories and models of language change - uni-tuebingen.deroland/lc2015/slides/tmlc08… · ·...

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics

Review: Evolut.Approaches toLanguage Change

Relativists VSUniversalists

Background: HumanColor Perception

The World ColorSurvey

The PrinciplesModel

Homeworks

Theories and Models of Language ChangeSession 9: Case Study I on Variation - Basic Color Terms

Roland Mühlenbernd

June 23, 2015

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

Homeworks

Prototype Semantics

I Mervis & Rosch (1981): survey article of studiesestablishing prototype semantics

I The theory of prototype semantics:1. there is a quantitative gradiation of memberships of

entities to categories2. whereby the prototype is the most central, normative

element of a category

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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Prototype SemanticsThe central questions:

I Arbitrariness: Are there any a priori reasons for dividingobjects into categories, or is the division initially arbitrary?

I Representativeness: Are all category members equallyrepresentative of the category?

I Determinacy: Are categories specified by necessary andsufficient conditions for membership? Are boundaries ofcategories well defined?

I Nature of Abstraction: How much abstraction is requiredfor learning and mentally representing concepts?

I Decomposability: Does a reasonable explanation ofobjects consist in their decomposition into elementaryqualities?

I Nature of Attriibutes: What are the characteristics of theattributes into which categories are decomposed?

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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Prototype SemanticsClassical concept formation paradigm:I “any one stimulus which fits the definition of a concept is

as good an example of it as any other”I categories were seen as determinately established by

necessary and sufficient criteria for membership

Establishing the concept of a prototype:I nonequivalence of category members first proposed for

color (Berlin & Kay 1969)I gradients of representativeness also found for many other

common semantic categoriesI representativeness: defined operationally by means of

subjects’ ratings of how good an example an item is of itscategory

I prototype: an example of (locally) maximalrepresentativeness (the “clearest cases”)

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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Review: Universal Darwinism

Mechanisms of universal evolution:

1. variation: continuing abundance of different elements

2. selection : number/probability of copies of elements -depending on interaction between element features andenvironmental features

3. replication: reproduction/copying of elements

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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Review: Variation & Universals

I inter-linguistic variation is limited → linguistic universalsI the explanation for the existence of universals can be

divided in two classes:1. innate human cognitive capacities2. functional constraints on the communication system

I i.o.w.: i) communicative constraints or ii) cognitivecapacities limit/shape the language system

I relativistic view: the language system limits/shapescognitive capacities

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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Relativistic View

I first half of the 20th century: ascendance of linguistic andcultural relativity (Sapir, Whorf)

I color lexicon a parade example forI linguistic relativity (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis): structure of

language affects the way speakers conceptualize theirworld

I language determinism: language and its structures limitand determine human knowledge or thought (stronglinguistic relativity)

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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View of Universalists

I claim: biology of all human beings is all same → thedevelopment of color terminology has universalconstraints

I famous study: Berlin & Kay (1969): “Basic Color Terms:Their Universality and Evolution”

I in the late 1970’s the World Color Survey (WCS) wasinitiated to test the hypothesis of Berlin & Kay (1969)

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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Background: Human Color Perception

I Experiment show that humans identify every color with acombination of three basic colors

I Computer graphics: usually red (645.16 nm), green(526.32 nm) and blue (444.44 nm)

The RGB-model(additive color space)

The CMY-model(subtractive color space)

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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I RGB/CMY is notintrospective, distancesin its space is notconsistent with humanperception

I psychological colorperception: hue,saturation and lightness

I → HSL color space

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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Background: Human Color PerceptionThe Munsell Color SpaceI Discrete color space where distance in space roughly

corresponds to perceptual distance

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Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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The Hering Color Space (1875)I is based on three oppositions:

red - green, yellow - blue, light - darkI four types of opponent cells in the macaque’s LGN

I Hering’s model and HSL (Munsell) are isomorphic

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Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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Research Field Color Categories

The nature of human (non-)linguistic color categories (researchfield for more than 50 years)

I do color terminologies evolve naturally to an optimumpoint for communicative and descriptive purposes?(cultural constraints)

I are color terminologies determined by perceptive andcognitive constraints? (biological constraints)

I how are linguistic usage/representation andcognitive/perceptive sensation of colors interrelated?

I studies of the late 1970’s resulted in the famous WorldColor Survey

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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Berlin & Kay (1969)I comparison of color term vocabulary in 98 languages by

showing colored chips to participantsI focus on basic color terms, which must be

I monolexemic (no “lemon-colored” or “blue-green”)I no subsets of other terms (“crimson” → “red”)I not restricted to narrow class of objects (“blonde”)I psychologically salient (most people won’t come up with

“scarlet” when shown a color)I participants were asked to name the colors of their

language, and to select the best fits on a chart of 320 colorsI they were then asked to classify the same 320 color chips

isolatedly, resulting in a map of color categories

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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A Little Experiment

You will see a Munsell Chip and you have to decide if it isRed �, Green �, White �, Yellow �, Blue �, Black �

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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Result: A Basic Color Term EvolutionProperties of human languages

I the number of basic color terms is between 2 and 11(12).I if a language has 11 basic color terms, then the encoded

categories are:

WHITE, BLACK, RED, GREEN, YELLOW, BLUE, BROWN, ORANGE, PINK, PURPLE, and GREY

I languages with 11 (12) basic color terms: Arabic(Lebanese), Bulgarian, English, German, Hebrew,Hungarian (12!), Japanese, Korean, Russian (12!),Spanish, Zuni, ...

I if a language has fewer than 11 basic color terms, thenthere are strict limitations on which categories it mayencode:

I only 22 different color vocabulariesI can be described by 7 implicative universalsI form almost always a partition of the whole space

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

Homeworks

Exercise 1

Name the two conclusions of the study by Berlin and Kay from1969?

I there are very strong variations among basic color terms ofthe languages of the world that indicates culturalrelativism

I there are strong tendencies to variation inside anylanguage community, which gives reason to doubt theexistence of basic color terms at all

I there are universals in color semantics of (probably) alllanguages

√(based on one or more of 11 focal colors)

I there exist an apparent evolutionary sequence for thedevelopment of the color lexicon

√

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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The Principles Model: Prerequisites

1. a small set of perceptual landmarks form the basis ofdenotation of major color terms: black, white, red, yellow,green, blue

2. languages gain basic color terms in a partially fixed order,but they never lose a term

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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The Principles Model: Prerequisites

Partition VS Emergence Hypothesis

I Berlin & Kay (1969): all languages’ basic color termspartition the psychological color space

I Emergence Hypothesis: not all languages posses a set ofcolor terms that partition the perceptual color space

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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Exercise 2

Bring the principles of Kay and Maffi’s model in the rightorder:

Principle

0. basic color terms jointly partition the perceptual space

1. the basic color terms in early stages distinguish betweenblack and white

2. basic color terms distinguish warm primaries from coolprimaries

3. basic color terms distinguish the color red among the huesensations

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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The Principles Model

0. Partition: in notional domains of cultural salience,languages tend to assign significata to lexical items insuch a way as to partition the denotata of the domain

1. Distinguish black and white: the human bw-visionsystem is essential and sufficient for shape discriminationand object recognition (color vision is laid on top)

2. Distinguish warm from cold primaries : experimentsshowed that i) judgment of warm color peak in the orangeregion (covers red & yellow), whereas cold colors peak inthe blue region (cover non-yellowish green and blue), andii) there is an affinity to the warm-cold boundary

3. Distinguish red: experiments showed that the term for redis the first hue color term that children acquire

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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The Principles Model in Action

From: Color Appearance and the Emergence and Evolution of Basic Color Lexicons (Kay, Maffi 1999)

0. Partition1. Distinguish Black and White2. Distinguish warm (red & yellow) from cold primaries (green & blue)3. Distinguish red

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

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Exercise 3

Given Principles

0. Partition

1. Distinguish Black & White

2. Distinguish warm (R&Y)from cold primaries (G&Bu)

3. Distinguish red

Kay and Maffi describe how the four principles realize the main line of theevolutionary development of basic color lexicons. It is not always the casethat ’all’ 4 principles are relevant for any stage transition. Assign whichprinciples are relevant for the following stage transitions:

Transition Partition Applied PrinciplesEmergence of stage 1 (W/R/Y)-(Bk/G/Bu) 0, 1 and 2stage 1 → stage 2 (W)-(R/Y)-(Bk/G/Bu) 0, 1 and 3stage 2 → stage 3 (W)-(R/Y)-(Bk)-(G/Bu) 0 and 1stage 3 → stage 4 (W)-(R)-(Y)-(Bk)-(G/Bu) 0 and 3stage 4 → stage 5 (W)-(R)-(Y)-(Bk)-(G)-(Bu) 0

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

Homeworks

Exercise 4

Kay and Maffi show that most of the 110 WCS languages haveparticular properties in correspondence with their fourprinciples. Assign the following properties to the number oflanguages (of the wcs) that have this property.

I exceptionless operation on partition: 101I conformity to the four principles in the right order: 90I conformity to the four principles by order principle 3 over

principles 1 and 2 at one point: 10

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

Homeworks

Summary

I Prototype Semantics: concept formation paradigm todescribe the mental reflection of semantics of a language

I The Evolutionary Account & Semantics: according to(functional factors of) selection dynamics on linguisticvariation, the semantic relationships between variantsmight play an important role

I Universals of Semantic Conceptualization: result of innatehuman capacities and/or functional/cultural constraints

I Basic Color Terms Categorization: classical field ofresearch in semantics, which involves evolutionary aspects

I The Principles Model: explains the evolution of basiccolor terms on the basis of cognitive and experimentalevidence

RolandMühlenbernd

Prototype Semantics





The PrinciplesModel

Homeworks

Homeworks

I Read the article ‘The role of functional factors in languagechange’ (Seiler 2006)

I solve the appropriate exercises given on ILIAS

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