Agent-Based Simulation Models How Irregular Verb Forms Like 'Go/Went' Emerge and Persist in Languages
Researchers developed a multi-agent computational model simulating how morphological alternations—irregular forms like the past tense of 'go' becoming 'went'—arise and spread through populations despite offering no communicative advantage. The study uses realistic lexicons, phonological rules, and various network topologies to generate morphological patterns, then evaluates them using an AI system modeled after historical linguist debate. The findings suggest scale-free social networks and random adoption patterns produce the most plausible morphologies, offering insights into why such irregularities persist across centuries.
Researchers created a multi-agent simulation to understand why languages maintain morphological alternations—irregular forms that neither improve communication nor learnability, yet persist for centuries. The model allows agents to adopt novel word forms when hearing them from others, with alternations spreading through populations and becoming entrenched in paradigms. Unlike previous computational studies, this system incorporates naturalistic lexical forms, realistic phonological rules, and lexicons containing hundreds or thousands of entries across agent populations of tens to hundreds. To evaluate realism, the authors introduced the AI Historical Linguist, a Large Language Model-based system that models debate between historical linguists to compare real language morphologies against experimentally evolved ones. Results indicate that scale-free social networks and random Bernoulli adoption policies produce the most plausible morphologies. The researchers also present case studies modeling attested historical changes, testing counterfactual scenarios about linguistic evolution.
What's missing
The study's own limitations and open questions are not detailed in the abstract provided. Specific quantitative results comparing the AI Historical Linguist's evaluations across real, disguised, and evolved morphologies are not included, nor are details about which attested historical changes were modeled or how the counterfactual scenarios were constructed.
What different sources said
- arXiv cs.CLCenter
Agent-based models for the evolution of morphological alternation patterns
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