The emergence of word forms from human protolanguage

Wray, Alison ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2144-4458 2025. The emergence of word forms from human protolanguage. Kogan, Vita V., ed. Teaching Linguistics with Games, London: Routledge, pp. 106-117. (10.4324/9781003630487-11)

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Abstract

This chapter presents a board game simulating the possibility that in the course of the evolution of human language, individual words emerged from a holistic protolanguage that used semantically irreducible sound sequences to express complete message meanings. Although this is not the only model of how language emerged, computational simulations and lab experiments have independently demonstrated that compositionality can emerge spontaneously from holistic forms. The game was developed for undergraduate seminar sessions of 50 minutes, though it would benefit from being played over a longer period. Games could be strung together, so that one group inherits the previous group's outcomes and thus moves the process a little further. In the game, players compare the holistic forms on the board and identify chance correspondences between sub-parts of the forms and sub-components of their meanings. These mappings create hypotheses about potential recombinable words. Results of the games show that more than one set of words can emerge from the same input, making each game unique. The learning purpose extends beyond just demonstrating the core process of word emergence, because students have to consider how meaning is made and which sounds and meanings are most likely to become swapped, confused, or melded.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > English, Communication and Philosophy
Publisher:	Routledge
ISBN:	9781003630487
Last Modified:	21 Oct 2025 09:29
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/157705

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