arXiv:2606.12748v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Why is the past of English "go" the apparently unrelated "went"? Such alternations are frequent in languages. They neither aid communication nor learnability, yet they can be persistent, surviving over centuries or millennia. We present a multi-agent simulation of the emergence of morphological stem and inflection alternations. Alternate forms arise by phonological changes or, as with "go/went", from lexical alternatives associated with a subset of the population. When an agent 'hears' another agent use a novel form for a slot in the paradigm of
The proliferation of AI and agent-based modeling techniques enables more sophisticated simulations of complex emergent phenomena, like language evolution.
Understanding the underlying mechanisms of language evolution, even for seemingly 'irrational' features like morphological alternations, provides insights into how complex systems develop and persist, which can inform AI agent design.
This research provides a new computational framework for explaining persistent linguistic patterns previously thought to be 'anomalous', shifting the understanding from purely historical accident to emergent system dynamics.
- · Computational linguists
- · AI researchers focusing on natural language
- · Cognitive scientists
- · Traditional historical linguists (potentially, if their methodologies are not in
The model offers a plausible explanation for the persistence of arbitrary linguistic features within dynamic agent interactions.
Improved understanding of language emergence could lead to more robust and human-like natural language generation in AI systems.
These same agent-based modeling techniques could be applied to understand the emergence and persistence of other complex social or cultural patterns beyond language.
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