Recently remembered this old Language Log post on the song of the Zebra Finch, though it might be relevant here. Whether or not the idea does apply to human languages, I think it’s an interesting demonstration of what sort of surprising things evolution can work with. A highly constrained song is indirectly encoded by a much simpler bias in learning.
Recently remembered this old Language Log post on the song of the Zebra Finch, though it might be relevant here. Whether or not the idea does apply to human languages, I think it’s an interesting demonstration of what sort of surprising things evolution can work with. A highly constrained song is indirectly encoded by a much simpler bias in learning.