Highlights•Key design features of language can be explained as the result of cultural
evolution.•Experiments have found that structure emerges through transmission and …

Why are languages the way they are? The biases and constraints that explain why
languages display the traits they do—instead of other possible ones—include human …

Linguistic universals arise from the interaction between the processes of language learning
and language use. A test case for the relationship between these factors is linguistic …

Where does linguistic structure come from? Recent gesture elicitation studies have indicated
that constituent order (corresponding to for instance subject–verb–object, or SVO in English) …

Regularization occurs when the output a learner produces is less variable than the linguistic
data they observed. In an artificial language learning experiment, we show that there exist at …

We present a novel experimental technique using artificial language learning to investigate
the relationship between structural priming during communicative interaction, and linguistic …

A book that uses domain-general learning theory to explain recurrent trajectories of
language change. In this book, Vsevolod Kapatsinski argues that language acquisition …

This book investigates nominal determination in Old English and the emergence of the
definite and the indefinite article. Analyzing Old English prose texts, it discusses the nature …

Human cognition and behavior are dominated by symbol use. This paper examines the
social learning strategies that give rise to symbolic communication. Experiment 1 contrasts …

Although experimental methods are used in the study of language change, it has been
claimed that there is no analogue of the biologist's Drosophila–no means, in other words, of …