I turned on the car. I got the car to turn on. TYPICAL MEANING ATYPICAL MEANING Iconicity (e.g., Schmidtke, Conrad, & Jacobs, 2014) Complex-sounding word COMPLEX MEANING Simple-sounding word SIMPLE MEANING
in English But: does this extend to other languages? Examined relationship between word lengths for normed words in 80 languages Google translate – Native speakers hand-checked 12 languages – Accuracy: 92%
yiddish dutch russian serbian croatian portuguese espernto galician basque bosnian welsh armanian italian swedish georgian belarusian icelandic estonian bulgarian german hungarian latvian ukranian spanish thai french nepali polish chinese czech hmong slovenian slovak mongolian hindi zulu vietnamese finnish swahili irish lao hausa filipino lithuanian haitian.creole romanian khmer punjabi catalan gujarati indonesian greek hebrew azerbaijani malay cebuana javanese albanian kanada turkish yoruba maori somali korean telugu urdu tamil bengali arabic latin japanese igbo persian marathi Language Pearson's r 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 english afrikaans maltese danish norwegian macedonian yiddish dutch russian serbian croatian portuguese espernto galician basque bosnian welsh armanian italian swedish georgian belarusian icelandic estonian bulgarian german hungarian latvian ukranian spanish thai french nepali polish chinese czech hmong slovenian slovak mongolian hindi zulu vietnamese finnish swahili irish lao hausa filipino lithuanian haitian.creole romanian khmer punjabi catalan gujarati indonesian greek hebrew azerbaijani malay cebuana javanese albanian kanada turkish yoruba maori somali korean telugu urdu tamil bengali arabic latin japanese igbo persian marathi Language Pearson's r 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 english afrikaans maltese danish norwegian macedonian yiddish dutch russian serbian croatian portuguese espernto galician basque bosnian welsh armanian italian swedish georgian belarusian icelandic estonian bulgarian german hungarian latvian ukranian spanish thai french nepali polish chinese czech hmong slovenian slovak mongolian hindi zulu vietnamese finnish swahili irish lao hausa filipino lithuanian haitian.creole romanian khmer punjabi catalan gujarati indonesian greek hebrew azerbaijani malay cebuana javanese albanian kanada turkish yoruba maori somali korean telugu urdu tamil bengali arabic latin japanese igbo persian marathi Language Pearson's r # open class words = 453 Correlation between complexity norm and word length
But, small sample of languages and translation issues Swadesh List: Conceptually “primitive” words developed for studying language relatedness (Swadesh, 1955; Holman, et al., 2008). – 40 words – 1,037 languages
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 2 4 6 8 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 Complexity rating Word length (characters) Study 3: Swadesh words • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • blood bone breast come die dog drink ear eye fire fish full hand hear horn I knee leaf liver louse mountain name new night nose one path person see skin star stone sun tongue tooth tree two water we you 2 4 6 8 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 Complexity rating Word length (characters) N = 100
controlling for frequency and other semantic features Next: Do speakers also have this bias? Experimentally test using novel words and objects Studies 1-3 Discussion
Linguistic stimuli: – short words (e.g., "bugorn,” "ratum,” "lopus”) – long words (e.g., "tupabugorn,” "gaburatum,” "fepolopus") Referent stimuli: – Divided objects into quintiles, based on explicit complexity norms – Tested every pairing of quintiles (15 conditions): 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 2/2, 2/3, etc. Procedure: 8 trials/participant
– Identical pattern when manipulate complexity with number of parts – Other control studies Operationalized complexity in terms of visual complexity What is the underlying complexity construct? Study 4 Discussion
more information In other work: longer descriptions à more information Study 5: Discussion “it’s a flat silver disk on rollers with what appear to be tall handlebars standing away from it at an angle” “it looks like a high tech metal detector on wheel.” “cup holder” “it is a bowl with a black portion on top” “football kicker’s stand”
0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00 Frequency Variability Use Talk Money Facebook Long word Short word “Xs are used often” “Xs are talked about often” “Xs are in many pictures on FB” vs. “Xs cost a lot”
(Study 5) and linguistic descriptions More complex objects contain more “information” No positive findings about the coding model of this information Primitives of thought a difficult empirical question!
norwegian macedonian yiddish dutch russian serbian croatian portuguese espernto galician basque bosnian welsh armanian italian swedish georgian belarusian icelandic estonian bulgarian german hungarian latvian ukranian spanish thai french nepali polish chinese czech hmong slovenian slovak mongolian hindi zulu vietnamese finnish swahili irish lao hausa filipino lithuanian haitian.creole romanian khmer punjabi catalan gujarati indonesian greek hebrew azerbaijani malay cebuana javanese albanian kanada turkish yoruba maori somali korean telugu urdu tamil bengali arabic latin japanese igbo persian marathi Language Pearson's r Studies 2-3 Where does the bias come from?
9, 11 characters (CV syllables) – Objects: Same as Study 4 (2 per complexity quintile) Procedure: – 10 words shown 4 times in training – 1 recall trial for each word in testing Measured the length of the words that participants recalled Study 6: Memory errors in word recall
in natural language could emerge through cognitive pressures In “communicative” follow-up, no strengthening of effect – Evidence that pressure is iconicity Study 6: Discussion
x word length (within subject) Stimuli: – Same objects as Study 4 (bottom vs. top quantile) – Same words as Study 4 (short vs. long) Procedure: – Forced-choice design on iPad – 12 trials: 4 long, 4 short, 4 fillers Study 7: Word learning bias in children
the developmental timescale may shape language structure Preschoolers struggle with communicative inferences – Consistent with iconicity bias Study 7 Discussion