Language change and the force of innovation

Abstract

Lewis [L1] invented signaling games to show that semantic meaning conventions can arise simply from regularities in communicative behavior. The behavioral implementation of such conventions are so-called signaling systems. Previous research addressed the emergence of signaling systems by combining signaling games with learning dynamics, and not uncommonly researchers examined the circumstances preventing the emergence of signaling systems. It has been shown that by increasing the number of states, messages and actions for a signaling game, the emergence of signaling becomes increasingly improbable. This paper contributes to the question of how the invention of new messages and extinction of unused messages would change these outcomes. Our results reveal that this innovation mechanism does in fact support the emergence of signaling systems. Furthermore, we analyze circumstances that lead to stable communication structure in large spatial population structures of interacting players. © 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.