Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 23:12:42 GMT Server: Apache/1.0.3 Content-type: text/html Content-length: 948 Last-modified: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 17:44:27 GMT Newkirk

Evolutionary Dialogs: From signals to sentences in a genetic model of communication

Jim Newkirk

Computer Science Department

Signals are a simple and essential form of animal and human communication alike, but sentences -- signals with structure -- are a distinguishing feature of human speech alone. How signals can evolve into sentences is the focus of a genetic model that I'll present in which discrete signals are assembled, over the course of generations, into sequential structures to communicate specific messages. Two notable and interdependent conditions govern this development: an environment which is not constant, but which changes in accordance with the development of the species; and the preservation of ambiguity in communication, lending sentences the flexibility to adapt to these shifts in environmental events.