Word Meanings Evolve to Selectively Preserve Distinctions on Salient Dimensions by Catriona Silvey, Simon Kirby, and Kenny Smith.
Abstract:
Words refer to objects in the world, but this correspondence is not one-to-one: Each word has a range of referents that share features on some dimensions but differ on others. This property of language is called underspecification. Parts of the lexicon have characteristic patterns of underspecification; for example, artifact nouns tend to specify shape, but not color, whereas substance nouns specify material but not shape. These regularities in the lexicon enable learners to generalize new words appropriately. How does the lexicon come to have these helpful regularities? We test the hypothesis that systematic backgrounding of some dimensions during learning and use causes language to gradually change, over repeated episodes of transmission, to produce a lexicon with strong patterns of underspecification across these less salient dimensions. This offers a cultural evolutionary mechanism linking individual word learning and generalization to the origin of regularities in the lexicon that help learners generalize words appropriately.
I can’t seem to access the article today but the premise is intriguing.
Perhaps people can have different “…less salient dimensions…” and therefore are generalizing words “inappropriately” from the standpoint of another person.
Curious if a test can be devised to identify those “…less salient dimensions…” in some target population? Might lead to faster identification of terms likely to be mis-understood.