{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,30]],"date-time":"2026-06-30T10:16:51Z","timestamp":1782814611134,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":29,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2010,4,1]],"date-time":"2010-04-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1270080000000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/page\/policies\/text-and-data-mining-license"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Adaptive Behavior"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2010,4]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>A fundamental characteristic of human speech is that it uses a limited set of basic building blocks (phonemes, syllables), that are put to use in many different combinations to mark differences in meaning. This article investigates the evolution of such combinatorial phonology with a simulated population of agents. We first argue that it is a challenge to explain the transition from holistic to combinatorial phonology, as the first agent that has a mutation for using combinatorial speech does not benefit from this in a population of agents that use a holistic signaling system. We then present a solution for this evolutionary deadlock. We present experiments that show that when a repertoire of holistic signals is optimized for distinctiveness in a population of agents, it converges to a situation in which the signals can be analyzed as combinatorial, even though the agents are not aware of this structure. We argue that in this situation adaptations for productive combinatorial phonology can spread.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/1059712309345789","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2010,4,27]],"date-time":"2010-04-27T09:31:24Z","timestamp":1272360684000},"page":"141-154","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":32,"title":["Multi-Agent Simulations of the Evolution of Combinatorial Phonology"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"18","author":[{"given":"Bart","family":"de Boer","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands,"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Willem","family":"Zuidema","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2010,4,27]]},"reference":[{"key":"atypb1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1002\/(SICI)1098-2345(1996)39:3<159::AID-AJP2>3.0.CO;2-Y"},{"key":"atypb2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1146\/annurev.an.06.100177.001435"},{"key":"atypb3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.80.7.2017"},{"key":"atypb4","volume-title":"Introduction to algorithms","author":"Cormen, T.H.","year":"1993"},{"key":"atypb5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1439-0310.2004.00968.x"},{"key":"atypb6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1006\/jpho.2000.0125"},{"key":"atypb7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1093\/oso\/9780198299653.001.0001","volume-title":"The origins of vowel systems","author":"de Boer, B.","year":"2001"},{"key":"atypb8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1142\/9789812776129_0059"},{"key":"atypb9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"de Boer, B. ( 2009). Why women speak better than men (and its significance for evolution). In R. Botha & C. Knight (Eds.), The prehistory of language (pp. 255-265). Oxford: Oxford University Press.","DOI":"10.1093\/acprof:oso\/9780199545872.003.0014"},{"key":"atypb10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S1364-6613(00)01494-7"},{"key":"atypb11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Kirby, S. & Hurford, J.R. ( 2001). The emergence of linguistic structure: An overview of the iterated learning model. In A. Cangelosi & D. Parisi (Eds.), Simulating the evolution of language (pp. 121-148). London: Springer Verlag.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-1-4471-0663-0_6"},{"key":"atypb12","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1126\/science.1736364"},{"key":"atypb13","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2307\/411991"},{"key":"atypb14","unstructured":"Lindblom, B., MacNeilage, P. & Studdert-Kennedy, M. (1984). Self-organizing processes and the explanation of language universals. In M. Butterworth, B. Comrie, & O. Dahl (Eds.), Explanations for language universals (pp. 181-203). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co."},{"key":"atypb15","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1126\/science.288.5465.527"},{"key":"atypb16","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1163\/156853989X00141"},{"key":"atypb17","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.96.14.8028"},{"issue":"1","key":"atypb18","first-page":"1","volume":"11","author":"Oliphant, M.","year":"1996","journal-title":"Center for Research on Language Newsletter"},{"key":"atypb19","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/3-540-44668-0_163"},{"key":"atypb20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Oudeyer, P.Y. ( 2002). Phonemic coding might be a result of sensory-motor coupling dynamics. In J. Hallam (Ed.), Proceedings of the International Conference on the Simulation of Adaptive Behavior (SAB) (pp. 406-416). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.","DOI":"10.7551\/mitpress\/3121.003.0077"},{"key":"atypb21","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jtbi.2004.10.025"},{"key":"atypb22","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/TASSP.1978.1163055"},{"key":"atypb23","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1162\/106454603322694825"},{"key":"atypb24","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1075\/eoc.1.1.02ste"},{"key":"atypb25","unstructured":"Steels, L. ( 1998). Synthesising the origins of language and meaning using co-evolution, self-organisation and level formation. In J. R. Hurford, M. Studdert-Kennedy , & C. Knight (Eds.), Approaches to the evolution of language (pp. 384-404). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press."},{"key":"atypb26","volume-title":"Phonetic and phonological studies of !X\u00f3\u00f5 bushman","author":"Traill, A.","year":"1985"},{"key":"atypb27","unstructured":"Zuidema, W. ( 2003). How the poverty of the stimulus solves the poverty of the stimulus. In S. Becker, S. Thrun, & K. Obermayer (Eds.), Advances in neural information processing systems 15 (pp. 51-58). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press."},{"key":"atypb28","volume-title":"The major transitions in the evolution of language","author":"Zuidema, W.","year":"2005"},{"key":"atypb29","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.wocn.2008.10.003"}],"container-title":["Adaptive Behavior"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/1059712309345789","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/1059712309345789","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,28]],"date-time":"2026-04-28T16:15:55Z","timestamp":1777392955000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/10.1177\/1059712309345789"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2010,4]]},"references-count":29,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2010,4]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1177\/1059712309345789"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/1059712309345789","relation":{},"ISSN":["1059-7123","1741-2633"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1059-7123","type":"print"},{"value":"1741-2633","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2010,4]]}}}