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Authoritative: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0024-3841(89)90015-6   (Publisher's PDF... likely be available here.)

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Abstract

Most linguistic theories assume lexicon entries which incorporate the idea of the Saussurean sign, a bidirectional mapping between a phonological form and some representation of a concept. This Sign, like grammars generally, is unbiased with respect to perception or production, and provides part of the cognitive map which speakers use both in speaking and in interpreting the utterances of others. This bidirectionality of the Sign, or code, is a design feature of human language although workable communication does not necessarily incorporate such a feature.

Part of the Language Acquisition Device is a mechanism which mentally constructs such a bidirectional mapping, on the basis of observed samples of communicative behaviour (transmission and reception). This basic aspect of the LAD presumably evolved because of its superiority over other conceivable mechanisms for acquiring a basis for communicative behaviour from a sampling of observed transmission and reception data.

Three conceivable strategies for acquiring the basis of communicative behaviour, here labelled the Imitator, Calculator, and Saussurean strategies, are defined as functions from samplings of observed behaviour to acquired behaviour patterns. Essentially, the Imitator imitates the transmission and reception patterns in the observed sample; the Calculator constructs optimal reception responses to the transmissions in the observed sample and optimal transmission responses to receptions in the observed sample; the Saussurean imitates the transmission behaviour in the sample, but shapes his reception behaviour to mirror the acquired transmission behaviour, thus internalizing the equivalent of a set of bidirectional Saussurean signs. Extensive simulations of populations endowed with these innate strategies show the Saussurean strategy to be a winner in evolutionary terms; it produces individuals who communicate more successfully than individuals endowed with the other two strategies.

@article{hurford89biologicalEvolution,
  author={J. Hurford},
  title={Biological evolution of the Saussurean sign as a component of the language acquisition device},
  journal={Lingua},
  year={1989},
  volume={77},
  number={2},
  pages={187-222},
  doi={10.1016/0024-3841(89)90015-6},
  url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hurford89biologicalEvolution.html}
}

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