2017/03/10 by Benjamin Goodman, Goodman, B., Paul Tupper +1
Computer Science · Social Sciences · #91F20 #Computation and Language (cs.CL) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Language and cultural evolution #Natural Language Processing Techniques #Topic Modeling
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1703.03842
openalex publication_date 2017/03/10 · openalex created_date 2019/06/27 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Exemplar models are a popular class of models used to describe language change. Here we study how limiting the memory capacity of an individual in these models affects the system's behaviour. In particular we demonstrate the effect this change has on the extinction of categories. Previous work in exemplar dynamics has not addressed this question. In order to investigate this, we will inspect a simplified exemplar model. We will prove for the simplified model that all the sound categories but one will always become extinct, whether memory storage is limited or not. However, computer simulations show that changing the number of stored memories alters how fast categories become extinct.