Fig. 1.
Arbitrary linguistic principles can become genetically encoded via the Baldwin effect. (A) Influences across generations for language and genes. The principles, Pi, of the language, L, are indicated by light-yellow (+L) and light-blue (-L) squares. The corresponding biasing alleles, +G and -G, are indicated by dark-yellow and dark-blue squares. Neutral alleles, ?G, are shown in green. For illustration, just five linguistic principles and the mean population values for genes are shown. Here L is fixed across generations (purple double lines); L exerts selectional pressure on the genes, G, at each generation (pink arrows); and the genes of the fastest language learners are transmitted across generations (orange arrows), subject to sexual recombination and mutation. (B–F) The percentage of neutral alleles, plotted against the number of generations, across variations in (B) percentage of neutral alleles in the first generation: 0 (red), 50 (blue), and 100 (green); (C) group size: 24 (red), 100 (blue), and 250 (green); (D) genome size: 10 (red), 20 (blue), and 50 (green); (E) percentage of learners allowed to reproduce: 26 (red), 50 (blue), and 74 (green); and (F) bias of +G/-G alleles for sampling the corresponding +L/-L principles during learning: 0.8 (red), 0.95 (blue), and 1 (green). The remaining parameters in these simulations take the default values indicated in blue.