Speaker_input_variability_raw_data

Abstract

Supporting data for Atkinson, Kirby, and Smith (in preparation). Speaker input variability does not explain why larger populations have simpler languages: raw data for Experiments 1 and 2. Languages spoken by more people appear to be structurally more simple, but it is not clear why this would be the case. This study investigates one possible explanation. It has been proposed that learning in a larger community results in a learner receiving their input from a greater number of speakers. This will increase the variability of the input, and we test the proposal that this in turn may make more complex grammatical features more difficult to transfer from generation to generation.