The Baldwin effect works for functional, but not arbitrary, features of language

Human languages are characterized by a number of universal patterns of structure and use. Theories differ on whether such linguistic universals are best understood as arbitrary features of an innate language acquisition device or functional features deriving from cognitive and communicative constraints. From the viewpoint of language evolution, it is important to explain how such features may have originated. We use computational simulations to investigate the circumstances under which universal linguistic constraints might get genetically fixed in a population of language learning agents. Specifically, we focus on the Baldwin effect as an evolutionary mechanism by which previously learned linguistic features might become innate through natural selection across many generations of language learners. The results indicate that under assumptions of linguistic change, only functional, but not arbitrary, features of language can become genetically fixed. 1