C.: Modelling Social Structures and Hierarchies in Language Evolution

Abstract Language evolution might have been favoured in certain prior so-cial configurations over others. Experiments conducted with models of differ-ent social structures (varying subgroup interactions and the role of a dom-inant interlocutor) suggest that having isolated agent groups rather than an interconnected agent is more advantageous for the emergence of a so-cial communication system. Distinctive groups that are closely connected by communication yield systems less like natural language than fully isolated groups inhabiting the same world. Furthermore, the addition of a dominant male who is asymmetrically favoured as a hearer, and equally likely to be a speaker has no positive influence on the disjoint groups.