Evolutionary dynamics of hyperbolic language
Fig 2
Misalignment of interests leads to loss of lexical breadth in a language.
Here we show the average frequency of one-word and two-word languages in the asymmetric game(s) with k = 100 and μ = 0.001. A one-word language has two columns of Pij summing to 0 (two words never used), while a two-word language has one column of Pij summing to 0. Increasing misalignment leads to invasion by two-word languages and then by one-word languages. Roman numerals denote mean values, whereas ribbons denote one standard deviation above/below the mean. Nearly identical results hold for the symmetric case, see Fig E in S1 File. The overlapping game symbols for Γ = 1 are II,III, and for Γ = 2 are IV,VI.