Evolutionary dynamics of hyperbolic language
Fig 5
Mutation rate (innovation) leads to preservation of old intensifiers, as well as “verbose” individuals (those who use all possible words).
Here we show averaged results over 100 realizations in the asymmetric version of Game V with k = 10 and μ = 0.005 (a,b) versus μ = 0.1 (c,d) In this rendition, a new word becomes available via de-lexicalization every 500 generations, beginning from our normal three words in the first generation. (a): The average number of speakers using n ≠ 2 words exists at an extremely small mutation-selection balance in comparison to two-word speakers. (b): The mean fitness of verbose individuals is always dominated by that of two-word speakers. (c): At higher mutation rates, verbose speakers are found in a higher proportion roughly matching the ratio of the two mutation rates. (d): However, their mean fitness is much higher than in (b), and the most verbose speakers in any period are equally fit, and always dominate less verbose n ≠ 2 speakers.