Usage-based

Mastering how to convey meanings using language is perhaps the main challenge facing any language learner. However, satisfactory accounts of how this is achieved, and even of what it is for a linguistic item to have meaning, are hard to come by. Nick …

In a recent paper, Aceves and Evans computed information and semantic density measures for hundreds of languages, and showed that these measures predict the pace and breadth of ideas in communication. Here, we summarize their key findings and situate …