An Agent-based Approach to the Gravity Model of Linguistic Diffusion

Mathematical models of language change promise to provide insight on how community-wide changes emerge from individual speaker interactions.We develop an agent-based model to test the validity of the gravity theory of linguistic diffusion.Our model uses an exemplar model and the functionalteleological explanation of chain shifts to build up a picture of how individual agents change their vowel systems, and studies the emergent patterns across language communities.We find that the predictions of the gravity model hold true in a subset of cases determined at least in part by patterns of interaction and the particularities of how vowels are produced and perceived.To be specific, the gravity model's predictions will hold true in situations where two interacting communities have categories within each other's tolerance thresholds.