Marking Indicatives and Imperatives

Abstract Previous work on the evolution of the indicative-imperative distinction in signaling games has focused on either the cognitive processes used by signaling agents or information carried by messages. In this paper, I use a simple signaling game model to demonstrate that an overlooked feature of the indicative-imperative distinction can be learned. This overlooked feature is the fact that the indicative-imperative distinction is often marked in natural languages.