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<Paper uid="P98-2203">
  <Title>Spontaneous Lexicon Change</Title>
  <Section position="4" start_page="1247" end_page="1247" type="concl">
    <SectionTitle>
5 Conclusions
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> The paper has presented a theory that explains spontaneous lexicon change based on internal factors. The theory postulates that (1) coherence in language is due to self-organisation, i.e. the presence of a positive feedback loop between the choice for using a form-meaning pair and the success in using it, (2) innovation is due</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> between different forms for the same meaning.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> We clearly see first a rapid winner-take-all situation with the word &amp;quot;bagi&amp;quot;, then the rise of competitors until one (&amp;quot;pagi&amp;quot;) overtakes the others. A period of instability follows after which a new dominant winner (&amp;quot;kugo&amp;quot;) emerges.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> to stochasticity, i.e. errors in form transmission, non-linguistic communication, or memory access, (3) maintenance of variation is due to the tolerance agents need to exhibit in order to cope with stochasticity, namely the broadening of scope and the weakening of focus, and finally (4) amplification of variation happens due to change in the population. Only when all four factors are present will effective change be observed. null These hypotheses have been tested using a formal model of language use in a dynamically evolving population. The model has been implemented and subjected to extensive computational simulations, validating the hypotheses.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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