Related papers: How communicatively optimal are exact numeral systems? Once more on lexicon size and morphosyntactic complexity

How communicatively optimal are exact numeral systems? Once more on lexicon size and morphosyntactic complexity

URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2602.20372v1
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2026 21:19:07 GMT
Title: How communicatively optimal are exact numeral systems? Once more on lexicon size and morphosyntactic complexity
Authors: Chundra Cathcart, Arne Rubehn, Katja Bocklage, Luca Ciucci, Kellen Parker van Dam, Alžběta Kučerová, Jekaterina Mažara, Carlo Y. Meloni, David Snee, Johann-Mattis List,
Abstract summary: We show that many of the world's languages are decisively less efficient than one would expect.<n>We discuss the implications of our findings for the study of numeral systems and linguistic evolution more generally.
Score: 4.019685228421653
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Abstract: Recent research argues that exact recursive numeral systems optimize communicative efficiency by balancing a tradeoff between the size of the numeral lexicon and the average morphosyntactic complexity (roughly length in morphemes) of numeral terms. We argue that previous studies have not characterized the data in a fashion that accounts for the degree of complexity languages display. Using data from 52 genetically diverse languages and an annotation scheme distinguishing between predictable and unpredictable allomorphy (formal variation), we show that many of the world's languages are decisively less efficient than one would expect. We discuss the implications of our findings for the study of numeral systems and linguistic evolution more generally.

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