The evolution of case grammar

There are few linguistic phenomena that have seduced linguists so skillfully as grammatical case has done. Ever since Panini(4th Century BCE),case has claimed a central role in linguistic theory and continues to do sotoday. However, despite centuries worth of research, case has yet to revealits most important secrets.This book offers breakthrough explanations for the understanding ofcase through agent-based experiments in cultural language evolution. Theexperiments demonstrate that case systems may emerge because they havea selective advantage for communication: they reduce the cognitive effortthat listeners need for semantic interpretation, while at the same time limiting the cognitive resources required for doing so.

Remi van Trijp heading the Language Research unit at the Sony Computer Science Laboratory Paris and am one of the chief developers of Fluid Construction Grammar.