RT Journal Article SR Electronic(1) A1 Gong, Tao A1 Minett, James W. A1 Wang, William S-Y. YR 2009 T1 A simulation study on word order bias JF Interaction Studies VO 10 IS 1 SP 51 OP 75 DO https://doi.org/10.1075/is.10.1.04gon PB John Benjamins SN 1572-0373, AB The majority of the extant languages have one of three dominant basic word orders: SVO, SOV or VSO. Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain this word order bias, including the existence of a universal grammar, the learnability imposed by cognitive constraints, the descent of modern languages from an ancestral protolanguage, and the constraints from functional principles. We run simulations using a multi-agent computational model to study this bias. Following a local order approach, the model simulates individual language processing mechanisms in production and comprehension. The simulation results demonstrate that the semantic structures that a language encodes can constrain the global syntax, and that local syntax can help trigger bias towards the global order SOV/SVO (or VOS/OVS)., UL https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/is.10.1.04gon