# Systematicity between Forms and Meanings across Languages Supports Efficient Communication

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.17181 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.17181/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 7 of its 172 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 Jan 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [A Rate-Distortion view of human pragmatic reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.06641/) (2020)
- [Meaning to Form: Measuring Systematicity as Information](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.05906/) (2019)
- [On the Complexity and Typology of Inflectional Morphological Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.02747/) (2018)
- [Semantic categories of artifacts and animals reflect efficient coding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.04562/) (2019)
- [Morphological Irregularity Correlates with Frequency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.11483/) (2019)
- [On the Diachronic Stability of Irregularity in Inflectional Morphology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.08262/) (2018)
- [The natural stability of autonomous morphology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.03811/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Evaluating the relationship between regularity and learnability in recursive numeral systems using Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.21720/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Languages vary widely in how meanings map to word forms. These mappings have been found to support efficient communication; however, this theory does not account for systematic relations within word forms. We examine how a restricted set of grammatical meanings (e.g. person, number) are expressed on verbs and pronouns across typologically diverse languages. Consistent with prior work, we find that verb and pronoun forms are shaped by competing communicative pressures for simplicity (minimizing the inventory of grammatical distinctions) and accuracy (enabling recovery of intended meanings). Crucially, our proposed model uses a novel measure of complexity (inverse of simplicity) based on the learnability of meaning-to-form mappings. This innovation captures fine-grained regularities in linguistic form, allowing better discrimination between attested and unattested systems, and establishes a new connection from efficient communication theory to systematicity in natural language.