as degeneracy (see here and here for my previous posts). In a nutshell, I'm claiming that degeneracy emerges as a robust solution to ambiguity pressures, and should be considered a design feature of language. There are three claims I want to explore over the next couple of posts: (a) that ambiguity is an important pressure alongside expressivity and compressibility in the emergence of linguistic structure; (b) degeneracy is a design feature of language that is robustness-enhancing , creates a greater capacity to innovate in response to perturbations, and is concomitant with a rise in multi-scaled complexity ; (c) social structure and cultural complexity play a fundamental role in increasing ambiguity pressures and degeneracy. Degeneracy as a Design Solution to Ambiguity Pressures in Language Defined as components that have a structure-to-function ratio of many-to-one, the unfortunately named concept of degeneracy is a well known characteristic of biological systems, and is found in the genetic code (many different nucleotide sequences encode a polypeptide) and immune responses (populations of antibodies and other antigen-recognition molecules can take on multiple functions) among many others (cf. Edelman & Gally, 2001 ). Believed to be a pre-condition for open-ended evolution, through facilitating the coexistence of "high robustness, growing complexity, and the continued propensity for innovation" ( Whitacre, 2010: 1 ), degeneracy has more recently been appreciated as potentially having broader applications, with Mason ( 2010 ) offering a value-free, scientific definition: Degeneracy is observed in a system if there are components that are structurally different (nonisomorphic) and