A major line of research in semantics concerns meaning-driven explanations of
combinatorial restrictions of various operators. Such explanations rely on a link from semantic triviality to ungrammaticality, standardly explicated in terms of LOGICALITY. According to the logicality approach, the grammar contains a natural deductive system that contributes to speakers’ grammaticality judgments, besides the purely syntactic combinatorial system. However, this involves a non-trivial architectural assumption about the interaction between syntax and semantics, and there is no consensus on the exact specification of the natural deductive
system. In this paper, we provide an alternative account of the link between semantic triviality and ungrammaticality based on ITERATED LEARNING, an independently motivated model of language evolution. Within this model, it can be shown that for certain trivial sentences, a population of speakers possessing a grammar that in principle generates them is overtaken by learners who induce a grammar that rules them out after several generations. Crucially, our
account does not need to postulate an additional natural deductive system.