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Two large language models operate with deliberately incompatible constructed lexicons, while a fully scripted orchestrator translates between category systems using ground-truth supervision. The protocol targets the kangaroo effect, operationalizing Quine’s indeterminacy of translation via actively selected, pre-registered predictive probes and hypothesis elimination, achieving zero undetected mistranslations in tested conditions and measured noise robustness.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/intercepting-the-kangaroo-experimental-astrolinguistics-with-constructed-lexicons-active-probing-and-large-language-models-as-informants-and-hypothesis-proposers/273622/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/intercepting-the-kangaroo-experimental-astrolinguistics-with-constructed-lexicons-active-probing-and-large-language-models-as-informants-and-hypothesis-proposers/273622.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Theodore","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-17","2026-09-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":39},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What is the kangaroo effect in this paper?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It is the silent attachment of a word to the wrong referent, modeled as Quine’s indeterminacy of translation where rival hypotheses only diverge on never-observed scenes.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How does the study make astrolinguistics experimentally testable?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"It constructs two deliberately incompatible lexicons, assigns them to large language model informants, and uses a fully scripted orchestrator and learner with complete ground truth so every claimed translation can be checked.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What mechanisms allow the protocol to intercept mistranslations?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"It combines cross-situational hypothesis elimination with pre-registered predictive probes, active scene selection, a stricter recovery round, and quarantine that can revoke incorrect promotions.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},273622,1789472300,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":39,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":129,"read_time":144,"preview_page_count":4},7971461740886,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_3d24733baf745e90a7e4bdd5f77d97b2","arXiv : 2608 . 19 124v 1 [cs .CL] 1 1 Jun 2026  \nIntercepting the Kangaroo: Experimental Astrolinguistics with Constructed Lexicons, Active Probing, and Large Language Models as Informants and Hypothesis Proposers  \nFrancesco Cordella∗ Mauro Cappelli†  \nAbstract  \nAstrolinguistics—communication with minds that categorize reality differently from ours  \n— has been purely speculative since Freudenthal’s Lincos (1960) . We make it experimental.  \nTwo language models with deliberately incompatible constructed lexicons (one encoding shape, colour, and motion; the other fusing colour with motion, encoding parity, and lacking shape) serve as informants with complete ground truth, while a fully scripted orchestrator translates between the two category systems. The central failure mode is the kangaroo effect: the silent attachment of a word to the wrong referent—Quine’s indeterminacy of translation, operationalized. Across 400+ simulated and live runs, a protocol combining cross-situational hypothesis elimination, pre-registered predictive probes, active scene selection, a stricter recovery round, and quarantine produced no undetected mistranslations under the tested conditions, while exceeding the coverage of a passive baseline (d = 0.62) . Deliberately injected kangaroo traps defeated naive ostension and pure statistical learning in 100% of runs, while the full protocol intercepted every decoy (mean detection: exchange 40.6) and, where discriminating evidence is ontologically unavailable, declared Quinean equivalence classes instead of guessing. Under informant noise the result degrades gracefully: zero kangaroos persist up to 2% per-word noise; at 10%, the protocol predominantly abstains rather than errs. Finally, words outside the scripted hypothesis space (a history-dependent relational term and an XOR contextual homonym) are recovered by a generate-and-test loop in which an LLM proposes rules and the script verifies them: coverage scales with proposer capability (0% → 18% → 72% → 100%) while undetected mistranslations remained at zero throughout. In the tested conditions, correctness is a property of the protocol; coverage is a property of the instruments.  \nKeywords: astrolinguistics; cross-situational learning; indeterminacy of translation; large language models; active learning; referential games  \n1. Introduction  \nWhen Freudenthal (1960) designed Lincos, a language for cosmic intercourse, he proceeded from mathematics through physics toward behaviour — and stopped, by his own admission, where evaluative and sociological concepts begin. Sixty-five years later the discipline he founded remains in the condition he left it: a design exercise without an experimental arm. No astrolinguistic protocol has ever been tested, for the obvious reason that no alien interlocutor has ever been available.  \nThis paper proposes and demonstrates a way around that obstacle. The essential difficulty of  \n∗ ENEA, Centro Ricerche di Frascati, Frascati (RM), Italy. Corresponding author: [francesco.cordella@enea.it](francesco.cordella@enea.it). ORCID: 0000-0003-0731-5622 .  \n†ENEA, Centro Ricerche di Frascati, Frascati (RM), [Italy. mauro.cappelli@enea.it. ORCID:](Italy. mauro.cappelli@enea.it. ORCID:) 0000-0002-4344-6067.  \ncommunicating with a radically different mind is not the absence of a shared channel but the absence of shared categories: the other mind may cut the world along joints we do not have, fuse distinctions we keep separate, and lack dimensions we consider basic. That difficulty can be manufactured in the laboratory. We construct two artificial lexicons with deliberately incompatible category systems, assign each to a large language model (LLM) acting as a native informant, and give a fully scripted learner the task of translating between them. Because the lexicons are constructed, the experimenter holds complete ground truth—every claimed translation can be checked exactly— which is precisely what fieldwork with a real alien (or a re","cbCaijPojrIuaQrl","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaijPojrIuaQrl","pdf",554563,15,"English","# Introduction\n## Astrolinguistics as experimental protocol\n## Kangaroo effect and indeterminacy of translation\n## Two-level programme and behavioural verification","[{\"question\":\"What is the kangaroo effect in this paper?\",\"answer\":\"It is the silent attachment of a word to the wrong referent, modeled as Quine’s indeterminacy of translation where rival hypotheses only diverge on never-observed scenes.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the study make astrolinguistics experimentally testable?\",\"answer\":\"It constructs two deliberately incompatible lexicons, assigns them to large language model informants, and uses a fully scripted orchestrator and learner with complete ground truth so every claimed translation can be checked.\"},{\"question\":\"What mechanisms allow the protocol to intercept mistranslations?\",\"answer\":\"It combines cross-situational hypothesis elimination with pre-registered predictive probes, active scene selection, a stricter recovery round, and quarantine that can revoke incorrect promotions.\"}]","Intercepting the Kangaroo: Experimental Astrolinguistics with Constructed Lexicons - Active Probing, and Large Language Models as Informants and Hypothesis Proposers | PDF",38]