Gradual Modifications and Abrupt Replacements: Two Stochastic Lexical Ingredients of Language Evolution
The evolution of the vocabulary of a language is characterized by two different random processes: abrupt lexical replacements, when a complete new word emerges to represent a given concept (which was at the basis of the Swadesh foundation of glottochronology in the 1950s), and gradual lexical modifi...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
The MIT Press
2023-06-01
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| Series: | Computational Linguistics |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/coli_a_00471 |
| _version_ | 1797795429323112448 |
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| author | Michele Pasquini Maurizio Serva Davide Vergni |
| author_facet | Michele Pasquini Maurizio Serva Davide Vergni |
| author_sort | Michele Pasquini |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The evolution of the vocabulary of a language is characterized by two different random processes: abrupt lexical replacements, when a complete new word emerges to represent a given concept (which was at the basis of the Swadesh foundation of glottochronology in the 1950s), and gradual lexical modifications that progressively alter words over the centuries, considered here in detail for the first time. The main discriminant between these two processes is their impact on cognacy within a family of languages or dialects, since the former modifies the subsets of cognate terms and the latter does not. The automated cognate detection, which is here performed following a new approach inspired by graph theory, is a key preliminary step that allows us to later measure the effects of the slow modification process. We test our dual approach on the family of Malagasy dialects using a cladistic analysis, which provides strong
evidence that lexical replacements and gradual lexical modifications are two random processes that separately drive the evolution of languages. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-13T03:17:48Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-14f866135de540c3904ea620d15c71f2 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1530-9312 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-13T03:17:48Z |
| publishDate | 2023-06-01 |
| publisher | The MIT Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Computational Linguistics |
| spelling | doaj.art-14f866135de540c3904ea620d15c71f22023-06-25T14:00:53ZengThe MIT PressComputational Linguistics1530-93122023-06-0149210.1162/coli_a_00471Gradual Modifications and Abrupt Replacements: Two Stochastic Lexical Ingredients of Language EvolutionMichele PasquiniMaurizio ServaDavide VergniThe evolution of the vocabulary of a language is characterized by two different random processes: abrupt lexical replacements, when a complete new word emerges to represent a given concept (which was at the basis of the Swadesh foundation of glottochronology in the 1950s), and gradual lexical modifications that progressively alter words over the centuries, considered here in detail for the first time. The main discriminant between these two processes is their impact on cognacy within a family of languages or dialects, since the former modifies the subsets of cognate terms and the latter does not. The automated cognate detection, which is here performed following a new approach inspired by graph theory, is a key preliminary step that allows us to later measure the effects of the slow modification process. We test our dual approach on the family of Malagasy dialects using a cladistic analysis, which provides strong evidence that lexical replacements and gradual lexical modifications are two random processes that separately drive the evolution of languages.http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/coli_a_00471 |
| spellingShingle | Michele Pasquini Maurizio Serva Davide Vergni Gradual Modifications and Abrupt Replacements: Two Stochastic Lexical Ingredients of Language Evolution Computational Linguistics |
| title | Gradual Modifications and Abrupt Replacements: Two Stochastic Lexical Ingredients of Language Evolution |
| title_full | Gradual Modifications and Abrupt Replacements: Two Stochastic Lexical Ingredients of Language Evolution |
| title_fullStr | Gradual Modifications and Abrupt Replacements: Two Stochastic Lexical Ingredients of Language Evolution |
| title_full_unstemmed | Gradual Modifications and Abrupt Replacements: Two Stochastic Lexical Ingredients of Language Evolution |
| title_short | Gradual Modifications and Abrupt Replacements: Two Stochastic Lexical Ingredients of Language Evolution |
| title_sort | gradual modifications and abrupt replacements two stochastic lexical ingredients of language evolution |
| url | http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/coli_a_00471 |
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