Pub Date : 2024-07-25DOI: 10.1163/22105832-bja10033
Sara Pacchiarotti, Guy Kouarata, Koen Bostoen
This article focuses on languages of the Kwilu-Ngounie subbranch within a branch of the Bantu language family known as West-Coastal Bantu. Within Kwilu-Ngounie, B70 and B80 languages emerge as paraphyletic in the most comprehensive lexicon-based phylogeny of the branch. We assess whether the impossibility to group them into lexicon-based monophyletic subgroups can be bypassed by using the phonological innovation of word-final loss of Proto-Bantu *ŋg as diagnostic of a new subgroup. It is hard to tell whether this new subgroup is a clade by descent or instead a taxon resulting from a contact-induced innovation affecting related varieties. The unconditioned reflexes of *ŋg across varieties signal that both language-internal lexical diffusion and contact-induced crosslinguistic spread of phonological innovation thwart the Neogrammarian axiom of flawlessly regular sound change. Beyond its relevance for low-level Bantu subgrouping, this article contributes to the methodological issue of conflicting lexical and diachronic phonological evidence for internal classification.
{"title":"Sound change versus lexical change for subgrouping: Word-final lenition of Proto-Bantu *ŋg in West-Coastal Bantu","authors":"Sara Pacchiarotti, Guy Kouarata, Koen Bostoen","doi":"10.1163/22105832-bja10033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-bja10033","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article focuses on languages of the Kwilu-Ngounie subbranch within a branch of the Bantu language family known as West-Coastal Bantu. Within Kwilu-Ngounie, B70 and B80 languages emerge as paraphyletic in the most comprehensive lexicon-based phylogeny of the branch. We assess whether the impossibility to group them into lexicon-based monophyletic subgroups can be bypassed by using the phonological innovation of word-final loss of Proto-Bantu *ŋg as diagnostic of a new subgroup. It is hard to tell whether this new subgroup is a clade by descent or instead a taxon resulting from a contact-induced innovation affecting related varieties. The unconditioned reflexes of *ŋg across varieties signal that both language-internal lexical diffusion and contact-induced crosslinguistic spread of phonological innovation thwart the Neogrammarian axiom of flawlessly regular sound change. Beyond its relevance for low-level Bantu subgrouping, this article contributes to the methodological issue of conflicting lexical and diachronic phonological evidence for internal classification.</p>","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141773486","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-16DOI: 10.1163/22105832-bja10032
Philipp Rönchen, Tilo Wiklund, Harald Hammarström
Computational methods of language dating make inferences about the divergence times of protolanguages by evaluating the patterns of inheritance in the vocabulary of modern languages, given the specification of a model of vocabulary evolution. We consider a model that describes vocabulary evolution as the replacement of traits by new traits from an infinite state space along a tree. This model has been introduced in previous literature but so far it has not been used in many applications. We give a general recursive algorithm for calculating likelihoods and argue that the model gives a more realistic representation of vocabulary evolution over time, compared to existing models like the Stochastic Dollo model. We also provide a case study demonstrating the model’s potential applications.
{"title":"Likelihood calculation in a multistate model of vocabulary evolution for linguistic dating","authors":"Philipp Rönchen, Tilo Wiklund, Harald Hammarström","doi":"10.1163/22105832-bja10032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-bja10032","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Computational methods of language dating make inferences about the divergence times of protolanguages by evaluating the patterns of inheritance in the vocabulary of modern languages, given the specification of a model of vocabulary evolution. We consider a model that describes vocabulary evolution as the replacement of traits by new traits from an infinite state space along a tree. This model has been introduced in previous literature but so far it has not been used in many applications. We give a general recursive algorithm for calculating likelihoods and argue that the model gives a more realistic representation of vocabulary evolution over time, compared to existing models like the Stochastic Dollo model. We also provide a case study demonstrating the model’s potential applications.</p>","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141718721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-13DOI: 10.1163/22105832-bja10031
Sandra Auderset
Despite the abundance of tonal languages around the world, the diachrony of tone is still poorly understood, especially when compared to segmental sound change. This lacuna has contributed to the untested assumption that tones are inherently unstable and change unpredictably. This paper addresses the questions of whether tones change faster than segments and whether tones show less phylogenetic signal than segments in the Mixtec languages of southern Mexico. To this end, I created a database of tonal and segmental sound changes across a sample of 42 Mixtec languages. I calculated phylogenetic signal with the metric D and estimated rates of change with a hidden Markov model across a posterior sample of phylogenetic trees. The results show that the majority of tone changes show phylogenetic signal and that they generally do not change at a faster rate than segments.
尽管全世界有大量的声调语言，但人们对声调的非同步性仍然知之甚少，尤其是与音段的声音变化相比。这一空白导致了一种未经验证的假设，即音调天生就不稳定，变化难以预测。本文探讨的问题是：在墨西哥南部的米斯特克语言中，声调的变化是否快于音段，以及声调是否比音段显示出更少的系统发育信号。为此，我创建了一个包含 42 种米克斯特克语言样本的音调和音段声音变化数据库。我用度量指标 D 计算了系统发生学信号，并用隐马尔可夫模型估计了系统发生树后样本的变化率。结果表明，大多数音调变化都显示出系统发生学信号，而且音调变化的速度一般不会快于音段变化的速度。
{"title":"Rates of change and phylogenetic signal in Mixtec tone","authors":"Sandra Auderset","doi":"10.1163/22105832-bja10031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-bja10031","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Despite the abundance of tonal languages around the world, the diachrony of tone is still poorly understood, especially when compared to segmental sound change. This lacuna has contributed to the untested assumption that tones are inherently unstable and change unpredictably. This paper addresses the questions of whether tones change faster than segments and whether tones show less phylogenetic signal than segments in the Mixtec languages of southern Mexico. To this end, I created a database of tonal and segmental sound changes across a sample of 42 Mixtec languages. I calculated phylogenetic signal with the metric <em>D</em> and estimated rates of change with a hidden Markov model across a posterior sample of phylogenetic trees. The results show that the majority of tone changes show phylogenetic signal and that they generally do not change at a faster rate than segments.</p>","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141512270","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1163/22105832-bja10030
David Beck
The Totonac branch of the Totonacan (also known as Totonac-Tepehua) family is traditionally broken down into four divisions—Misantla, Northern, Sierra, and Lowland. Misantla is an obvious outlier, but the relationship among the remaining three, which comprise the Central Totonac division, is uncertain due to competing lines of evidence: lexical isoglosses group Sierra and Lowland against Northern while morphological changes appear to set Sierra off against the other two. The spatial distribution of the morphological innovations shows these not to be a coherent set of changes inherited from a common ancestor, but instead a series of successive innovations diffused in a wave-like pattern. This paper also demonstrates that the morphological innovations are more recent than the lexical changes, supporting the prior separation of Sierra-Lowland languages from Northern. The paper also explores the methodological issues associated with the classification of languages in close contact at shallow time depths.
{"title":"Morphological diffusion and the internal subgrouping of Central Totonac","authors":"David Beck","doi":"10.1163/22105832-bja10030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-bja10030","url":null,"abstract":"The Totonac branch of the Totonacan (also known as Totonac-Tepehua) family is traditionally broken down into four divisions—Misantla, Northern, Sierra, and Lowland. Misantla is an obvious outlier, but the relationship among the remaining three, which comprise the Central Totonac division, is uncertain due to competing lines of evidence: lexical isoglosses group Sierra and Lowland against Northern while morphological changes appear to set Sierra off against the other two. The spatial distribution of the morphological innovations shows these not to be a coherent set of changes inherited from a common ancestor, but instead a series of successive innovations diffused in a wave-like pattern. This paper also demonstrates that the morphological innovations are more recent than the lexical changes, supporting the prior separation of Sierra-Lowland languages from Northern. The paper also explores the methodological issues associated with the classification of languages in close contact at shallow time depths.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138514141","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1163/22105832-bja10029
Matías Guzmán Naranjo, Søren Wichmann
Previous work using lexical data from around the world has suggested that distances between language varieties are distributed such that varieties are typically either rather similar, qualifying as dialects of the same language, or rather dissimilar, qualifying as different languages, with a scarcity of varieties that are around halfway similar. Using a potentially biased sample, Wichmann (2019) observed that there is a bimodal distribution of distances with two roughly normal distributions separated by a valley. Here we test whether a similar distribution is found when using another source of data and an unbiased sample drawn from the cells of a geographical grid (of central Europe). The data consists of 18 lexemes from 274 doculects. Using Bayesian beta regression and leave-one-out cross-validation, we show that the data follows a bimodal distribution which is robust to sampling, and also to at least some aspects of the data (coarse- vs. fine-grained phonetic transcriptions).
{"title":"The halfway similarity avoidance rule replicated using phonetic data from European language varieties","authors":"Matías Guzmán Naranjo, Søren Wichmann","doi":"10.1163/22105832-bja10029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-bja10029","url":null,"abstract":"Previous work using lexical data from around the world has suggested that distances between language varieties are distributed such that varieties are typically either rather similar, qualifying as dialects of the same language, or rather dissimilar, qualifying as different languages, with a scarcity of varieties that are around halfway similar. Using a potentially biased sample, Wichmann (2019) observed that there is a bimodal distribution of distances with two roughly normal distributions separated by a valley. Here we test whether a similar distribution is found when using another source of data and an unbiased sample drawn from the cells of a geographical grid (of central Europe). The data consists of 18 lexemes from 274 doculects. Using Bayesian beta regression and leave-one-out cross-validation, we show that the data follows a bimodal distribution which is robust to sampling, and also to at least some aspects of the data (coarse- vs. fine-grained phonetic transcriptions).","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138514153","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1163/22105832-bja10028
Rajend Mesthrie, Lulu Mfazwe-Mojapelo
Abstract Although code-switching has been quite well studied as a worldwide phenomenon, closer attention to effects on the more localized language involved is needed, especially in the repertoires of younger, well-educated speakers speaking in a multilingual mode. We argue that their language shows creativity going well beyond older instances of borrowing and code-switching into a “third space” grammar, which shows an active and creative synthesis of at least two languages. This study is based on interview data with 37 speakers of Xhosa in Soweto, South Africa. It focuses on (a) the verb suffix - isha as a marker of multilingual Xhosa par excellence, (b) a new lease of life given to the class 14 prefix ubu- in connection with (mainly) Latinate adjectives from English, and (c) the interchangeability of logical connectors across the third space.
{"title":"Speaking Xhosa multilingually","authors":"Rajend Mesthrie, Lulu Mfazwe-Mojapelo","doi":"10.1163/22105832-bja10028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-bja10028","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Although code-switching has been quite well studied as a worldwide phenomenon, closer attention to effects on the more localized language involved is needed, especially in the repertoires of younger, well-educated speakers speaking in a multilingual mode. We argue that their language shows creativity going well beyond older instances of borrowing and code-switching into a “third space” grammar, which shows an active and creative synthesis of at least two languages. This study is based on interview data with 37 speakers of Xhosa in Soweto, South Africa. It focuses on (a) the verb suffix - isha as a marker of multilingual Xhosa par excellence, (b) a new lease of life given to the class 14 prefix ubu- in connection with (mainly) Latinate adjectives from English, and (c) the interchangeability of logical connectors across the third space.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135372203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-02DOI: 10.1163/22105832-bja10027
Barbara Sonnenhauser, Blertë Ismajli, P. Widmer
Migration events splitting speaker communities and establishing novel contact situations are among the major drivers of language variation and change. While the precise processes that lead to change cannot usually be determined for past events with any certainty, the study of minority and heritage language usage in apparent time may provide insight into the contribution of the linguistic behavior underlying the dynamics. We capitalize on this and compare parts of speech usage in Pear Story renarrations across Gheg Albanian speakers of three generations in German-speaking environments, applying methods from information theory. The results suggest that the changing conventions in parts of speech usage across generations and places of residence can be attributed to changing linguistic behavior within the speaker community in the migration setting. These findings highlight the impact of changing sociocultural embedding and the roles of vertical and horizontal transmission in language change.
{"title":"Pairing peers and pears","authors":"Barbara Sonnenhauser, Blertë Ismajli, P. Widmer","doi":"10.1163/22105832-bja10027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-bja10027","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Migration events splitting speaker communities and establishing novel contact situations are among the major drivers of language variation and change. While the precise processes that lead to change cannot usually be determined for past events with any certainty, the study of minority and heritage language usage in apparent time may provide insight into the contribution of the linguistic behavior underlying the dynamics. We capitalize on this and compare parts of speech usage in Pear Story renarrations across Gheg Albanian speakers of three generations in German-speaking environments, applying methods from information theory. The results suggest that the changing conventions in parts of speech usage across generations and places of residence can be attributed to changing linguistic behavior within the speaker community in the migration setting. These findings highlight the impact of changing sociocultural embedding and the roles of vertical and horizontal transmission in language change.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46626325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-02DOI: 10.1163/22105832-bja10026
John Mansfield, Henry Leslie-O’Neill, Haoyi Li
This article presents a new type of comparative linguistic survey, analyzing (socio)linguistic variation in a database of 1,155 grammatical constructions drawn from 42 diverse languages. We focus in particular on variation in the expression of grammatical meanings, and the extent to which grammatical variation differentiates geographic dialects. This is the first study we know of to present a systematic, crosslinguistic survey of dialect differentiation. We identify three main structural types of grammatical variation—form, order, and omission—and find that in situations of close contact between dialects, where signaling of distinct group identities is more relevant, form variables are more likely to differentiate dialects than the other two types. Order and omission variables usually only differentiate dialects that have minimal contact. Our survey suggests that social signaling may have a substantial role in the divergence of grammars, and provides systematic support for previous proposals regarding convergence and divergence under contact.
{"title":"Dialect differences and linguistic divergence","authors":"John Mansfield, Henry Leslie-O’Neill, Haoyi Li","doi":"10.1163/22105832-bja10026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-bja10026","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article presents a new type of comparative linguistic survey, analyzing (socio)linguistic variation in a database of 1,155 grammatical constructions drawn from 42 diverse languages. We focus in particular on variation in the expression of grammatical meanings, and the extent to which grammatical variation differentiates geographic dialects. This is the first study we know of to present a systematic, crosslinguistic survey of dialect differentiation. We identify three main structural types of grammatical variation—form, order, and omission—and find that in situations of close contact between dialects, where signaling of distinct group identities is more relevant, form variables are more likely to differentiate dialects than the other two types. Order and omission variables usually only differentiate dialects that have minimal contact. Our survey suggests that social signaling may have a substantial role in the divergence of grammars, and provides systematic support for previous proposals regarding convergence and divergence under contact.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49155543","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-02DOI: 10.1163/22105832-bja10025
Erica Biagetti, G. Inglese, C. Zanchi, S. Luraghi
Word order is a central issue in the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European syntax. Categorical approaches have proved to be inadequate because they postulate for the protolanguage a typological consistency which is absent in any of the attested daughter languages. Following recent research, we adopt a gradient approach to word order, which treats word order preferences as a continuous variable. We analyze four word order patterns based on data extracted from treebanks of ancient Indo-European languages. After presenting our results for AdpN/NAdp, GN/NG, AN/NA, and OV/VO, we draw a number of conclusions concerning variation within individual languages, crosslinguistic variation, and variation in diachrony that support the claim that variability should be taken as the normal state across languages, including reconstructed stages. We conclude that a non-discrete approach has the advantage of leading to a reconstruction that better conforms to the situation known from real languages, with variation as a key feature.
{"title":"Reconstructing variation in Indo-European word order","authors":"Erica Biagetti, G. Inglese, C. Zanchi, S. Luraghi","doi":"10.1163/22105832-bja10025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-bja10025","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Word order is a central issue in the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European syntax. Categorical approaches have proved to be inadequate because they postulate for the protolanguage a typological consistency which is absent in any of the attested daughter languages. Following recent research, we adopt a gradient approach to word order, which treats word order preferences as a continuous variable. We analyze four word order patterns based on data extracted from treebanks of ancient Indo-European languages. After presenting our results for AdpN/NAdp, GN/NG, AN/NA, and OV/VO, we draw a number of conclusions concerning variation within individual languages, crosslinguistic variation, and variation in diachrony that support the claim that variability should be taken as the normal state across languages, including reconstructed stages. We conclude that a non-discrete approach has the advantage of leading to a reconstruction that better conforms to the situation known from real languages, with variation as a key feature.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47383842","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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