The comparative method has enabled us to trace distant phylogenetic relationships among languages and reconstruct extinct languages from the past. Nonetheless, it has limitations, mostly resulting from the circumstance that languages also change by contact with unrelated languages and in response to external factors, particularly, aspects of human cognition and features of our physical and cultural environments. In this paper, it is argued that the limitations of historical linguistics can be partially alleviated by the consideration of the links between language structure and the biological underpinnings of human language, human cognition, and human behaviour, and specifically, of human self-domestication (that is, the existence in humans of features of domesticated mammals). Overall, we can expect that the languages spoken in remote prehistory exhibited most of the features of the so-called esoteric languages, which are used by present-day, close-knit, small human communities that share a great deal of knowledge about their environment.
{"title":"Prehistoric languages and human self-domestication","authors":"A. Benítez‐Burraco","doi":"10.31234/osf.io/v6m2b","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/v6m2b","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The comparative method has enabled us to trace distant phylogenetic relationships among languages and reconstruct extinct languages from the past. Nonetheless, it has limitations, mostly resulting from the circumstance that languages also change by contact with unrelated languages and in response to external factors, particularly, aspects of human cognition and features of our physical and cultural environments. In this paper, it is argued that the limitations of historical linguistics can be partially alleviated by the consideration of the links between language structure and the biological underpinnings of human language, human cognition, and human behaviour, and specifically, of human self-domestication (that is, the existence in humans of features of domesticated mammals). Overall, we can expect that the languages spoken in remote prehistory exhibited most of the features of the so-called esoteric languages, which are used by present-day, close-knit, small human communities that share a great deal of knowledge about their environment.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42883116","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 : 2018-11-16DOI: 10.1163/22105832-00802006
Katia Chirkova, T. Gong
Convergence is an oft-used notion in contact linguistics and historical linguistics. Yet it is problematic as an explanatory account for the changes it represents. In this study, we model one specific case of convergence (Duoxu, an endangered Tibeto-Burman language with 9 remaining speakers) to contribute to a more systematic understanding of the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon. The goals are (1) to address the role of some linguistic and social factors assumed to have an effect on the process of convergence, and (2) to test the following explanations of empirical observations related to phonological convergence: (a) the loss of phonological segments in a language that has undergone convergence is correlated with the relative frequency and markedness of these segments in the combined bilingual repertoire, and (b) widespread bilingualism is a prerequisite for convergence. The results of our agent-based simulation affirm the importance of frequency and markedness of phonological segments in the process of convergence. At the same time, they suggest that the explanation related to widespread bilingualism may not be valid. Our study suggests computer simulations as a promising tool for investigation of complex cases of language change in contact settings.
{"title":"Modeling change in contact settings","authors":"Katia Chirkova, T. Gong","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00802006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00802006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Convergence is an oft-used notion in contact linguistics and historical linguistics. Yet it is problematic as an explanatory account for the changes it represents. In this study, we model one specific case of convergence (Duoxu, an endangered Tibeto-Burman language with 9 remaining speakers) to contribute to a more systematic understanding of the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon. The goals are (1) to address the role of some linguistic and social factors assumed to have an effect on the process of convergence, and (2) to test the following explanations of empirical observations related to phonological convergence: (a) the loss of phonological segments in a language that has undergone convergence is correlated with the relative frequency and markedness of these segments in the combined bilingual repertoire, and (b) widespread bilingualism is a prerequisite for convergence. The results of our agent-based simulation affirm the importance of frequency and markedness of phonological segments in the process of convergence. At the same time, they suggest that the explanation related to widespread bilingualism may not be valid. Our study suggests computer simulations as a promising tool for investigation of complex cases of language change in contact settings.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00802006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43197181","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 : 2018-10-01DOI: 10.1163/22105832-00802002
Andreas Baumann, Lotte Sommerer
This paper tries to narrow the gap between diachronic linguistics and research on population dynamics by presenting a mathematical model corroborating the notion that the cognitive mechanism of asymmetric priming can account for observable tendencies in language change. The asymmetric-priming hypothesis asserts that items with more substance are more likely to prime items with less substance than the reverse. Although these effects operate on a very short time scale (e.g. within an utterance) it has been argued that their long-term effect might be reductionist, unidirectional processes in language change. In this paper, we study a mathematical model of the interaction of linguistic items that differ in their formal substance, showing that, in addition to reductionist effects, asymmetric priming also results in diversification and stable coexistence of two formally related variants. The model will be applied to phenomena in the sublexical as well as the lexical domain.
{"title":"Linguistic diversification as a long-term effect of asymmetric priming","authors":"Andreas Baumann, Lotte Sommerer","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00802002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00802002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper tries to narrow the gap between diachronic linguistics and research on population dynamics by presenting a mathematical model corroborating the notion that the cognitive mechanism of asymmetric priming can account for observable tendencies in language change. The asymmetric-priming hypothesis asserts that items with more substance are more likely to prime items with less substance than the reverse. Although these effects operate on a very short time scale (e.g. within an utterance) it has been argued that their long-term effect might be reductionist, unidirectional processes in language change. In this paper, we study a mathematical model of the interaction of linguistic items that differ in their formal substance, showing that, in addition to reductionist effects, asymmetric priming also results in diversification and stable coexistence of two formally related variants. The model will be applied to phenomena in the sublexical as well as the lexical domain.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00802002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48624610","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 : 2018-10-01DOI: 10.1163/22105832-00802004
Andres Karjus, Martin Ehala
The paper outlines an agent-based model for language choice in multilingual communities and tests its performance on samples of data drawn from a large-scale sociolinguistic survey carried out in Estonia. While previous research in the field of language competition has focused on diachronic applications, utilizing rather abstract models of uniform speakers, we aim to model synchronic language competition among more realistic, data-based agents. We hypothesized that a reasonably parametrized simulation of interactions between agents endowed with interaction principles grounded in sociolinguistic research would give rise to a network structure resembling real-world social networks, and that the distribution of languages used in the model would resemble their actual usage distribution. The simulation was reasonably successful in replicating the real-world scenarios, while further analysis revealed that the model parameters differ in importance between samples. We conclude that such variation should be considered in parametrizing future language choice and competition models.
{"title":"Testing an agent-based model of language choice on sociolinguistic survey data","authors":"Andres Karjus, Martin Ehala","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00802004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00802004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The paper outlines an agent-based model for language choice in multilingual communities and tests its performance on samples of data drawn from a large-scale sociolinguistic survey carried out in Estonia. While previous research in the field of language competition has focused on diachronic applications, utilizing rather abstract models of uniform speakers, we aim to model synchronic language competition among more realistic, data-based agents. We hypothesized that a reasonably parametrized simulation of interactions between agents endowed with interaction principles grounded in sociolinguistic research would give rise to a network structure resembling real-world social networks, and that the distribution of languages used in the model would resemble their actual usage distribution. The simulation was reasonably successful in replicating the real-world scenarios, while further analysis revealed that the model parameters differ in importance between samples. We conclude that such variation should be considered in parametrizing future language choice and competition models.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00802004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43836082","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 : 2018-10-01DOI: 10.1163/22105832-00802001
Johannes Dellert, Armin Buch
Based on a recently published large-scale lexicostatistical database, we rank 1,016 concepts by their suitability for inclusion in Swadesh-style lists of basic stable concepts. For this, we define separate measures of basicness and stability. Basicness in the sense of morphological simplicity is measured based on information content, a generalization of word length which corrects for distorting effects of phoneme inventory sizes, phonotactics and non-stem morphemes in dictionary forms. Stability against replacement by semantic shift or borrowing is measured by sampling independent language pairs, and correlating the distances between the forms for the concept with the overall language distances. In order to determine the relative importance of basicness and stability, we optimize our combination of the two partial measures towards similarity with existing lists. A comparison with and among existing rankings suggests that concept rankings are highly data-dependent and therefore less well-grounded than previously assumed. To explore this issue, we evaluate the robustness of our ranking against language pair resampling, allowing us to assess how much volatility can be expected, and showing that only about half of the concepts on a list based on our ranking can safely be assumed to belong on the list independently of the data.
{"title":"A new approach to concept basicness and stability as a window to the robustness of concept list rankings","authors":"Johannes Dellert, Armin Buch","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00802001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00802001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Based on a recently published large-scale lexicostatistical database, we rank 1,016 concepts by their suitability for inclusion in Swadesh-style lists of basic stable concepts. For this, we define separate measures of basicness and stability. Basicness in the sense of morphological simplicity is measured based on information content, a generalization of word length which corrects for distorting effects of phoneme inventory sizes, phonotactics and non-stem morphemes in dictionary forms. Stability against replacement by semantic shift or borrowing is measured by sampling independent language pairs, and correlating the distances between the forms for the concept with the overall language distances. In order to determine the relative importance of basicness and stability, we optimize our combination of the two partial measures towards similarity with existing lists. A comparison with and among existing rankings suggests that concept rankings are highly data-dependent and therefore less well-grounded than previously assumed. To explore this issue, we evaluate the robustness of our ranking against language pair resampling, allowing us to assess how much volatility can be expected, and showing that only about half of the concepts on a list based on our ranking can safely be assumed to belong on the list independently of the data.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00802001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44656488","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 : 2018-06-22DOI: 10.1163/22105832-00801002
Gerhard Jäger, Johann-Mattis List
Current efforts in computational historical linguistics are predominantly concerned with phylogenetic inference. Methods for ancestral state reconstruction have only been applied sporadically. In contrast to phylogenetic algorithms, automatic reconstruction methods presuppose phylogenetic information in order to explain what has evolved when and where. Here we report a pilot study exploring how well automatic methods for ancestral state reconstruction perform in the task of onomasiological reconstruction in multilingual word lists, where algorithms are used to infer how the words evolved along a given phylogeny, and reconstruct which cognate classes were used to express a given meaning in the ancestral languages. Comparing three different methods, Maximum Parsimony, Minimal Lateral Networks, and Maximum Likelihood on three different test sets (Indo-European, Austronesian, Chinese) using binary and multi-state coding of the data as well as single and sampled phylogenies, we find that Maximum Likelihood largely outperforms the other methods. At the same time, however, the general performance was disappointingly low, ranging between 0.66 (Chinese) and 0.79 (Austronesian) for the F-Scores. A closer linguistic evaluation of the reconstructions proposed by the best method and the reconstructions given in the gold standards revealed that the majority of the cases where the algorithms failed can be attributed to problems of independent semantic shift (homoplasy), to morphological processes in lexical change, and to wrong reconstructions in the independently created test sets that we employed.
{"title":"Using ancestral state reconstruction methods for onomasiological reconstruction in multilingual word lists","authors":"Gerhard Jäger, Johann-Mattis List","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00801002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00801002","url":null,"abstract":"Current efforts in computational historical linguistics are predominantly concerned with phylogenetic inference. Methods for ancestral state reconstruction have only been applied sporadically. In contrast to phylogenetic algorithms, automatic reconstruction methods presuppose phylogenetic information in order to explain what has evolved when and where. Here we report a pilot study exploring how well automatic methods for ancestral state reconstruction perform in the task of onomasiological reconstruction in multilingual word lists, where algorithms are used to infer how the words evolved along a given phylogeny, and reconstruct which cognate classes were used to express a given meaning in the ancestral languages. Comparing three different methods, Maximum Parsimony, Minimal Lateral Networks, and Maximum Likelihood on three different test sets (Indo-European, Austronesian, Chinese) using binary and multi-state coding of the data as well as single and sampled phylogenies, we find that Maximum Likelihood largely outperforms the other methods. At the same time, however, the general performance was disappointingly low, ranging between 0.66 (Chinese) and 0.79 (Austronesian) for the F-Scores. A closer linguistic evaluation of the reconstructions proposed by the best method and the reconstructions given in the gold standards revealed that the majority of the cases where the algorithms failed can be attributed to problems of independent semantic shift (homoplasy), to morphological processes in lexical change, and to wrong reconstructions in the independently created test sets that we employed.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00801002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47493958","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 : 2018-06-22DOI: 10.1163/22105832-00801001
D. Dediu
One of the best-known types of non-independence between languages is caused by genealogical relationships due to descent from a common ancestor. These can be represented by (more or less resolved and controversial) language family trees. In theory, one can argue that language families should be built through the strict application of the comparative method of historical linguistics, but in practice this is not always the case, and there are several proposed classifications of languages into language families, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. A major stumbling block shared by most of them is that they are relatively difficult to use with computational methods, and in particular with phylogenetics. This is due to their lack of standardization, coupled with the general non-availability of branch length information, which encapsulates the amount of evolution taking place on the family tree. In this paper I introduce a method (and its implementation in R) that converts the language classifications provided by four widely-used databases (Ethnologue, WALS, AUTOTYP and Glottolog) into the de facto Newick standard generally used in phylogenetics, aligns the four most used conventions for unique identifiers of linguistic entities (ISO 639-3, WALS, AUTOTYP and Glottocode), and adds branch length information from a variety of sources (the tree’s own topology, an externally given numeric constant, or a distance matrix). The R scripts, input data and resulting Newick trees are available under liberal open-source licenses in a GitHub repository (https://github.com/ddediu/lgfam-newick), to encourage and promote the use of phylogenetic methods to investigate linguistic diversity and its temporal dynamics.
{"title":"Making genealogical language classifications available for phylogenetic analysis","authors":"D. Dediu","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00801001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00801001","url":null,"abstract":"One of the best-known types of non-independence between languages is caused by genealogical relationships due to descent from a common ancestor. These can be represented by (more or less resolved and controversial) language family trees. In theory, one can argue that language families should be built through the strict application of the comparative method of historical linguistics, but in practice this is not always the case, and there are several proposed classifications of languages into language families, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. A major stumbling block shared by most of them is that they are relatively difficult to use with computational methods, and in particular with phylogenetics. This is due to their lack of standardization, coupled with the general non-availability of branch length information, which encapsulates the amount of evolution taking place on the family tree. In this paper I introduce a method (and its implementation in R) that converts the language classifications provided by four widely-used databases (Ethnologue, WALS, AUTOTYP and Glottolog) into the de facto Newick standard generally used in phylogenetics, aligns the four most used conventions for unique identifiers of linguistic entities (ISO 639-3, WALS, AUTOTYP and Glottocode), and adds branch length information from a variety of sources (the tree’s own topology, an externally given numeric constant, or a distance matrix). The R scripts, input data and resulting Newick trees are available under liberal open-source licenses in a GitHub repository (https://github.com/ddediu/lgfam-newick), to encourage and promote the use of phylogenetic methods to investigate linguistic diversity and its temporal dynamics.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00801001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47214855","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 : 2018-06-22DOI: 10.1163/22105832-00801007
I. Yanovich
Lexical datasets used for computational phylogenetic inference suffer a unique type of data error. Some words actually present in a language may be absent from the dataset at no fault of its curators: especially for lesser-studied languages, a word may be missing from all available sources such as dictionaries. It is thus important to be able to (i) check how robust one’s inferences are to dictionary omission errors, and (ii) incorporate the knowledge that such errors may be present into one’s inference. I introduce two simple techniques that work towards those goals, and study the possible effects of dictionary omission errors in two real-life case studies on the Lezgian and Uralic datasets from Kassian (2015) and Syrjänen et al. (2013), respectively. The effects of dictionary omission turn out to be moderate (Lezgian) to negligible (Uralic), and certainly far less significant than the possible effects of modeling choices, including priors, on the inferred phylogeny, as demonstrated in the Uralic case study. Assessing the possible effects of dictionary omissions is advisable, but severe problems are unlikely. Collecting significantly larger lexical datasets, in order to overcome sensitivity to priors, is likely more important than expending resources on verifying data against dictionary omissions.
{"title":"The effect of dictionary omissions on phylogenies computationally inferred from lexical data","authors":"I. Yanovich","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00801007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00801007","url":null,"abstract":"Lexical datasets used for computational phylogenetic inference suffer a unique type of data error. Some words actually present in a language may be absent from the dataset at no fault of its curators: especially for lesser-studied languages, a word may be missing from all available sources such as dictionaries. It is thus important to be able to (i) check how robust one’s inferences are to dictionary omission errors, and (ii) incorporate the knowledge that such errors may be present into one’s inference. I introduce two simple techniques that work towards those goals, and study the possible effects of dictionary omission errors in two real-life case studies on the Lezgian and Uralic datasets from Kassian (2015) and Syrjänen et al. (2013), respectively. The effects of dictionary omission turn out to be moderate (Lezgian) to negligible (Uralic), and certainly far less significant than the possible effects of modeling choices, including priors, on the inferred phylogeny, as demonstrated in the Uralic case study. Assessing the possible effects of dictionary omissions is advisable, but severe problems are unlikely. Collecting significantly larger lexical datasets, in order to overcome sensitivity to priors, is likely more important than expending resources on verifying data against dictionary omissions.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00801007","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45453654","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 : 2018-06-22DOI: 10.1163/22105832-00801006
J. Heath
{"title":"Halfway up the mountain","authors":"J. Heath","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00801006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00801006","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00801006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46034970","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 : 2018-06-22DOI: 10.1163/22105832-00801005
J. DeLisi
This paper examines the relationship between typology and historical linguistics through a case study from the history of Armenian, where two different stress systems are found in the modern language. The first is a penult system with no associated secondary stress ([… σ́σ]ω). The other, the so-called hammock pattern, has primary stress on the final syllable and secondary stress on the initial syllable of the prosodic word ([σ̀ … σ́]ω). Although penult stress patterns are by far more typologically common than the hammock pattern in the world’s languages, I will argue that the hammock pattern must be reconstructed for the period of shared innovation, the Proto-Armenian period.
{"title":"Armenian prosody in typology and diachrony","authors":"J. DeLisi","doi":"10.1163/22105832-00801005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00801005","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the relationship between typology and historical linguistics through a case study from the history of Armenian, where two different stress systems are found in the modern language. The first is a penult system with no associated secondary stress ([… σ́σ]ω). The other, the so-called hammock pattern, has primary stress on the final syllable and secondary stress on the initial syllable of the prosodic word ([σ̀ … σ́]ω). Although penult stress patterns are by far more typologically common than the hammock pattern in the world’s languages, I will argue that the hammock pattern must be reconstructed for the period of shared innovation, the Proto-Armenian period.","PeriodicalId":43113,"journal":{"name":"Language Dynamics and Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/22105832-00801005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48887423","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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