Beyond lexicostatistics
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Paul Heggarty
Abstract
This article surveys various long-standing ambiguities and confusions that continue to dog lexicostatistics and glottochronology. I aim to offer some novel perspectives and clarifications, which also help map out how we might devise new, alternative methods to build upon the good in Swadesh’s troubled legacy. I challenge the recent trend towards honing down Swadesh’s original list to a minimal core. A richer signal on language relationships is to be had not by discarding the data in meanings considered ‘unstable’, but by exploring the revealing patterns that emerge only when those meanings are kept, and contrasted against their ‘core’ counterparts.
Abstract
This article surveys various long-standing ambiguities and confusions that continue to dog lexicostatistics and glottochronology. I aim to offer some novel perspectives and clarifications, which also help map out how we might devise new, alternative methods to build upon the good in Swadesh’s troubled legacy. I challenge the recent trend towards honing down Swadesh’s original list to a minimal core. A richer signal on language relationships is to be had not by discarding the data in meanings considered ‘unstable’, but by exploring the revealing patterns that emerge only when those meanings are kept, and contrasted against their ‘core’ counterparts.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- Swadesh’s life and place in linguistics 1
- A full-scale test of the language farming dispersal hypothesis 7
- Do languages originate and become extinct at constant rates? 23
- Borrowability and the notion of basic vocabulary 35
- Homelands of the world’s language families 57
- On using qualitative lexicostatistics to illuminate language history 87
- Beyond lexicostatistics 113
- Phonetic comparison, varieties, and networks 139
- A stochastic local search approach to language tree reconstruction 155
- Author index 173
- Index of languages and language groups 177
- Subject index 181
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- Swadesh’s life and place in linguistics 1
- A full-scale test of the language farming dispersal hypothesis 7
- Do languages originate and become extinct at constant rates? 23
- Borrowability and the notion of basic vocabulary 35
- Homelands of the world’s language families 57
- On using qualitative lexicostatistics to illuminate language history 87
- Beyond lexicostatistics 113
- Phonetic comparison, varieties, and networks 139
- A stochastic local search approach to language tree reconstruction 155
- Author index 173
- Index of languages and language groups 177
- Subject index 181
