Which parts of language are the most stable?
Abstract
This paper presents an algorithm intended to quantify the diachronic stability of linguistic characteristics. It is argued that a linguistic feature whose presence or absence is best predicted by language families is a stable feature. Conversely, a feature that correlates better with geographical areas than with families is one that is sensitive to diffusion. Contrasting the structural heterogeneity within families with that found within geographical areas, it is thus possible to make a statement regarding the varying diachronic stability of specific features. While the main aim of the paper is methodological exploration, and while the method certainly not devoid of problems, I propose that the current approach can be useful in studies of language contact and long-range historical comparison.
© by Akademie Verlag, Berlin, Germany
Articles in the same Issue
- Using the World Atlas of Language Structures
- LINFER: inferring implications from the WALS database
- Meta-typological distributions
- An exercise in a posteriori language sampling
- A refined sampling procedure for genealogical control
- Which parts of language are the most stable?
- A stability metric for typological features
- Analyzing feature consistency using dissimilarity matrices
Articles in the same Issue
- Using the World Atlas of Language Structures
- LINFER: inferring implications from the WALS database
- Meta-typological distributions
- An exercise in a posteriori language sampling
- A refined sampling procedure for genealogical control
- Which parts of language are the most stable?
- A stability metric for typological features
- Analyzing feature consistency using dissimilarity matrices
