Annemarie Verkerk

Adaptive Communication: Languages with More Non-Native Speakers Tend to Have Fewer Word Forms

Explaining the diversity of languages across the world is one of the central aims of typological, historical, and evolutionary linguistics. We consider the effect of language contact-the number of non-native speakers a language has-on the way languages change and evolve. By analysing hundreds of languages within and across language families, regions, and text types, we show that languages with greater levels of contact typically employ fewer word forms to encode the same information content (a property we refer to as lexical diversity). Based on three types of statistical analyses, we demonstrate that this variance can in part be explained by the impact of non-native speakers on information encoding strategies. Finally, we argue that languages are information encoding systems shaped by the varying needs of their speakers. Language evolution and change should be modeled as the co-evolution of multiple intertwined adaptive systems: On one hand, the structure of human societies and human learning capabilities, and on the other, the structure of language.

The correlation between motion event encoding and path verb lexicon size in the Indo-European language family

Abstract There have been opposing views on the possibility of a relationship between motion event encoding and the size of the path verb lexicon. Özçalışkan (2004) has proposed that verb-framed and satellite-framed languages should approximately have the same number of path verbs, whereas a review of some of the literature suggests that verb-framed languages typically have a bigger path verb lexicon than satelliteframed languages. In this article I demonstrate that evidence for this correlation can be found through phylogenetic comparative analysis of parallel corpus data from twenty Indo-European languages.

Scramble, scurry and dash: The correlation between motion event encoding and manner verb lexicon size in Indo-European

In recent decades, much has been discovered about the different ways in which people can talk about motion (Talmy, 1985, 1991; Slobin, 1996, 1997, 2004). Slobin (1997) has suggestedthatsatellite-framedlanguagestypicallyhavealargerandmorediverselexiconofmannerofmotionverbs(suchas run,fly,andscramble)whencomparedtoverb-framedlanguages. Slobin (2004) has claimed that larger manner of motion verb lexicons originate over time because codability factors increase the accessibility of manner in satellite-framed languages. In this paper I investigate the dependency between the use of the satellite-framed encoding construction and the size of the manner verb lexicon. The data used come from 20 IndoEuropean languages. The methodology applied is a range of phylogenetic comparative methods adopted from biology, which allow for an investigation of this dependency while taking intoaccountthesharedhistorybetweenthese20languages.Theresultsprovideevidencethat Slobin’s hypothesis was correct, and indeed there seems to be a relationship between the use of the satellite-framed construction and the size of the manner verb lexicon.

A Bayesian phylogenetic study of the Dravidian language family

The Dravidian language family consists of about 80 varieties (Hammarström H. 2016 Glottolog 2.7) spoken by 220 million people across southern and central India and surrounding countries (Steever SB. 1998 In The Dravidian languages (ed. SB Steever), pp. 1–39: 1). Neither the geographical origin of the Dravidian language homeland nor its exact dispersal through time are known. The history of these languages is crucial for understanding prehistory in Eurasia, because despite their current restricted range, these languages played a significant role in influencing other language groups including Indo-Aryan (Indo-European) and Munda (Austroasiatic) speakers. Here, we report the results of a Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of cognate-coded lexical data, elicited first hand from native speakers, to investigate the subgrouping of the Dravidian language family, and provide dates for the major points of diversification. Our results indicate that the Dravidian language family is approximately 4500 years old, a finding that corresponds well with earlier linguistic and archaeological studies. The main branches of the Dravidian language family (North, Central, South I, South II) are recovered, although the placement of languages within these main branches diverges from previous classifications. We find considerable uncertainty with regard to the relationships between the main branches.

Language family trees reflect geography and demography beyond neutral drift

Languages constantly evolve. Language families unfold in time and space, and span the globe. A core question of evolutionary linguistics is whether this remarkable diversity is the outcome of mere neutral drift, or if further pressures relating to geography, climate, population size, and human biology guide diversification. We apply phylogenetic signal analyses to measure the reflection of longitudes, latitudes, altitudes and population sizes on language family trees. In particular, we evaluate the evidence that language family tree structure and external factors have evolved completely independently (phylogenetic signal of zero), if they have evolved by neutral drift (phylogenetic signal of one), or whether there are further adaptive and non-adaptive pressures at play (phylogenetic signal between zero and one or bigger than one).

The evolution of language families is shaped by the environment beyond neutral drift

There are more than 7,000 languages spoken in the world today1. It has been argued that the natural and social environment of languages drives this diversity2–13. However, a fundamental question is how strong are environmental pressures, and does neutral drift suffice as a mechanism to explain diversification? We estimate the phylogenetic signals of geographic dimensions, distance to water, climate and population size on more than 6,000 phylogenetic trees of 46 language families. Phylogenetic signals of environmental factors are generally stronger than expected under the null hypothesis of no relationship with the shape of family trees. Importantly, they are also—in most cases—not compatible with neutral drift models of constant-rate change across the family tree branches. Our results suggest that language diversification is driven by further adaptive and non-adaptive pressures. Language diversity cannot be understood without modelling the pressures that physical, ecological and social factors exert on language users in different environments across the globe.Bentz et al. estimate the phylogenetic signals of environmental factors and population size on more than 6,000 phylogenetic trees of 46 language families and find that environment influences the evolution of language families beyond neutral drift.

The Encoding of Manner Predications and Resultatives in Oceanic: A Typological and Historical Overview

This paper is concerned with the encoding of resultatives and manner predications in Oceanic languages. Our point of departure is a typological overview of the encoding strategies and their geographical distribution, and we investigate their historical traits by the use of phylogenetic comparative methods. A full theory of the historical pathways is not always accessible for all the attested encoding strategies, given the data available for this study. However, tentative theories about the development and origin of the attested strategies are given. One of the most frequent strategy types used to encode both manner predications and resultatives has been given special emphasis. This is a construction in which a reflex form of the Proto-Oceanic causative *pa-/*paka- modifies the second verb in serial verb constructions.