Cecil H. Brown

Explorations in automated language classification

An earlier paper, to which some authors of the present paper have contributed (Brown et al. 2008), describes a method for automating language classification based on the 100-item referent list of Swadesh (1955). Here we discuss a refinement of the method, involving calculation of relative stabilities of list items and reduction of the list to a shorter one by eliminating least stable items. The result is a 40-item referent list. The method for determining stabilities is explained, as well as a method for comparing the classificatory performance of different-sized reduced lists with that of the full 100-item list. A statistical investigation of the relationship of lexical similarity of languages to their geographical proximity is presented. Finally, we test the possibility that information involving typological features of languages can be combined with lexical data to enhance classificatory accuracy.

Automated dating of the world’s language families based on lexical similarity

This paper describes a computerized alternative to glottochronology for estimating elapsed time since parent languages diverged into daughter languages. The method, developed by the Automated Similarity Judgment Program (ASJP) consortium, is different from glottochronology in four major respects: (1) it is automated and thus is more objective, (2) it applies a uniform analytical approach to a single database of worldwide languages, (3) it is based on lexical similarity as determined from Levenshtein (edit) distances rather than on cognate percentages, and (4) it provides a formula for date calculation that mathematically recognizes the lexical heterogeneity of individual languages, including parent languages just before their breakup into daughter languages. Automated judgments of lexical similarity for groups of related languages are calibrated with historical, epigraphic, and archaeological divergence dates for 52 language groups. The discrepancies between estimated and calibration dates are found to be on average 29% as large as the estimated dates themselves, a figure that does not differ significantly among language families. As a resource for further research that may require dates of known level of accuracy, we offer a list of ASJP time depths for nearly all the world’s recognized language families and for many subfamilies.

Adding typology to lexicostatistics: a combined approach to language classification

Abstract The ASJP project aims at establishing relationships between languages on the basis of the Swadesh word list. For this purpose, lists have been collected and phonologically transcribed for almost 3,500 languages. Using a method based on the algorithm proposed by Levenshtein (Cybernetics and Control Theory 10: 707–710, 1966), a custom-made computer program calculates the distances between all pairs of languages in the database. Standard software is used to express the relationships between languages graphically. The current article compares the results of our lexicon-based approach with the results of a similar exercise that takes the typological variables contained in the WALS database as a point of departure. We establish that the latter approach leads to even better results than the lexicon-based one. The best result in terms of correspondence with some well-established genetic and areal classifications, however, is attained when the lexical and typological methods are combined, especially if we select both the most stable Swadesh items and the most stable WALS variables.

MARKING-REVERSALS AND CULTURAL IMPORTANCE

Unmarked terms in the lexicon, compared to marked ones, are typically more frequent in use, less complex in form, and acquired earlier by children learning a language. Terms which are unmarked in single languages are often unmarked in all languages; however, marking is not always invariable across languages, or through time within individual languages. The present work focuses on variation in cultural importance as a factor which influences marking. As the importance of a referent changes within a speech community, the marking value of its label alters, often resulting in lexical change. Introductions of previously unknown referents in culture contact situations-e.g. domestic plants and animals-frequently have led to shifts in cultural importance. Such examples illustrate how cultural factors, by influencing the assignment of marking, often play an important role in lexical change.*

Sound Symbolism in Basic Vocabulary

The relationship between meanings of words and their sound shapes is to a large extent arbitrary, but it is well known that languages exhibit sound symbolism effects violating arbitrariness. Evidence for sound symbolism is typically anecdotal, however. Here we present a systematic approach. Using a selection of basic vocabulary in nearly one half of the world’s languages we find commonalities among sound shapes for words referring to same concepts. These are interpreted as due to sound symbolism. Studying the effects of sound symbolism cross-linguistically is of key importance for the understanding of language evolution.

The Growth of Ethnobiological Nomenclature [and Comments and Reply]

This paper evaluates Brent Berlins general principles of folk biological classification and nomenclature in view of evidence from hunter-gatherer groups which has accumulated over the past decade. In particular it focuses on his proposals concerning the growth and development of ethnobiological nomenclature. One proposal is that generic/type-specific polysemy (e.g., use of a single word to denote both oak tree in general and a single species of oak) develops through restriction of reference whereby a term for a generic class (e,g., oak) is extended referentially to an important member of that class (e.g., live oak). Such a development accords with Berlins claim that generic categories are always the first biological classes to be lexically encoded y languages. Evidence from hunter-gatherer groups, however, indicates that the reverse process, i.e., expansion of reference, is the primary way in which generic/type-specific polysemy arises. Several recent cross-language investigations of lexical change lend support to this interpretation. This finding has an important implication for understanding the broad dimensions of the growth of ethnobiological nomenclature, namely, that classes of the specific rank developmentally precede those of the generic rank. Some speculations on details of nomenclatural change accompanying development of generic/type-specific polysemy are offered.

Hieroglyphic Literacy in Ancient Mayaland: Inferences From Linguistic Data

If a project bibliography is requested, it is intended to reveal your familiarity with the relevant literature and the specific ideas or approaches that have influenced the project. The reader may also look to it for evidence of awareness of essential literature in other languages or other disciplines or literature that disagrees with the your own approach. However, the bibliography should be selective, not simply an indiscriminate list of references taken from some other source. The stated guidelines should offer a clue as to how extensive it should be, but there should be a reason for including each item. Curriculum vitae. The application instructions will indicate the biographical data to be submitted, but any statement should provide the full relevant information on your background and prior work without being inflated or overly detailed. It will be read to determine your qualifications to carry out the project proposed, your track record in producing results from earlier research (if appropriate), and evidence that the current project makes sense as a development from past work. If it is a new area of interest, there should be some indication that you have taken steps to acquire the necessary background.

Whorf and Universals of Color Nomenclature

Inherent physical-perceptual distinctiveness plays a large role in color salience. In addition, words for color referents vary in lexical salience in a way that is concordant with the physical-perceptual distinctiveness of these referents. Highly distinctive referents typically receive salient labels, while less distinctive referents receive nonsalient ones. Hence the lexical salience of color words reflects underlying physical-perceptual salience. However, in addition to mirroring physical-perceptual distinctiveness lexical salience also magnifies it. Although language does not set the agenda for color categorization, it greatly augments the salience of color categories. Thus lexical salience plays a crucial mediating and amplifying role between the physical-perceptual distinctiveness of color referents and color behavior. These findings are consistent with both a universalist interpretation of color terminology and a Whorfian hypothesis which asserts that color language exerts an active influence on human thought and behavior.

Chitimacha: a Mesoamerican language in the Lower Mississippi Valley

The comparative method of historical linguistics is carefully applied to the hypothesis that Chitimacha, a language of southern Louisiana now without fully fluent speakers, and languages of the Totozoquean family of Mesoamerica are genealogically related. Ninety-one lexical sets comparing Chitimacha words collected by Swadesh (1939; 1946a; 1950) to words reconstructed for Proto-Totozoquean (Brown et al. 2011) show regular sound correspondences. Along with certain structural similarities, this evidence attests to the descent of these languages from a common ancestor, Proto-Chitimacha-Totozoquean. By identifying regular sound correspondences, the phonological inventory and some of the vocabulary of the proto-language are reconstructed. Reconstructed words relating to maize agriculture and the fabrication of paper indicate that prehistoric Chitimacha speakers migrated to the Lower Mississippi Valley from Mesoamerica. Some speculations on how and when Chitimacha speakers migrated are offered.

Numerical Taxonomy: Old Techniques and New Assumptions [and Comments and Reply]

Numerical taxonomists in biology and scholars in other fields interested in similar classification tasks have used varieties of two techniques: hierarchical clustering and multidimensional scaling. They have tended to treat both kinds of techniques as all-purpose tools suited to all kinds of classification problems. Choices among techniques have been made in terms of which best accounted for inputted data matrices rather than with any attention to the formal properties of the techniques or the empirical problems to which they were being applied. Instead, the choice of technique should be based on the assumptions embodied in our theories of the processes that produce the distribution of the items in question. We should seek techniques that are capable of representing the regularities our theories assert to exist and that are immune to likely sources of error.