Phylogenetic Methods in Historical Linguistics: Greek as a Case Study
Back to previous page
| Authors: | Pappas, Panayiotis A.; Mooers, Arne O. |
| Year: | 2011 |
| Journal: | Journal of Greek Linguistics, Volume 11, Number 2, 2011 , pp. 198-220(23) 11: 198-220 Article Link (DOI) |
| Title: | Phylogenetic Methods in Historical Linguistics: Greek as a Case Study |
| Abstract: | We review and assess the different ways in which research in evolutionary-theory-inspired biology has influenced research in historical linguistics, and then focus on an evolutionary-theory inspired claim for language change made by Pagel et al. (2007). They report that the more Swadesh-list lexemes are used, the less likely they are to change across 87 Indo-European languages, and posit that frequency-of-use of a lexical item is a separate and general mechanism of language change. We test a corollary of this conclusion, namely that current frequency-of-use should predict the amount of change within individual languages through time. We devise a scale of lexical change that recognizes sound change, analogical change and lexical replacement and apply it to cognate pairs on the Swadesh list between Homeric and Modern Greek. Current frequency-of-use only weakly predicts the amount of change within the history of Greek, but amount of change does predict the number of forms across Indo-European. Given that current frequency-of-use and past frequency-of-use may be only weakly correlated for many Swadesh-list lexemes, and given previous research that shows that frequency-of-use can both hinder and facilitate lexical change, we conclude that it is premature to claim that a new mechanism of language change has been discovered. However, we call for more in-depth comparative study of general mechanisms of language change, including further tests of the frequency-of-use hypothesis. |
Please send suggestions for improving this publication database to
sass-support@sfu.ca.
Departmental members may update their publication list.