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Ives Goddard - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Linguistic Variation in a small speech community the personal dialects of moraviantown delaware
Anthropological Linguistics, 2010Co-Authors: Ives GoddardAbstract:The Munsee language as spoken on the Moraviantown Reserve in the late 1960s had extensive phonological, lexical, and morphological Variation among the small number of surviving speakers. Some of this Variation can be attributed to the diverse origins of the population, and some apparently results from recent change, but lexical Variation in particular was accepted by speakers as an integral feature of Moraviantown speech. Each speaker had a personal dialect, whose distinguishing features were often explicitly recognized by others.
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problematic use of greenberg s Linguistic classification of the americas in studies of native american genetic Variation
American Journal of Human Genetics, 2004Co-Authors: Deborah A Bolnick, Beth Schultz A Shook, Lyle Campbell, Ives GoddardAbstract:To the Editor: In recent years, there has been a burgeoning interest in comparisons of genetic and Linguistic Variation across human populations. This synthetic approach can be a powerful tool for reconstructing human prehistory, but only when the patterns of genetic and Linguistic Variation are accurately represented (Szathmary 1993). If one or both patterns are inaccurate, the resulting conclusions about human prehistory or gene-language correlations may be incorrect. Here, we present evidence that comparisons of genetic and Linguistic Variation in the Americas are problematic when they are based on Greenberg’s (1987) classification of Native American languages, for these very reasons. Greenberg (1987) argued that all Native American languages, except those of the “Na-Dene” and Eskimo-Aleut groups, are similar and can be classified into a single Linguistic unit, which he called “Amerind.” His tripartite classification (Amerind, Na-Dene, and Eskimo-Aleut) was based on the method of multilateral comparison, which examines many languages simultaneously to detect similarities in a small number of basic words and grammatical elements (Greenberg 1987). Greenberg (1987) also suggested that his three language groupings represent three separate migrations to the Americas, and Greenberg et al. (1986) interpreted their synthesis of the Linguistic, dental, and genetic evidence as supportive of this three-migration hypothesis. Over the past 18 years, this three-migration model has become entrenched in the genetics literature as the hypothesis against which new genetic data are tested (e.g., Torroni et al. 1993; Merriwether et al. 1995; Zegura et al. 2004), and Greenberg’s Linguistic classification has been the primary scheme used in studies comparing genetic and Linguistic Variation in the Americas. Of 100 studies of Native American genetic Variation published between 1987 and 2004, 61 cite Greenberg (1987) or Greenberg et al. (1986), and at least 19 others were influenced by his tripartite classification (15 studies use the Amerind, Na-Dene, and Eskimo-Aleut groupings, and 4 others use the similar language groupings of Greenberg’s student M. Ruhlen.) Whereas Greenberg’s classification has been widely and uncritically used by human geneticists, it has been rejected by virtually all historical linguists who study Native American languages. There are many errors in the data on which his classification is based (Goddard 1987; Adelaar 1989; Berman 1992; Kimball 1992; Poser 1992), and Greenberg’s criteria for determining Linguistic relationships are widely regarded as invalid. His method of multilateral comparison assembled only superficial similarities between languages, and Greenberg did not distinguish similarities due to common ancestry (i.e., homology) from those due to other factors (which other linguists do). Linguistic similarities can also be due to factors such as chance, borrowing from neighboring languages, and onomatopoeia, so proposals of remote Linguistic relationships are only plausible when these other possible explanations have been eliminated (Matisoff 1990; Mithun 1990; Goddard and Campbell 1994; Campbell 1997; Ringe 2000). Greenberg made no attempt to eliminate such explanations, and the putative long-range similarities he amassed appear to be mostly chance resemblances and the result of misanalysis—he compared many languages simultaneously (which increases the probability of finding chance resemblances), examined arbitrary segments of words, equated words with very different meanings (e.g., excrement, night, and grass), failed to analyze the structure of some words and falsely analyzed that of others, neglected regular sound correspondences between languages, and misinterpreted well-established findings (Chafe 1987; Bright 1988; Campbell 1988, 1997; Golla 1988; Goddard 1990; Rankin 1992; McMahon and McMahon 1995; Nichols and Peterson 1996). Consequently, empirical studies have shown that “the method of multilateral comparison fails every test; its results are utterly unreliable. Multilateral comparison is worse than useless: it is positively misleading, since the patterns of ‘evidence’ that it adduces in support of proposed Linguistic relationships are in many cases mathematically indistinguishable from random patterns of chance resemblances” (Ringe 1994, p. 28; cf. Ringe 2002). Because of these problems, Greenberg’s methodology has proven incapable of distinguishing plausible proposals of Linguistic relationships from implausible ones, such as Finnish-Amerind (Campbell 1988). Thus, specialists in Native American Linguistics insist that Greenberg’s methodology was so flawed that it completely invalidates his conclusions about the unity of Amerind, and Greenberg himself estimated that 80%–90% of linguists agreed with this assessment (Lewin 1988). Given this, the use of Greenberg’s (1987) classification can confound attempts to understand the relationship between genetic and Linguistic Variation in the Americas. Many studies of Native American genetic Variation continue to use this classification (e.g., Bortolini et al. 2002, 2003; Fernandez-Cobo et al. 2002; Lell et al. 2002; Gomez-Casado et al. 2003; Zegura et al. 2004). However, Hunley and Long (2004) recently showed that there is a poor fit between Greenberg’s classification and the patterns of Native American mtDNA Variation. On the basis of their findings, we believe that Greenberg’s groupings should no longer be used in analyses of mtDNA Variation. To further evaluate how the use of this classification influences our understanding of the relationship between genetic and Linguistic Variation in the Americas, we examined how well different Linguistic classifications “explain” the patterns of Native American Y-chromosome Variation. Data were compiled on the Y-chromosome haplogroups of 523 Native Americans, representing 36 populations (table 1). We compared hierarchical analyses of molecular variance (AMOVAs), using Greenberg’s (1987) classification and a more conservative one (Campbell 1997) that is widely accepted by specialists in historical Linguistics of Native American languages (Golla 2000; Hill and Hill 2000). The AMOVAs were based on population frequencies of the haplogroups known to be pre–European contact Native American lineages (Q-M19, Q-M3*, Q-M242*, and C-M130). All calculations were performed by Arlequin 2.000 (Schneider et al. 2000). Table 1 Populations and Language Classifications Used in AMOVAs The AMOVAs show that differences among Greenberg’s three groups could account for some genetic variance (ΦCT=0.319; P=.027), but the more generally accepted Linguistic classification (as given in Campbell [1997]) of the same populations (17 groups) explainsa greater proportion of the total genetic variance (ΦCT=0.448; P<.001). The magnitude of ΦCT increases 40.4% when the accepted language classification is used, which indicates that it is important to consider language classifications other than that of Greenberg (1987) when evaluating the relationship between genes and language in the Americas. Other factors, such as geography, have likely influenced patterns of genetic Variation more than language, but accepted language groupings should, nonetheless, be used when exploring these relationships. Thus, in future studies comparing genetic and Linguistic Variation in the Americas, we recommend use of the consensus Linguistic classification, as given in Campbell (1997), Goddard (1996), and Mithun (1999), rather than Greenberg’s tripartite classification (Greenberg et al. 1986; Greenberg 1987). In addition, since there is no legitimate reason to believe that “Amerind” is a unified group (Linguistic or otherwise), it has been essentially abandoned in Linguistics and should not be used in genetic analyses. Finally, because synthetic studies provide such important insights into human prehistory, we advocate continued collaboration between geneticists and linguists (and other anthropologists) to ensure accurate comparisons of genetic, Linguistic, and cultural Variation.
Lyle Campbell - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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problematic use of greenberg s Linguistic classification of the americas in studies of native american genetic Variation
American Journal of Human Genetics, 2004Co-Authors: Deborah A Bolnick, Beth Schultz A Shook, Lyle Campbell, Ives GoddardAbstract:To the Editor: In recent years, there has been a burgeoning interest in comparisons of genetic and Linguistic Variation across human populations. This synthetic approach can be a powerful tool for reconstructing human prehistory, but only when the patterns of genetic and Linguistic Variation are accurately represented (Szathmary 1993). If one or both patterns are inaccurate, the resulting conclusions about human prehistory or gene-language correlations may be incorrect. Here, we present evidence that comparisons of genetic and Linguistic Variation in the Americas are problematic when they are based on Greenberg’s (1987) classification of Native American languages, for these very reasons. Greenberg (1987) argued that all Native American languages, except those of the “Na-Dene” and Eskimo-Aleut groups, are similar and can be classified into a single Linguistic unit, which he called “Amerind.” His tripartite classification (Amerind, Na-Dene, and Eskimo-Aleut) was based on the method of multilateral comparison, which examines many languages simultaneously to detect similarities in a small number of basic words and grammatical elements (Greenberg 1987). Greenberg (1987) also suggested that his three language groupings represent three separate migrations to the Americas, and Greenberg et al. (1986) interpreted their synthesis of the Linguistic, dental, and genetic evidence as supportive of this three-migration hypothesis. Over the past 18 years, this three-migration model has become entrenched in the genetics literature as the hypothesis against which new genetic data are tested (e.g., Torroni et al. 1993; Merriwether et al. 1995; Zegura et al. 2004), and Greenberg’s Linguistic classification has been the primary scheme used in studies comparing genetic and Linguistic Variation in the Americas. Of 100 studies of Native American genetic Variation published between 1987 and 2004, 61 cite Greenberg (1987) or Greenberg et al. (1986), and at least 19 others were influenced by his tripartite classification (15 studies use the Amerind, Na-Dene, and Eskimo-Aleut groupings, and 4 others use the similar language groupings of Greenberg’s student M. Ruhlen.) Whereas Greenberg’s classification has been widely and uncritically used by human geneticists, it has been rejected by virtually all historical linguists who study Native American languages. There are many errors in the data on which his classification is based (Goddard 1987; Adelaar 1989; Berman 1992; Kimball 1992; Poser 1992), and Greenberg’s criteria for determining Linguistic relationships are widely regarded as invalid. His method of multilateral comparison assembled only superficial similarities between languages, and Greenberg did not distinguish similarities due to common ancestry (i.e., homology) from those due to other factors (which other linguists do). Linguistic similarities can also be due to factors such as chance, borrowing from neighboring languages, and onomatopoeia, so proposals of remote Linguistic relationships are only plausible when these other possible explanations have been eliminated (Matisoff 1990; Mithun 1990; Goddard and Campbell 1994; Campbell 1997; Ringe 2000). Greenberg made no attempt to eliminate such explanations, and the putative long-range similarities he amassed appear to be mostly chance resemblances and the result of misanalysis—he compared many languages simultaneously (which increases the probability of finding chance resemblances), examined arbitrary segments of words, equated words with very different meanings (e.g., excrement, night, and grass), failed to analyze the structure of some words and falsely analyzed that of others, neglected regular sound correspondences between languages, and misinterpreted well-established findings (Chafe 1987; Bright 1988; Campbell 1988, 1997; Golla 1988; Goddard 1990; Rankin 1992; McMahon and McMahon 1995; Nichols and Peterson 1996). Consequently, empirical studies have shown that “the method of multilateral comparison fails every test; its results are utterly unreliable. Multilateral comparison is worse than useless: it is positively misleading, since the patterns of ‘evidence’ that it adduces in support of proposed Linguistic relationships are in many cases mathematically indistinguishable from random patterns of chance resemblances” (Ringe 1994, p. 28; cf. Ringe 2002). Because of these problems, Greenberg’s methodology has proven incapable of distinguishing plausible proposals of Linguistic relationships from implausible ones, such as Finnish-Amerind (Campbell 1988). Thus, specialists in Native American Linguistics insist that Greenberg’s methodology was so flawed that it completely invalidates his conclusions about the unity of Amerind, and Greenberg himself estimated that 80%–90% of linguists agreed with this assessment (Lewin 1988). Given this, the use of Greenberg’s (1987) classification can confound attempts to understand the relationship between genetic and Linguistic Variation in the Americas. Many studies of Native American genetic Variation continue to use this classification (e.g., Bortolini et al. 2002, 2003; Fernandez-Cobo et al. 2002; Lell et al. 2002; Gomez-Casado et al. 2003; Zegura et al. 2004). However, Hunley and Long (2004) recently showed that there is a poor fit between Greenberg’s classification and the patterns of Native American mtDNA Variation. On the basis of their findings, we believe that Greenberg’s groupings should no longer be used in analyses of mtDNA Variation. To further evaluate how the use of this classification influences our understanding of the relationship between genetic and Linguistic Variation in the Americas, we examined how well different Linguistic classifications “explain” the patterns of Native American Y-chromosome Variation. Data were compiled on the Y-chromosome haplogroups of 523 Native Americans, representing 36 populations (table 1). We compared hierarchical analyses of molecular variance (AMOVAs), using Greenberg’s (1987) classification and a more conservative one (Campbell 1997) that is widely accepted by specialists in historical Linguistics of Native American languages (Golla 2000; Hill and Hill 2000). The AMOVAs were based on population frequencies of the haplogroups known to be pre–European contact Native American lineages (Q-M19, Q-M3*, Q-M242*, and C-M130). All calculations were performed by Arlequin 2.000 (Schneider et al. 2000). Table 1 Populations and Language Classifications Used in AMOVAs The AMOVAs show that differences among Greenberg’s three groups could account for some genetic variance (ΦCT=0.319; P=.027), but the more generally accepted Linguistic classification (as given in Campbell [1997]) of the same populations (17 groups) explainsa greater proportion of the total genetic variance (ΦCT=0.448; P<.001). The magnitude of ΦCT increases 40.4% when the accepted language classification is used, which indicates that it is important to consider language classifications other than that of Greenberg (1987) when evaluating the relationship between genes and language in the Americas. Other factors, such as geography, have likely influenced patterns of genetic Variation more than language, but accepted language groupings should, nonetheless, be used when exploring these relationships. Thus, in future studies comparing genetic and Linguistic Variation in the Americas, we recommend use of the consensus Linguistic classification, as given in Campbell (1997), Goddard (1996), and Mithun (1999), rather than Greenberg’s tripartite classification (Greenberg et al. 1986; Greenberg 1987). In addition, since there is no legitimate reason to believe that “Amerind” is a unified group (Linguistic or otherwise), it has been essentially abandoned in Linguistics and should not be used in genetic analyses. Finally, because synthetic studies provide such important insights into human prehistory, we advocate continued collaboration between geneticists and linguists (and other anthropologists) to ensure accurate comparisons of genetic, Linguistic, and cultural Variation.
John Nerbonne - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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1 MEASURING Linguistic Variation COMMENSURABLY
2016Co-Authors: Martijn Wieling, John NerbonneAbstract:The primary data on pronunciation Variation – e.g., dialect atlas data – is often recorded incommensurably, i.e. in different ways in different atlases, and even in different ways within the same atlas when teams of fieldworkers and transcribers are involved. In particular these data collections differ in the detail in which pronunciations are recorded, using between 40 and 100 different basic symbols. This study shows that transcription system detail (understood in this sense) increases the Linguistic distance measured and therefore must be regarded as a source of bias in assessing pronunciation differences and comparing them across languages. A method is therefore introduced to reduce transcription system complexity, even while retaining faithful assessments of aggregate pronunciation differences. The technique introduced is relevant when comparing within sets that have been transcribed very differently and also when comparing different dialectological datasets, e.g. with respect to the dependence of Linguistic difference on geography
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quantitative social dialectology explaining Linguistic Variation geographically and socially
PLOS ONE, 2011Co-Authors: Martijn Wieling, John Nerbonne, Harald R BaayenAbstract:In this study we examine Linguistic Variation and its dependence on both social and geographic factors. We follow dialectometry in applying a quantitative methodology and focusing on dialect distances, and social dialectology in the choice of factors we examine in building a model to predict word pronunciation distances from the standard Dutch language to 424 Dutch dialects. We combine linear mixed-effects regression modeling with generalized additive modeling to predict the pronunciation distance of 559 words. Although geographical position is the dominant predictor, several other factors emerged as significant. The model predicts a greater distance from the standard for smaller communities, for communities with a higher average age, for nouns (as contrasted with verbs and adjectives), for more frequent words, and for words with relatively many vowels. The impact of the demographic variables, however, varied from word to word. For a majority of words, larger, richer and younger communities are moving towards the standard. For a smaller minority of words, larger, richer and younger communities emerge as driving a change away from the standard. Similarly, the strength of the effects of word frequency and word category varied geographically. The peripheral areas of the Netherlands showed a greater distance from the standard for nouns (as opposed to verbs and adjectives) as well as for high-frequency words, compared to the more central areas. Our findings indicate that changes in pronunciation have been spreading (in particular for low-frequency words) from the Hollandic center of economic power to the peripheral areas of the country, meeting resistance that is stronger wherever, for well-documented historical reasons, the political influence of Holland was reduced. Our results are also consistent with the theory of lexical diffusion, in that distances from the Hollandic norm vary systematically and predictably on a word by word basis.
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Data-Driven Dialectology
Language and Linguistics Compass, 2009Co-Authors: John NerbonneAbstract:Most studies of language Variation proceed from the geographic or social distribution of single elements (features), and find it difficult to proceed further. Data-driven dialectology, and more generally, data-driven Variationist studies, begin instead from an aggregate view of language Variation and reap immediate benefits in dealing with well-known exceptions in the distributions of single features and in avoiding the need to select which features to use as the basis of characterizations. But the major advance is the opportunity to characterize general tendencies in Linguistic Variation.
John Bryden - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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twitter users change word usage according to conversation partner social identity
Social Networks, 2015Co-Authors: Nadine Tamburrini, Marco Cinnirella, Vincent A A Jansen, John BrydenAbstract:This paper investigates how people express social identity at a large scale on a social network. We looked at communities of users on the Twitter website, and tested two established social-psychology theories that are usually performed at local scale. We found evidence of Communication Accommodation Theory, where community members vary their language characteristics depending on which community they are communicating with. We also found the level of Linguistic Variation correlated with how isolated a community was: evidence that there is Convergence between linked members. This demonstrates the power of methods which analyse subtle human behaviour on social networks.
Penka Stateva - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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cross Linguistic Variation in the meaning of quantifiers implications for pragmatic enrichment
Frontiers in Psychology, 2019Co-Authors: Penka Stateva, Arthur Stepanov, Viviane Deprez, Ludivine Dupuy, Anne ReboulAbstract:One of the most studied scales in the literature on scalar implicatures is the quantifier scale. While the truth of some is entailed by the truth of all, some is felicitous only when all is false. This opens the possibility that some would be felicitous if, e.g., almost all of the objects in the restriction of the quantifier have the property ascribed by the nuclear scope. This prediction from the standard theory of quantifier interpretation clashes with native speakers’ intuitions. In Experiment 1 we report a questionnaire study on the perception of quantifier meanings in English, French, Slovenian, and German which points to a cross-Linguistic Variation with respect to the perception of numerical bounds of the existential quantifier. In Experiment 2, using a picture choice task, we further examine whether the numerical bound differences correlate with differences in pragmatic interpretations of the quantifier some in English and quelques in French and interpret the results as supporting our hypothesis that some and its cross-Linguistic counterparts are subjected to different processes of pragmatic enrichment.