Language Classification by Numbers

by McMahon, April; McMahon, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780199279029
• ISBN10: 0199279020
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-02-02
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book considers how languages have traditionally been divided into families, and asks how they should classified in the future. It describes and applies computer programs from biology and evolutionary genetics to data about languages and shows how the power of the computer can be harnessedto throw light on long-standing problems in historical linguistics. It tests current theories and hypotheses, shows how new ideas can be formulated, and offers a series of demonstrations that the new techniques applied to old data can produce convincing results that are sometimes startlingly at oddswith accepted wisdom. April and Robert McMahon combine the expertise and perspectives of an historical linguist and a geneticist. They analyse the links between linguistic and population genetics, and consider how far language can be used to discover and understand the histories and interrelationsof human populations. They explore the origins and formation of the Indo-European languages and examine less well studied languages in South America. Their book will be of great practical importance to students and researchers in historical and comparative linguistics and will interest all thoseconcerned with the classification and diffusion of languages in fields such as archaeology, genetics, and anthropology. Its approachable style will appeal to general readers seeking to know more about the relationship between linguistic and human history.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	xiv
List of Tables	xvii
How do Linguists Classify Languages?	1	(30)
Classification and Language Families	1	(4)
The Comparative Method	5	(14)
An Outline of the Method	5	(5)
Validating the Comparative Method	10	(4)
Some Limitations of the Comparative Method	14	(5)
Mass Comparison	19	(7)
Why Historical Linguists Need Quantitative Methods	26	(5)
Lexicostatistics	31	(20)
Comparing Like with Like	31	(2)
Classical Lexicostatistics	33	(7)
Objections to Lexicostatistics	40	(5)
Testing Methods	45	(6)
Tree-based Quantitative Approaches: Computational Cladistics	51	(38)
Probability-based Approaches	51	(17)
Real and Apparent Patterns	51	(3)
Probability for Beginners	54	(2)
Probability and Language Comparison	56	(1)
Setting the Scene	56	(2)
Initial Consonant Comparison and X2 (Chi-Square) Calculations	58	(3)
The Binomial Approach to Meaning-List Comparisons	61	(1)
The Binomial Approach and Mass Comparison	62	(3)
Problems with the Binomial Approach	65	(1)
More Sensitive Statistical Tests---Permutation Testing	66	(2)
Computerizing the Comparative Method	68	(21)
Introducing Computational Cladistics	68	(9)
Computational Cladistics and Contact	77	(12)
Tree-based Quantitative Approaches: Sublists	89	(30)
Excluding Lexical Borrowing	89	(3)
Identifying and Using Lexical Borrowings	92	(2)
An Initial Test: Optimal List Length	94	(2)
Subdividing Meaning Lists	96	(23)
The Dyen, Kruskal, and Black (1992) Database	96	(2)
Tree-drawing and Tree-selection Programs: Verifying What We Know	98	(5)
...and Finding Something New	103	(8)
Testing the Hypothesis of Borrowing	111	(1)
Computer Simulations	111	(7)
Erroneous Codings in the Database	118	(1)
Correlations Between Genetic and Linguistic Data	119	(20)
The `New Synthesis'	119	(3)
Correlations between Genetics and Linguistics: Cautions and Caveats	122	(4)
Evidence for Correlations	126	(10)
Genetic Evidence and Sampling	126	(2)
Four Specific Studies	128	(3)
The Contribution of Contact	131	(5)
Looking Forward	136	(3)
Climbing Down from the Trees: Network Models	139	(38)
Network Representations in Biology	139	(6)
Problems with Trees	139	(1)
Networks in Genetics	140	(4)
Split Decomposition	144	(1)
Applying Network to Linguistic Data	145	(10)
Comparing Linguistic and Biological Data	145	(2)
Network and Borrowing: Simulated Data	147	(2)
Network and Borrowing: Real Data	149	(6)
Distance-based Network Methods	155	(18)
Distance-based Versus Character-based Approaches	155	(2)
Split Decomposition and Distance Data	157	(1)
Distance-based Methods and Linguistic Data	158	(2)
Applying NeighbourNet Beyond Indo-European	160	(13)
The Uses of Computational and Quantitative Methods	173	(4)
Dating	177	(28)
Lexicostatistics and Glottochronology	177	(8)
Troublesome Terms	177	(2)
Glottochronology: Practice and Problems	179	(6)
Dating and Time Depth in Linguistics and Biology	185	(4)
Dating Brought Up to Date	189	(10)
General Problems for Dating	199	(6)
Quantitative Methods Beyond the Lexicon	205	(36)
Today the Lexicon, Tomorrow	205	(3)
Key Questions for Phonetic Comparison	208	(2)
Nerbonne and Heeringa's Approach to Phonetic Similarity	210	(4)
Heggarty (forthcoming); Heggarty, McMahon, and McMahon (forthcoming)	214	(10)
Phonetic Similarity and Dialect Comparison for English	224	(13)
Summing Up	237	(4)
References	241	(14)
Index	255