scholarly journals Evolutionary dynamics of language systems

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (42) ◽  
pp. E8822-E8829 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon J. Greenhill ◽  
Chieh-Hsi Wu ◽  
Xia Hua ◽  
Michael Dunn ◽  
Stephen C. Levinson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Dirichlet Process ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Parallel Evolution ◽  
Rate Of Change ◽  
Dirichlet Process Mixture ◽  
Comparative Linguistics ◽  
Austronesian Languages ◽  
Basic Vocabulary ◽  
Grammatical Structures

Understanding how and why language subsystems differ in their evolutionary dynamics is a fundamental question for historical and comparative linguistics. One key dynamic is the rate of language change. While it is commonly thought that the rapid rate of change hampers the reconstruction of deep language relationships beyond 6,000–10,000 y, there are suggestions that grammatical structures might retain more signal over time than other subsystems, such as basic vocabulary. In this study, we use a Dirichlet process mixture model to infer the rates of change in lexical and grammatical data from 81 Austronesian languages. We show that, on average, most grammatical features actually change faster than items of basic vocabulary. The grammatical data show less schismogenesis, higher rates of homoplasy, and more bursts of contact-induced change than the basic vocabulary data. However, there is a core of grammatical and lexical features that are highly stable. These findings suggest that different subsystems of language have differing dynamics and that careful, nuanced models of language change will be needed to extract deeper signal from the noise of parallel evolution, areal readaptation, and contact.

Rasmus Kristian Rasks Konzeption Einer Welthilfssprache

1989 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-326
Author(s):  
Heribert Rück ◽  
Alicja Sakaguchi
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
International Communication ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
Comparative Linguistics ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Basic Vocabulary ◽  
Grammatical Structures

Summary Apart from his numerous works in comparative linguistics, Rasmus Kristian Rask (1787–1832) is also the author of a manuscript in which he sets forth in detail his conception of a universal auxiliary language. Written during 1819–1820, this 72-page treatise, entitled Optegnelser til en Pasigraphie, has been neglected by linguistic research up to the present, in part because it remained in manuscript form. Rask’s draft of a planned language is divided into three sections: (1) The grammatical system and basic vocabulary; (2) numerous examples of word-formation, morphology etc. and (3) samples of texts. Rask deplores the waste of energy resulting from the multiplicity of languages in international communication. In his opinion, many intellectual achievements are lost or cannot be further developed owing to lack of exchange facilities. Instead of having to learn words and structures, people should be placed in a position to tackle the subject matter. The practical aim of linguistic studies should therefore be the creation of an international means of communication to be used in the field of science as well as in every-day life. Important postulates of such a conception would be: improved learnability by means of simplification of grammatical structures, consistency in word-formation and easy articulation for people of different language communities. To conform to these aims, Rask decided to create a system mainly on the basis of romance languages, i.e., Latin, Spanish, French and Portugese, complemented by Greek and English. Rask’s essay presents a hitherto unknown type of planned language, commonly described as ‘naturalistic’. Whereas other aposterioric systems like Esperanto give priority to regularity and logic and are therefore called ‘autonomous’, Rask tries to remain faithful to the results of historical evolution. In that respect, Rask’s project resembles Otto Jespersen’s ‘Novial’, which was to be conceived a century later.

Language Change and Movement as Seen by Historical Linguistics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Nurse
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Comparative Linguistics ◽  
Language Boundaries ◽  
Over Time

The focus of this chapter is on how languages move and change over time and space. The perceptions of historical linguists have been shaped by what they were observing. During the flowering of comparative linguistics, from the late 19th into the 20th century, the dominant view was that in earlier times when people moved, their languages moved with them, often over long distances, sometimes fast, and that language change was largely internal. That changed in the second half of the 20th century. We now recognize that in recent centuries and millennia, most movements of communities and individuals have been local and shorter. Constant contact between communities resulted in features flowing across language boundaries, especially in crowded and long-settled locations such as most of Central and West Africa. Although communities did mix and people did cross borders, it became clear that language and linguistic features could also move without communities moving.

scholarly journals Comparative sociolinguistic perspectives on the rate of linguistic change

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Terttu Nevalainen ◽  
Tanja Säily ◽  
Turo Vartiainen
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Sociocultural Factors ◽  
Specific Topic ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
Comparative Linguistics ◽  
Historical Sociolinguistics ◽  
Contact Linguistics ◽  
Historical Comparative ◽  
Social And Cultural Factors

AbstractThis issue of the Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics aims to contribute to our understanding of language change in real time by presenting a group of articles particularly focused on social and sociocultural factors underlying language diversification and change. By analysing data from a varied set of languages, including Greek, English, and the Finnic and Mongolic language families, and mainly focussing their investigation on the Middle Ages, the authors connect various social and cultural factors with the specific topic of the issue, the rate of linguistic change. The sociolinguistic themes addressed include community and population size, conflict and conquest, migration and mobility, bi- and multilingualism, diglossia and standardization. In this introduction, the field of comparative historical sociolinguistics is considered a cross-disciplinary enterprise with a sociolinguistic agenda at the crossroads of contact linguistics, historical comparative linguistics and linguistic typology.

scholarly journals 0439 Nonlinear Dynamics Forecasting for Personalize Prognosis of Obstructive Sleep Apnea Onsets

SLEEP ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. A168-A169
Author(s):  
T Le
Keyword(s):  
Obstructive Sleep Apnea ◽  
Sleep Apnea ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Dirichlet Process ◽  
Clinical Symptoms ◽  
Risk Indicators ◽  
Dirichlet Process Mixture ◽  
Obstructive Sleep ◽  
Estimated Risk ◽  
Normal States

Abstract Introduction The emphasis on disease prevention, early detection, and preventive treatments will revolutionize the way sleep clinicians evaluate their patients. Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is one of the most prevalent sleep disorders with approximately 100 millions patients been diagnosed worldwide. The effectiveness of sleep disorder therapies can be enhanced by providing personalized and real-time prediction of OSA episode onsets. Previous attempts at OSA prediction are limited to capturing the nonlinear, nonstationary dynamics of the underlying physiological processes. Methods This paper reports an investigation into heart rate dynamics aiming to predict in real time the onsets of OSA episode before the clinical symptoms appear. The method includes (a) a representation of a transition state space network to characterize dynamic transition of apneic states (b) a Dirichlet-Process Mixture-Gaussian-Process prognostic method for estimating the distribution of the time estimate the remaining time until the onset of an impending OSA episode by considering the stochastic evolution of the normal states to an anomalous (apnea) Results The approach was tested using three datasets including (1) 20 records from 14 OSA subjects in benchmark ECG apnea databases (Physionet.org), (2) records of eight subjects from previous work. The average prediction accuracy (R2) is reported as 0.75%, with 87% of observations within the 95% confidence interval. Estimated risk indicators at 1 to 3 min till apnea onset are reported as 85.8 %, 80.2 %, and 75.5 %, respectively. Conclusion The present prognosis approach can be integrated with wearable devices to facilitate individualized treatments and timely prevention therapies. Support N/A

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