Significance testing of the Altaic family

Diachronica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Ceolin
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Method ◽  
Significance Test ◽  
Phonological Similarity ◽  
Significance Testing ◽  
Sufficient Evidence ◽  
Statistical Robustness ◽  
Basic Vocabulary ◽  
Regular Patterns

Abstract Historical linguists have been debating for decades about whether the classical comparative method provides sufficient evidence to consider Altaic languages as part of a single genetic unity, like Indo-European and Uralic, or whether the implicit statistical robustness behind regular sound correspondences is lacking in the case of Altaic. In this paper, I run a significance test on Swadesh-lists representing Turkish, Mongolian and Manchu to see if there are regular patterns of phonetic similarities or correspondences among word-initial phonemes in the basic vocabulary that cannot be expected to have arisen by chance. The methodology draws on Oswalt (1970), Ringe (1992), Baxter & Manaster Ramer (2000) and Kessler (2001, 2007). The results only partially point towards an Altaic family: Mongolian and Manchu show significant sound correspondences, while Turkish and Mongolian show some marginally significant phonological similarity, that might however be the consequence of areal contact. Crucially, Turkish and Manchu do not test positively under any condition.1

The Role of Meta-Analysis in the Significance Test Controversy

1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard Andersson
Keyword(s):  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Significance Test ◽  
Significance Testing ◽  
The Poor

The critique against significance testing has been increasingly acknowledged in recent years. This paper focuses on the relation between meta-analysis and this controversy. A contradiction in the literature can be seen in that significance testing has been blamed for the poor accumulation of knowledge in psychology, while at the same time meta-analytic reviews have claimed the opposite. Although a majority of meta-analytic experts argue against significance testing, this critique cannot account for the success of meta-analysis. Rather, it may be that meta-analysis has facilitated the recognition of the significance test critique. Taking the significance testing critique seriously has important implications for meta-analysis in that its research base (e. g., studies) is viewed as unreliable. Although the significance test controversy may lead to further fragmentation of psychology, it is not clear that this will negatively affect the practice of meta-analysis.

Testing significance testing: A flawed defense

1998 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
John E. Hunter
Keyword(s):  
Significance Test ◽  
Significance Testing ◽  
Current Debate

Most psychometricians believe that the significance test is counterproductive. I have read Chow's book to see whether it addresses or rebuts any of the key facts brought out by the psychometricians. The book is empty on this score; it is entirely irrelevant to the current debate. It presents nothing new and is riddled with errors.

scholarly journals Basic vocabulary and Bayesian phylolinguistics

Diachronica ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon J. Greenhill ◽  
Russell D. Gray
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Method ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Austronesian Language ◽  
Basic Vocabulary

Donohue et al.’s critique of our work on the origins and spread of the Austronesian language family is marred by misunderstandings. We respond to these by noting that our Bayesian phylogenetic approach: (1) distinguishes between retentions and innovations probabilistically, (2) focuses on basic vocabulary not ‘the lexicon’, (3) eliminates known loanwords, (4) produces results that are congruent with the results of the comparative method and conflict with the scenarios requiring unprecedented amounts of language shift postulated by Donohue et al.

scholarly journals Probabilistic Misconceptions Are Pervasive Among Communication Researchers

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eike Mark Rinke ◽  
Frank M. Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Confidence Intervals ◽  
Null Hypothesis ◽  
Significance Test ◽  
Significance Testing ◽  
Communication Research ◽  
Null Hypothesis Significance Testing ◽  
Popular Approach ◽  
Probabilistic Misconceptions ◽  
Evidential Basis

Across all areas of communication research, the most popular approach to generating insights about communication is the classical significance test (also called null hypothesis significance testing, NHST). The predominance of NHST in communication research is in spite of serious concerns about the ability of researchers to properly interpret its results. We draw on data from a survey of the ICA membership to assess the evidential basis of these concerns. The vast majority of communication researchers misinterpreted NHST (91%) and the most prominent alternative, confidence intervals (96%), while overestimating their competence. Academic seniority and statistical experience did not predict better interpretation outcomes. These findings indicate major problems regarding the generation of knowledge in the field of communication research.

scholarly journals Use of significance test logic by scientists in a novel reasoning task

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Donald Morey ◽  
Rink Hoekstra
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Method ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Significance Test ◽  
Significance Testing ◽  
Reasoning Task ◽  
Statistical Significance Testing ◽  
Poor Understanding

Although statistical significance testing is one of the most widely-used techniques across science, previous research has suggested that scientists have a poor understanding of how it works. If scientists misunderstand one of their primary inferential tools the implications are dramatic: potentially unchecked, unjustified conclusions and wasted resources. Scientists’ apparent difficulties with significance testing have led to calls for its abandonment or increased reliance on alternative tools, which would represent a substantial, untested, shift in scientific practice. However, if scientists’ understanding of significance testing is truly as poor as thought, one could argue such drastic action is required. We show using a novel experimental method that scientists do, in fact, understand the logic of significance testing and can use it effectively. This suggests that scientists may not be as statistically-challenged as often believed, and that reforms should take this into account.

scholarly journals Problems of ethno-confessional relations in Western Belarus during the second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1921–1939) (on the example of the assumption Zhirovitsky monastery)

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-187
Author(s):  
K. A. Solovyov
Keyword(s):  
Interwar Period ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Sociology Of Religion ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Sufficient Evidence ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
The People ◽  
Polish Government ◽  
The Military

The Article by Kirill Solovyov, candidate of cultural studies, is devoted to the problems of ethno-confessional relations in the territory of Western Belarus during the interwar period. Introduction. Given the fact that 2019 was the anniversary year for the young independent Republic of Belarus, and in 2020 the anniversary of the victory In the great Patriotic War in the expert community of Russia and Belarus, as well as in political circles and among the national Belarusian intelligentsia, you can find directly opposite points of view on how the process of national revival took place in the territory of modern Belarus in the period of 1921–1939, how the relations between the Polish government and Polish national associations on the territory of the “Kresov Vskhodnih” and Belarusian nationalist and Russian public emigrant associations were built. As a rule, if a State committed to integral nationalism wants to detach a part of the people from their historical roots, this happens either through cultural or religious assimilation. The article deals with attempts of such religious assimilation by the Polish authorities during the sanation regime of 1921–1939 for example, the existence in Poland of Orthodox Uspensky Zhirovichi men’s monastery. For a sufficient evidence base of the proposed research, the author used the comparative method of historicism in the field of religious studies and the method of “inheritance of culture”, which can be applied in the field of sociology of religion, thanks to which it is possible to show how great the temptation to unify in a multinational young state and turn it into an ethnonational unified community. Materials for the study of this problem were both post-revolutionary emigrant studies on this topic, and modern Belarusian studies concerning the history of inter-Church relations on the territory of the Western Belarusian lands in the interwar period. In the course of a comprehensive study of this problem the author conducted an interesting geocultural analysis of the development of the Polish state in the field of interethnic and interreligious relations which was based on the Polish version of the so-called integral nationalism. The article also traces the trend towards the termination of the Riga Treaty between the RSFSR and the Polish state which became more active after 1926. It should be noted that the Polish state used this trend to plant on the “Eastern borders” of the Polish military colonists – besiegers, who were the military and political support of the new Polish state. Using the example of the existence of the Orthodox Dormition Zhirovitsky monastery on the territory of the second Polish – Lithuanian Commonwealth, the author traces how Orthodox Christians resisted the tendencies of ethnocultural assimilation. The study has shown how necessary it is for the State to not interfere in the Affairs of the Church, and how important it is to avoid the temptation to use the “national” Church in building an independent and sovereign state. This is a serious problem that is typical for those post-Soviet States that plan to build their national identity on the principles of extreme nationalism.

scholarly journals A primer on p-value thresholds and α-levels – two different kettles of fish

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norbert Hirschauer ◽  
Sven Gruener ◽  
Oliver Mußhoff ◽  
Claudia Becker
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Inference ◽  
Null Hypothesis ◽  
Significance Test ◽  
Significance Testing ◽  
Future Research ◽  
P Value ◽  
Hypotheses Testing ◽  
Null Hypothesis Significance Testing ◽  
Realistic Assessment

It has often been noted that the “null-hypothesis-significance-testing” (NHST) framework is an inconsistent hybrid of Neyman-Pearson’s “hypotheses testing” and Fisher’s “significance test-ing” approach that almost inevitably causes misinterpretations. To facilitate a realistic assessment of the potential and the limits of statistical inference, we briefly recall widespread inferential errors and outline the two original approaches of these famous statisticians. Based on the under-standing of their irreconcilable perspectives, we propose “going back to the roots” and using the initial evidence in the data in terms of the size and the uncertainty of the estimate for the pur-pose of statistical inference. Finally, we make six propositions that hopefully contribute to im-proving the quality of inferences in future research.

scholarly journals Geometric and topological approaches to significance testing in wavelet analysis

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1331-1363
Author(s):  
J. A. Schulte ◽  
C. Duffy ◽  
R. G. Najjar
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Topological Analysis ◽  
Significance Test ◽  
Noise Model ◽  
Significance Testing ◽  
Wavelet Domain ◽  
Topological Methods ◽  
Significance Levels ◽  
Wavelet Spectra

Abstract. Geometric and topological methods are applied to significance testing in the wavelet domain. A geometric test was developed for assigning significance to pointwise significance patches in local wavelet spectra, contiguous regions of significant wavelet coefficients with respect to some noise model. This geometric significance test was found to produce results similar to an existing areawise significance test, while being more computationally flexible and efficient. The geometric significance test can be readily applied to pointwise significance patches at various pointwise significance levels in wavelet power and coherence spectra. A topological analysis of pointwise significance patches determined that holes, deficits in pointwise significance embedded in significance patches, are capable of identifying important structures, some of which are undetected by the geometric and areawise tests. The application of the new and existing significance tests to ideal time series and to the time series of the Niño 3.4 and North Atlantic Oscillation showed that the areawise and geometric tests perform similarly in ideal and geophysical settings, while the topological methods showed that the Niño 3.4 time series contains numerous phase-coherent oscillations.

scholarly journals Geometric and topological approaches to significance testing in wavelet analysis

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Schulte ◽  
C. Duffy ◽  
R. G. Najjar
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Topological Analysis ◽  
Significance Test ◽  
Noise Model ◽  
Significance Testing ◽  
Topological Methods ◽  
Noise Background ◽  
The North ◽  
Significance Levels ◽  
The North Atlantic Oscillation

Abstract. Geometric and topological methods are applied to significance testing in the wavelet domain. A geometric test was developed for assigning significance to pointwise significance patches in local wavelet spectra, i.e., contiguous regions of significant wavelet power coefficients with respect to some noise model. This geometric significance test was found to produce results similar to an existing areawise significance test while being more computationally flexible and efficient. The geometric significance test can be readily applied to pointwise significance patches at various pointwise significance levels in wavelet power and coherence spectra. The geometric test determined that features in wavelet power of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) are indistinguishable from a red-noise background, suggesting that the NAO is a stochastic, unpredictable process, which could render difficult the future projections of the NAO under a changing global system. The geometric test did, however, identify features in the wavelet power spectrum of an El Niño index (Niño 3.4) as distinguishable from a red-noise background. A topological analysis of pointwise significance patches determined that holes, deficits in pointwise significance embedded in significance patches, are capable of identifying important structures, some of which are undetected by the geometric and areawise tests. The application of the topological methods to ideal time series and to the time series of the Niño 3.4 and NAO indices showed that the areawise and geometric tests perform similarly in ideal and geophysical settings, while the topological methods showed that the Niño 3.4 time series contains numerous phase-coherent oscillations that could be interacting nonlinearly.

The classification of the Tungusic languages

2020 ◽  
pp. 80-91
Author(s):  
Lindsay J. Whaley ◽  
Sofia Oskolskaya
Keyword(s):  
Phylogenetic Analysis ◽  
Genetic Relationships ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Bayesian Phylogenetic Analysis ◽  
Southern Branch ◽  
Basic Vocabulary ◽  
Cladistic Classification ◽  
Northern Branch

This chapter surveys previous attempts to classify the genetic relationships among the Tungusic languages. The set of sound correspondences that can be employed in this classification is examined and it is argued that, if one assumes binary branching for a cladistic classification, there are three plausible classifications that result from the application of the classical comparative method. Next, a Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of basic vocabulary is undertaken to determine whether that analysis provides any further evidence for which of the three classifications is preferred. The conclusion is that it does and that one of the best classifications of Tungusic places Manchu, Xibe, and Jurchen in a Southern Branch together with Udihe and Nanai complexes, and the Even-Evenki complex in a Northern Branch. Though our analysis does not exclude the most common classification in which the Manchuric branch separated first from all other Tungusic languages.

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