Statistics of Language Morphology Change: From Biconsonantal Hunters to Triconsonantal Farmers
Identifieur interne : 000085 ( Pmc/Checkpoint ); précédent : 000084; suivant : 000086Statistics of Language Morphology Change: From Biconsonantal Hunters to Triconsonantal Farmers
Auteurs : Noam Agmon [Israël] ; Yigal Bloch [Israël]Source :
- PLoS ONE [ 1932-6203 ] ; 2013.
Abstract
Linguistic evolution mirrors cultural evolution, of which one of the most decisive steps was the "agricultural revolution" that occurred 11,000 years ago in W. Asia. Traditional comparative historical linguistics becomes inaccurate for time depths greater than, say, 10 kyr. Therefore it is difficult to determine whether decisive events in human prehistory have had an observable impact on human language. Here we supplement the traditional methodology with independent statistical measures showing that following the transition to agriculture, languages of W. Asia underwent a transition from biconsonantal (2c) to triconsonantal (3c) morphology. Two independent proofs for this are provided. Firstly the reconstructed Proto-Semitic fire and hunting lexicons are predominantly 2c, whereas the farming lexicon is almost exclusively 3c in structure. Secondly, while Biblical verbs show the usual Zipf exponent of about 1, their 2c subset exhibits a larger exponent. After the 2c > 3c transition, this could arise from a faster decay in the frequency of use of the less common 2c verbs. Using an established frequency-dependent word replacement rate, we calculate that the observed increase in the Zipf exponent has occurred over the 7,500 years predating Biblical Hebrew namely, starting with the transition to agriculture.
Url:
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0083780
PubMed: 24367613
PubMed Central: 3868553
Affiliations:
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Asia. Traditional comparative historical linguistics becomes inaccurate for time depths greater than, say, 10 kyr. Therefore it is difficult to determine whether decisive events in human prehistory have had an observable impact on human language. Here we supplement the traditional methodology with independent statistical measures showing that following the transition to agriculture, languages of W. Asia underwent a transition from biconsonantal (2c) to triconsonantal (3c) morphology. Two independent proofs for this are provided. Firstly the reconstructed Proto-Semitic fire and hunting lexicons are predominantly 2c, whereas the farming lexicon is almost exclusively 3c in structure. Secondly, while Biblical verbs show the usual Zipf exponent of about 1, their 2c subset exhibits a larger exponent. After the 2c > 3c transition, this could arise from a faster decay in the frequency of use of the less common 2c verbs. Using an established frequency-dependent word replacement rate, we calculate that the observed increase in the Zipf exponent has occurred over the 7,500 years predating Biblical Hebrew namely, starting with the transition to agriculture.</p></div></front><back><div1 type="bibliography"><listBibl><biblStruct><analytic><author><name sortKey="Smith, Bd" uniqKey="Smith B">BD Smith</name></author></analytic></biblStruct><biblStruct><analytic><author><name sortKey="Clutton Brock, J" uniqKey="Clutton Brock J">J Clutton-Brock</name></author></analytic></biblStruct><biblStruct><analytic><author><name sortKey="Kuijt, I" uniqKey="Kuijt I">I Kuijt</name></author><author><name sortKey="Goring Morris, N" uniqKey="Goring Morris N">N Goring-Morris</name></author></analytic></biblStruct><biblStruct><analytic><author><name sortKey="Lipi Ski, E" uniqKey="Lipi Ski E">E Lipiński</name></author></analytic></biblStruct><biblStruct><analytic><author><name sortKey="Del Olmo Lete, G" uniqKey="Del Olmo Lete G">G 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Legge</name></author><author><name sortKey="Rowley Conwy, Pa" uniqKey="Rowley Conwy P">PA Rowley-Conwy</name></author></analytic></biblStruct></listBibl></div1></back></TEI><pmc article-type="research-article"><pmc-dir>properties open_access</pmc-dir>
<front><journal-meta><journal-id journal-id-type="nlm-ta">PLoS One</journal-id><journal-id journal-id-type="iso-abbrev">PLoS ONE</journal-id><journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">plos</journal-id><journal-id journal-id-type="pmc">plosone</journal-id><journal-title-group><journal-title>PLoS ONE</journal-title></journal-title-group><issn pub-type="epub">1932-6203</issn><publisher><publisher-name>Public Library of Science</publisher-name><publisher-loc>San Francisco, USA</publisher-loc></publisher></journal-meta><article-meta><article-id pub-id-type="pmid">24367613</article-id><article-id pub-id-type="pmc">3868553</article-id><article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">PONE-D-13-37712</article-id><article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.1371/journal.pone.0083780</article-id><article-categories><subj-group subj-group-type="heading"><subject>Research Article</subject></subj-group></article-categories><title-group><article-title>Statistics of Language Morphology Change: From Biconsonantal Hunters to Triconsonantal Farmers</article-title><alt-title alt-title-type="running-head">Statistics of Language Morphology Change</alt-title></title-group><contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author"><name><surname>Agmon</surname><given-names>Noam</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1"><sup>1</sup></xref><xref ref-type="corresp" rid="cor1"><sup>*</sup></xref></contrib><contrib contrib-type="author"><name><surname>Bloch</surname><given-names>Yigal</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2"><sup>2</sup></xref></contrib></contrib-group><aff id="aff1"><label>1</label><addr-line>Institute of Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel</addr-line></aff><aff id="aff2"><label>2</label><addr-line>Department of Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel</addr-line></aff><contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="editor"><name><surname>Paterson</surname><given-names>Kevin</given-names></name><role>Editor</role><xref ref-type="aff" rid="edit1"></xref></contrib></contrib-group><aff id="edit1"><addr-line>University of Leicester, United Kingdom</addr-line></aff><author-notes><corresp id="cor1">∗ E-mail: <email>agmon@fh.huji.ac.il</email></corresp><fn fn-type="conflict"><p><bold>Competing Interests: </bold>The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.</p></fn><fn fn-type="con"><p>Wrote the manuscript: NA. Supporting Information: YB. </p></fn></author-notes><pub-date pub-type="collection"><year>2013</year></pub-date><pub-date pub-type="epub"><day>19</day><month>12</month><year>2013</year></pub-date><volume>8</volume><issue>12</issue><elocation-id>e83780</elocation-id><history><date date-type="received"><day>12</day><month>9</month><year>2013</year></date><date date-type="accepted"><day>16</day><month>10</month><year>2013</year></date></history><permissions><copyright-year>2013</copyright-year><copyright-holder>Agmon, Bloch</copyright-holder><license xlink:href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"><license-p>This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the <ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution License</ext-link>, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</license-p></license></permissions><abstract><p>Linguistic evolution mirrors cultural evolution, of which one of the most decisive steps was the "agricultural revolution" that occurred 11,000 years ago in W. Asia. Traditional comparative historical linguistics becomes inaccurate for time depths greater than, say, 10 kyr. Therefore it is difficult to determine whether decisive events in human prehistory have had an observable impact on human language. Here we supplement the traditional methodology with independent statistical measures showing that following the transition to agriculture, languages of W. Asia underwent a transition from biconsonantal (2c) to triconsonantal (3c) morphology. Two independent proofs for this are provided. Firstly the reconstructed Proto-Semitic fire and hunting lexicons are predominantly 2c, whereas the farming lexicon is almost exclusively 3c in structure. Secondly, while Biblical verbs show the usual Zipf exponent of about 1, their 2c subset exhibits a larger exponent. After the 2c > 3c transition, this could arise from a faster decay in the frequency of use of the less common 2c verbs. Using an established frequency-dependent word replacement rate, we calculate that the observed increase in the Zipf exponent has occurred over the 7,500 years predating Biblical Hebrew namely, starting with the transition to agriculture.</p></abstract><funding-group><funding-statement>The Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 122/08)
<ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="http://www.isf.org.il">http://www.isf.org.il</ext-link>/. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.</funding-statement></funding-group></article-meta></front></pmc><affiliations><list><country><li>Israël</li></country></list><tree><country name="Israël"><noRegion><name sortKey="Agmon, Noam" sort="Agmon, Noam" uniqKey="Agmon N" first="Noam" last="Agmon">Noam Agmon</name></noRegion><name sortKey="Bloch, Yigal" sort="Bloch, Yigal" uniqKey="Bloch Y" first="Yigal" last="Bloch">Yigal Bloch</name></country></tree></affiliations></record>Pour manipuler ce document sous Unix (Dilib)
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