Evolutionary dynamics of language systems

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Vol/Iss. 114(42) National Academy of Sciences Published In Pages: E8822-E8829
By Greenhill, Simon J. , Wu, Chieh-Hsi, Hua, Xia, Gray, Russell D.

Hypothesis

Grammatical features exhibit less schismogenesis than basic vocabulary.

Note

"The amount of evolution in the lexical data attributable to punctuational effects was almost twice that of the structural data (29.10%, SD = 3.1 vs. 15.15% SD = 4.0)."

Test

Test NameSupportSignificanceCoefficientTail
Posterior probability distributionSupportedUNKNOWNUNKNOWNUNKNOWN

Variables

Variable NameVariable Type OCM Term(s)
Schismogenesis in grammatical featuresDependentGrammar
Schismogenesis in basic vocabularyDependentVocabulary