Re: Word evolution

Lance wrote:
On Oct 15, 8:05 pm, Dave Smith <da...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 15 Oct, 13:25, Lance <LanceG...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On Oct 15, 2:00 pm, Dave Smith <da...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 15 Oct, 07:19, Lance <LanceG...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Oct 15, 12:29 am, Dave Smith <da...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 14 Oct, 22:24, Lance <LanceG...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Shifty Talk: Probing the process of word evolution
Bruce Bower
Here's an evolutionary talking point: Two new studies quantify parts
of the mechanism by which frequently used words change slowly over
many millennia whereas rarely used words more rapidly take on new
forms.
In fact, frequency of word usage exerts a "lawlike" influence on the
rapidity of language evolution, the research teams conclude in the
Oct. 11 Nature. This discovery offers a new tool for retracing the
history of major language families, reconstructing ancient tongues,
and predicting which words will undergo future alterations.
"We expect all languages to diverge initially in the least frequently
used parts of their vocabulary," says evolutionary biologist Mark
Pagel of the University of Reading in England.
Pagel's group focused on Indo-European languages. Some words for the
same meanings differ strikingly across the more than 100 languages and
dialects of that family, while others take similar forms.
The researchers first determined 200 basic vocabulary meanings in 87
Indo-European languages spoken during the past 6,000 to 10,000 years.
They then applied a statistical technique to modern-language data in
order to estimate the spoken frequencies of the corresponding words in
English, Spanish, Russian, and Greek.
Among those 200 meanings, commonly used words-such as who or night,
and terms for numbers-evolved slowly and sounded similar in different
languages. Such words undergo no more than one wholesale shift to a
new form every 10,000 years, the scientists propose.
In contrast, less frequently used words-such as dirty, turn, and guts-
evolved more rapidly and sounded different across languages. These
types of words change forms up to nine times every 10,000 years,
according to the investigators.
In the second new study, Harvard University genomics graduate student
Erez Lieberman and his coworkers measured the rate at which English
verbs have become regular-using the suffix "ed" to signify past tense-
over the past 1,200 years. That linguistic period begins with Old
English, includes Middle English around 800 years ago, and ends with
English as it is spoken today.
The team compiled a list of 177 irregular verbs in Old English. Of
that number, 145 remained irregular in Middle English and 98 are still
irregular today.
The researchers then calculated the frequency of each verb's usage in
Modern English and estimated frequencies for the two older tongues.
They determined that an irregular verb used 100 times as often as
another in daily conversation takes 10 times as long to become regular
as the less-spoken verb does.
If current trends continue, only 83 of the 177 verbs studied will be
irregular in 500 years, the researchers predict. They predict that the
next irregular verb to regularize will be wed, meaning that just-
married couples will no longer be "newly wed" but will have blissfully
"wedded."
"Our results indicate that languages can evolve in such an orderly
fashion that simple mathematical descriptions capture their behavior,"
Lieberman says. "A language's irregularities reveal the mechanisms
shaping its evolution."
The use of sophisticated statistical methods to quantify how words
evolve on the basis of the frequency of their use "is an important
step forward," remarks psycholinguist W. Tecumseh Fitch of the
University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Source: ScienceNewshttp://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20071013/fob2.asp
But is this 'evolution' or just change?
Dave- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
Evolution = change under the pressure of selection? (Recall
"evolution" has no "direction"). If theat is yoiur definition then it
is evolution.
Lance
With a definition like this, discussion becomes vague. Isn't it
desirable to specify the type of change and type of selection that are
being invoked?- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
I think the researchers did both.
The words that changed their form (evolved?) more were those that were
used (selected?) less often. Maybe I'm being stupid, but how is this
analogous to the sort of processes involved in Darwinian evolution?

Perhaps it would be better to view the changes in word form as being
more like errors of transmission? Words being more frequently used
would have their form more frequently confirmed and thus might be less
likely to be 'misused'.

Before writing words only existed when used. Should no one use them
they are dead. Writing does slow language change down, yes, and
provides a kind of cold storage from which dead words may arise again.
So each use of a word confirms its existence. In the sense that life
forms that are struggling at the margins of existence show greatest
change (adaptation) I think it is fair to describe it as evolution.

I am sure the process of change is driven by errors of memory, but
there are no standards of correctness in language. What counts is that
others understand you. So to talk of "misuse" is to bring back all the
old stereotypes that there is a canonical and proper form of a
language. Jean Aitchison is quite good at dispelling this myth. What
is the time from which the canonical grammar and word form is supposed
to be measured? 100 years ago? 200 years ago? 1000 years ago? Every
age sees change in language.

The reason for the 'myth' persisting is that there is a standard of correctness. It isn't based on historical or linguistic fact, but on the need for social exclusivity. This changes according to fashion, of course, but you can identify social class by language. The various studies that show men having the local dialect far more stongly than women confirms this.
.

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