Abstract profiles of structural stability point to universal tendencies, family-specific factors, and ancient connections between languages.

ABSTRACT: Language is the best example of a cultural evolutionary system, able to retain a phylogenetic signal over many thousands of years. The temporal stability (conservatism) of basic vocabulary is relatively well understood, but the stability of the structural properties of language (phonology, morphology, syntax) is still unclear. Here we report an extensive Bayesian phylogenetic investigation of the structural stability of numerous features across many language families and we introduce a novel method for analyzing the relationships between the "stability profiles" of language families. We found that there is a strong universal component across language families, suggesting the existence of universal linguistic, cognitive and genetic constraints. Against this background, however, each languag

SUBMITTER: Dediu D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3447929 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature