Robust, Causal, and Incremental Approaches to Investigating Linguistic Adaptation.

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses the maximum robustness approach for studying cases of adaptation in language. We live in an age where we have more data on more languages than ever before, and more data to link it with from other domains. This should make it easier to test hypotheses involving adaptation, and also to spot new patterns that might be explained by adaptation. However, there is not much discussion of the overall approach to research in this area. There are outstanding questions about how to formalize theories, what the criteria are for directing research and how to integrate results from different methods into a clear assessment of a hypothesis. This paper addresses some of those issues by suggesting an approach which is causal, incremental and robust. It illustrates the approach with ref

SUBMITTER: Roberts SG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5826341 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature