Evolution and trade-off dynamics of functional load
- URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2112.12224v1
- Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2021 20:57:50 GMT
- Title: Evolution and trade-off dynamics of functional load
- Authors: Erich Round and Rikker Dockum and Robin J. Ryder
- Abstract summary: We apply phylogenetic methods to examine the diachronic evolution of FL across 90 languages of the Pama-Nyungan (PN) family of Australia.
We find a high degree of phylogenetic signal in FL. Though phylogenetic signal has been reported for phonological structures, such as phonotactics, its detection in measures of phonological function is novel.
- Score: 0.0
- License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
- Abstract: Function Load (FL) quantifies the contributions by phonological contrasts to
distinctions made across the lexicon. Previous research has linked particularly
low values of FL to sound change. Here we broaden the scope of enquiry into FL,
to its evolution at all values. We apply phylogenetic methods to examine the
diachronic evolution of FL across 90 languages of the Pama-Nyungan (PN) family
of Australia. We find a high degree of phylogenetic signal in FL. Though
phylogenetic signal has been reported for phonological structures, such as
phonotactics, its detection in measures of phonological function is novel. We
also find a significant, negative correlation between the FL of vowel length
and of the following consonant, that is, a deep-time historical trade-off
dynamic, which we relate to known allophony in modern PN languages and
compensatory sound changes in their past. The finding reveals a historical
dynamic, similar to transphonologization, which we characterize as a flow of
contrastiveness between subsystems of the phonology. Recurring across a
language family which spans a whole continent and many millennia of time depth,
our finding provides one of the most compelling examples yet of Sapir's 'drift'
hypothesis, of non-accidentally parallel development in historically related
languages.
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