Abstract For many years, the uncontested opinion in the field has been that there is not an empirical linguistic difference, but rather a societal one, between dialects and languages. Recently, however, it has been reported that distances between linguistic varieties are typically bimodal, suggesting that a classification into language vs. dialect might not be exclusively a social construct. Here, I review these papers and attempt to replicate them with a larger and more suitable dataset from Romance languages. Results fail to reveal any empirically salient boundary between languages and dialects. A look at other language families supports this conclusion. Simulations suggest that the distribution of linguistic distances in a family is primarily driven by its phylogenetic structure, with no additional mechanisms needed beyond vertical and horizontal diversification.
Abstract This usage-based investigation analyzes the changing frequency of a periphrastic future construction of Persian over four centuries. The data originates from a diachronic dataset of New Persian, sampled from 55 texts of the 10th to 20th centuries. The statistical results demonstrate a frequency rise in this construction’s usage in the 17th and 18th centuries (phase 1), followed by a frequency drop in the 19th and 20th centuries (phase 2). It is argued that the initial upward trend could have been motivated by systematicity (system pressure), affecting the functionally expanding prefix of imperfective aspect. Subsequently, the two future-marking forms are engaged in a competitive situation from the 18th century, which is observed through the interchangeability feature of the verbs. Ultimately, this competition is resolved, or is in the process of being resolved, due to the economic advantage of the generalized prefix and the higher cost associated with the periphrastic construction.
Colexification—the expression of distinct concepts by a single word form—provides a valuable window onto how lexical meanings evolve. Using phylogenetic comparative models, we analyze lexical data from three language families—Austronesian, Indo-European, and Uralic—to investigate the evolutionary dynamics underlying colexification patterns. We assess the effects of three predictors: semantic relatedness, borrowability, and usage frequency. Our results suggest that more closely related concept pairs tend to be colexified across a larger portion of the family trees and change more slowly. Concept pairs that are more frequent and more prone to borrowing show a tendency to evolve more rapidly and be colexified less often, though these effects are not fully consistent across families. Differences between the language families suggest that areal and cultural factors also play a role.
This usage-based investigation analyzes the changing frequency of a periphrastic future construction of Persian over four centuries. The data originates from a diachronic dataset of New Persian, sampled from 55 texts of the 10th to 20th centuries. The statistical results demonstrate a frequency rise in this construction's usage in the 17th and 18th centuries (phase 1), followed by a frequency drop in the 19th and 20th centuries (phase 2). It is argued that the initial upward trend could have been motivated by systematicity (system pressure), affecting the functionally expanding prefix of imperfective aspect. Subsequently, the two future-marking forms are engaged in a competitive situation from the 18th century, which is observed through the interchangeability feature of the verbs. Ultimately, this competition is resolved, or is in the process of being resolved, due to the economic advantage of the generalized prefix and the higher cost associated with the periphrastic construction.
This article studies variability in the internal structure of verbal bound person-number paradigms within a sample of 174 Western Iranic language varieties. Twenty-one patterns of syncretism are found within the sample, highlighting the neutralization of opposition between cells in the inflectional person/number paradigm. The syncretic patterns in these languages range from complete opposition in the person/number paradigm to partial syncretism in certain feature values, diagonal systems, and the complete neutralization of person, attested in the Koceri variety of Northern Kurdish. The article reflects on the effect of sound change, analogy, and areal and contact factors in developing syncretic person-number patterns within Iranic.
