Eric W Holman
Biographic Data
| ID | 102929 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Eric W Holman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Eric W |
| FAMILY NAME | Holman |
| SIGNATURE | HOLMAN E W |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Los Angeles |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 60 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1974 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Sound Correspondences in the World's Languages: Online Supplementary Materials
Sound Correspondences in the World's Languages
An automated sound correspondence-recognition program developed by the authors is applied to a data set consisting of standardized word lists for over half of the world's languages. Online appendices present the results in a compendium of 692 recurrent sound correspondences that contains information about the frequency of occurrence of each correspondence. Applications of the compendium to historical linguistics are proposed. For example, the cat…
Correlates of Reticulation in Linguistic Phylogenies
This paper discusses phylogenetic reticulation using linguistic data from the Automated Similarity Judgment Program or ASJP (Holman et al., 2008; Wichmann et al., 2010a). It contributes methodologically to the examination of two measures of reticulation in distance-based phylogenetic data, specifically the δ score of Holland et al. (2002) and the more recent Q -residuals of Gray et al. (2010). It is shown that the δ score is a more adequate measu…
Automated Dating of the World's Language Families Based on Lexical Similarity
This paper describes a computerized alternative to glottochronology for estimating elapsed time since parent languages diverged into daughter languages. The method, developed by the Automated Similarity Judgment Program (ASJP) consortium, is different from glottochronology in four major respects: (1) it is automated and thus is more objective, (2) it applies a uniform analytical approach to a single database of worldwide languages, (3) it is base…
Do languages originate and become extinct at constant rates
The shape of phylogenetic trees of language families is used to test the null hypothesis that languages throughout a family originate and go extinct at constant rates. Trees constructed either by hand or by computer prove to be more unbalanced than predicted, with many languages on some branches and few on others. The observed levels of imbalance are not explainable by errors in the trees or by the population sizes or geographic density of the la…
Population Size and Rates of Language Change
Previous empirical studies of population size and language change have produced equivocal results. We therefore address the question with a new set of lexical data from nearly one-half of the world's languages. We first show that relative population sizes of modern languages can be extrapolated to ancestral languages, albeit with diminishing accuracy, up to several thousand years into the past. We then test for an effect of population against the…
Adding typology to lexicostatistics: A combined approach to language classification
The ASJP project aims at establishing relationships between languages on the basis of the Swadesh word list. For this purpose, lists have been collected and phonologically transcribed for almost 3,500 languages. Using a method based on the algorithm proposed by Levenshtein (Cybernetics and Control Theory 10: 707-710, 1966), a custom-made computer program calculates the distances between all pairs of languages in the database. Standard software is…
Domain-Specific and General Properties of Folk Classifications
Published hierarchical folk classifications of animals, plants, and a wide variety of other things are surveyed in search of similarities and differences. In contrast to classifications of other things, classifications of animals and plants distinguish more categories, are more likely to be endowed with taxonomic ranks, and obey more consistently a nomenclatural rule related to ranks. Even within the set of things other than animals and plants, t…
Domain-Specific and General Properties of Folk Classifications
Published hierarchical folk classifications of animals, plants, and a wide variety of other things are surveyed in search of similarities and differences. In contrast to classifications of other things, classifications of animals and plants distinguish more categories, are more likely to be endowed with taxonomic ranks, and obey more consistently a nomenclatural rule related to ranks. Even within the set of things other than animals and plants, t…
Why are language families larger in some regions than in others
For most of the world’s language families that are not included in yet larger families, published sources were surveyed to determine the number of languages in the family, and also the lexical diversity among those languages as measured by cognate percentages in lexicostatistical wordlists. In this database, lexical diversity tends to be lower in American families than elsewhere; this result is consistent with several alternative explanations, so…
Extensive Measurement Without an Order Relation
This paper states two sets of axioms sufficient for extensive measurement. The first set, like previously published axioms, requires that each of the objects measured must be classifiable as either greater than, or less than, or indifferent to each other object. The second set, however, requires only that any two objects be classifiable as either indifferent or different, and does not need any information about which object is greater. Each set o…
Automated Dating of the World's Language Families Based on Lexical Similarity
This paper describes a computerized alternative to glottochronology for estimating elapsed time since parent languages diverged into daughter languages. The method, developed by the Automated Similarity Judgment Program (ASJP) consortium, is different from glottochronology in four major respects: (1) it is automated and thus is more objective, (2) it applies a uniform analytical approach to a single database of worldwide languages, (3) it is base…
Population Size and Rates of Language Change
Previous empirical studies of population size and language change have produced equivocal results. We therefore address the question with a new set of lexical data from nearly one-half of the world's languages. We first show that relative population sizes of modern languages can be extrapolated to ancestral languages, albeit with diminishing accuracy, up to several thousand years into the past. We then test for an effect of population against the…
Adding typology to lexicostatistics: A combined approach to language classification
The ASJP project aims at establishing relationships between languages on the basis of the Swadesh word list. For this purpose, lists have been collected and phonologically transcribed for almost 3,500 languages. Using a method based on the algorithm proposed by Levenshtein (Cybernetics and Control Theory 10: 707-710, 1966), a custom-made computer program calculates the distances between all pairs of languages in the database. Standard software is…
Sound Correspondences in the World's Languages
An automated sound correspondence-recognition program developed by the authors is applied to a data set consisting of standardized word lists for over half of the world's languages. Online appendices present the results in a compendium of 692 recurrent sound correspondences that contains information about the frequency of occurrence of each correspondence. Applications of the compendium to historical linguistics are proposed. For example, the cat…
Domain-Specific and General Properties of Folk Classifications
Published hierarchical folk classifications of animals, plants, and a wide variety of other things are surveyed in search of similarities and differences. In contrast to classifications of other things, classifications of animals and plants distinguish more categories, are more likely to be endowed with taxonomic ranks, and obey more consistently a nomenclatural rule related to ranks. Even within the set of things other than animals and plants, t…
Extensive Measurement Without an Order Relation
This paper states two sets of axioms sufficient for extensive measurement. The first set, like previously published axioms, requires that each of the objects measured must be classifiable as either greater than, or less than, or indifferent to each other object. The second set, however, requires only that any two objects be classifiable as either indifferent or different, and does not need any information about which object is greater. Each set o…
Why are language families larger in some regions than in others
For most of the world’s language families that are not included in yet larger families, published sources were surveyed to determine the number of languages in the family, and also the lexical diversity among those languages as measured by cognate percentages in lexicostatistical wordlists. In this database, lexical diversity tends to be lower in American families than elsewhere; this result is consistent with several alternative explanations, so…
Domain-Specific and General Properties of Folk Classifications
Published hierarchical folk classifications of animals, plants, and a wide variety of other things are surveyed in search of similarities and differences. In contrast to classifications of other things, classifications of animals and plants distinguish more categories, are more likely to be endowed with taxonomic ranks, and obey more consistently a nomenclatural rule related to ranks. Even within the set of things other than animals and plants, t…
Domain-Specific and General Properties of Folk Classifications
Published hierarchical folk classifications of animals, plants, and a wide variety of other things are surveyed in search of similarities and differences. In contrast to classifications of other things, classifications of animals and plants distinguish more categories, are more likely to be endowed with taxonomic ranks, and obey more consistently a nomenclatural rule related to ranks. Even within the set of things other than animals and plants, t…
Population Size and Rates of Language Change
Previous empirical studies of population size and language change have produced equivocal results. We therefore address the question with a new set of lexical data from nearly one-half of the world's languages. We first show that relative population sizes of modern languages can be extrapolated to ancestral languages, albeit with diminishing accuracy, up to several thousand years into the past. We then test for an effect of population against the…
Adding typology to lexicostatistics: A combined approach to language classification
The ASJP project aims at establishing relationships between languages on the basis of the Swadesh word list. For this purpose, lists have been collected and phonologically transcribed for almost 3,500 languages. Using a method based on the algorithm proposed by Levenshtein (Cybernetics and Control Theory 10: 707-710, 1966), a custom-made computer program calculates the distances between all pairs of languages in the database. Standard software is…
Do languages originate and become extinct at constant rates
The shape of phylogenetic trees of language families is used to test the null hypothesis that languages throughout a family originate and go extinct at constant rates. Trees constructed either by hand or by computer prove to be more unbalanced than predicted, with many languages on some branches and few on others. The observed levels of imbalance are not explainable by errors in the trees or by the population sizes or geographic density of the la…
Correlates of Reticulation in Linguistic Phylogenies
This paper discusses phylogenetic reticulation using linguistic data from the Automated Similarity Judgment Program or ASJP (Holman et al., 2008; Wichmann et al., 2010a). It contributes methodologically to the examination of two measures of reticulation in distance-based phylogenetic data, specifically the δ score of Holland et al. (2002) and the more recent Q -residuals of Gray et al. (2010). It is shown that the δ score is a more adequate measu…
Automated Dating of the World's Language Families Based on Lexical Similarity
This paper describes a computerized alternative to glottochronology for estimating elapsed time since parent languages diverged into daughter languages. The method, developed by the Automated Similarity Judgment Program (ASJP) consortium, is different from glottochronology in four major respects: (1) it is automated and thus is more objective, (2) it applies a uniform analytical approach to a single database of worldwide languages, (3) it is base…
Sound Correspondences in the World's Languages: Online Supplementary Materials
Sound Correspondences in the World's Languages
An automated sound correspondence-recognition program developed by the authors is applied to a data set consisting of standardized word lists for over half of the world's languages. Online appendices present the results in a compendium of 692 recurrent sound correspondences that contains information about the frequency of occurrence of each correspondence. Applications of the compendium to historical linguistics are proposed. For example, the cat…
Computer Science (9 works) · Language and cultural evolution (7 works) · Linguistics (7 works) · Mathematics (5 works) · Language family (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Statistics (4 works) · Artificial Intelligence (3 works) · Artificial Intelligence (3 works) · Biology (3 works)