Smooth Signals and Syntactic Change
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5901210 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Joel C Wallenberg (0000-0002-1837-6765), Rachael Bailes (0000-0001-7166-4988), Christine Cuskley (0000-0002-5699-4556), Anton Karl Ingason (0000-0002-2069-5204) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 60 |
| Publication date | 2021-03-25 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Languages (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2226-471X • E-ISSN: 2226-471X |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/languages6020060 |
| OpenAlex | W3136408292 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 29 |
A large body of recent work argues that considerations of information density predict various phenomena in linguistic planning and production. However, the usefulness of an information theoretic account for explaining diachronic phenomena has remained under-explored. Here, we test the idea that speakers prefer informationally uniform utterances on diachronic data from historical English and Icelandic. Our results show that: (i) the information density approach allows us to predict that Subject and Object type will affect the frequencies of OV and VO in specific ways, creating a complex Constant Rate Effect, (ii) the bias towards information uniformity explains this CRE and may help to explain others, and (iii) communities of speakers are constant in their average target level of information uniformity over long periods of historical time. This finding is consistent with an understanding of this bias which places it deep in the human language faculty and the human faculty for communication
Affect (linguistics · Cognitive psychology · Constant (computer programming · Human language · Icelandic · Linguistics · Object (grammar · Subject (documents · Test (biology · Computer Science · Language and cultural evolution · Natural Language Processing Techniques · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation · Artificial Intelligence · Philosophy
Ggplot2
Redundancy and reduction
A Mathematical Theory of Communication
Studies in Comparative Germanic Syntax
The Handbook of the History of English
The Syntax of Icelandic
Word Order Change in Icelandic
Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change
The rate of phrase structure change in the history of Yiddish
Internal and external forces in language change
Deriving the Constant Rate Effect
The Smooth Signal Redundancy Hypothesis
Scrambling, LF, and phrase structure change in Yiddish
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.8 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2024 (4) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |