Automated reconstruction of ancient languages using probabilistic models of sound change
Automated reconstruction of ancient languages using probabilistic models of sound change
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1204678110
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发表时间：
2013-03-12
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Klein, Dan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Bouchard-Cote, Alexandre;Hall, David;Klein, Dan
语言学中最古老的问题之一是重建现代语言演变而来的原始语言中出现的单词。辨别这些古代语言的形式，可以评估有关语言变化性质的建议，并得出关于人类历史的推论。原始语言通常是使用一种被称为比较法的艰苦手动过程来重建的。我们提出了一类声音变化的概率模型，以及在这些模型中进行推理的算法。由此产生的系统自动地、准确地从现代语言重建原始语言。我们将该系统应用于637种南岛语言，提供了一组准确的、大规模的原始语言的自动重建。该系统85%以上的重建都在由专门研究南岛语言的语言学家提供的手工重建的一个字符范围内。能够自动重建大量语言提供了一种有用的方法，可以定量地探索关于决定语言中哪些声音可能随时间变化的因素的假设。我们证明了这一点，表明重建的南岛原始语言为1955年首次提出的关于声音的功能与其变化概率之间关系的假说提供了令人信服的支持。
One of the oldest problems in linguistics is reconstructing the words that appeared in the protolanguages from which modern languages evolved. Identifying the forms of these ancient languages makes it possible to evaluate proposals about the nature of language change and to draw inferences about human history. Protolanguages are typically reconstructed using a painstaking manual process known as the comparative method. We present a family of probabilistic models of sound change as well as algorithms for performing inference in these models. The resulting system automatically and accurately reconstructs protolanguages from modern languages. We apply this system to 637 Austronesian languages, providing an accurate, large-scale automatic reconstruction of a set of protolanguages. Over 85% of the system's reconstructions are within one character of the manual reconstruction provided by a linguist specializing in Austronesian languages. Being able to automatically reconstruct large numbers of languages provides a useful way to quantitatively explore hypotheses about the factors determining which sounds in a language are likely to change over time. We demonstrate this by showing that the reconstructed Austronesian protolanguages provide compelling support for a hypothesis about the relationship between the function of a sound and its probability of changing that was first proposed in 1955.