Investigating environmental effects on phonology using diachronic models
Investigating environmental effects on phonology using diachronic models
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DOI：
10.1017/ehs.2023.33
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发表时间：
2024-01-03
影响因子：
2.6
通讯作者：
Grollemund，Rebecca
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hartmann，Frederik;Roberts，Sean G.;Grollemund，Rebecca
以前的工作提出了各种机制，环境可能会影响语言特征的出现。例如，干燥的空气可能会导致对音高的仔细控制更加费力，从而影响依赖于音高的语言差异的出现，如词汇音调或元音库存。对这些提议的批评指出，需要控制历史和地理上的混乱。我们采取因果推理的方法来解决这个问题，以设计迄今为止最详细的理论测试。我们分析班图语系的语言，使用先前的地理系统发育树的关系，以建立语言在哪里和什么时候说。这与从历史气候模型中获得的这些时间和地点的湿度估计相结合。然后，我们估计因果路径模型中因果关系的强度，控制继承和借用的各种影响。我们发现没有证据支持先前的主张，湿度影响词汇语气的出现。这项研究表明，如何使用因果推理的方法，让我们测试复杂的因果索赔的文化演变的语言。
Previous work has proposed various mechanisms by which the environment may affect the emergence of linguistic features. For example, dry air may cause careful control of pitch to be more effortful, and so affect the emergence of linguistic distinctions that rely on pitch such as lexical tone or vowel inventories. Criticisms of these proposals point out that there are both historical and geographic confounds that need to be controlled for. We take a causal inference approach to this problem to design the most detailed test of the theory to date. We analyse languages from the Bantu language family, using a prior geographic–phylogenetic tree of relationships to establish where and when languages were spoken. This is combined with estimates of humidity for those times and places, taken from historical climate models. We then estimate the strength of causal relationships in a causal path model, controlling for various influences of inheritance and borrowing. We find no evidence to support the previous claims that humidity affects the emergence of lexical tone. This study shows how using causal inference approaches lets us test complex causal claims about the cultural evolution of language.