Language Change and Complex Adaptive System - Based on the Historical Data in English and Networks

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1. Language Change and Social NetworksIn Ogura & Wang, Dynamic Dialectology and Complex Adaptive System, Methods and Data in English Historical Dialectology (ed. by Dossena & Lass, Peter Lang, 2004), I synthesized linguistic selection, i.e., unconscious functional selection between available variants by learners, and language games, i.e., language spread by cooperation in interactions of individuals in the complex adaptive system of dynamic dialectology. In this study, I further Ogura & Wang (2004) and investigate how different structures of social networks, especially small-world networks and scale-free networks, affect the linguistic type of change and the game type of change, based on simulation and historical data from English. Our historical data constitute empirical basis for theories, and computer simulations allow us to create scenarios in which a large number of entities interact in an observable way.2. Evolution of the Small-world Networks of the LexiconIn this study I demons … More trate that polysemous links have a profound impact in the organization of the semantic graph, conforming it as a small-world network, based on the data from WordNet (version 2.0) and A Thesaurus of Old English (TOE) (J. Roberts, et. al., 1995). First I compile the database of 114648 nouns and 11306 verbs of Word Net and 18265 nouns and 7161 verbs in TOE, including the information of monosemy, polysemy, synonymy, word frequency, hypernymy, date of origin and date of retention.Then I show that the inclusion of polysemy decreases the average minimal length and produces a considerable number of words with high connectivity and clustering, creating a clustered short-range, i.e., small-world network.Furthermore I show that the higher frequency words construct the higher level of the hypernymy tree within each lexical category. This architecture is robust through the times, forming the basis of the small-world network.To the best of my knowledge, the investigations under 1 and 2 are the first attempts to connect the recently developed network theory to a large-scale English historical data, and they gave much impact at the International Conferences. Less