Browsing by Author "Meade, Andrew"
Now showing items 1-3 of 3
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Dominant words rise to the top by positive frequency-dependent selection.
(2019)A puzzle of language is how speakers come to use the same words for particular meanings, given that there are often many competing alternatives (e.g., "sofa," "couch," "settee"), and there is seldom a necessary connection ... -
Reply to Mahowald and Gibson and to Heggarty: No problems with short words, and no evidence provided
(2013)Mahowald and Gibson (1) suggest that the shorter word length of frequently used words, and not their stability, could mean that chance sound correspondences account for the pattern of results we report for cognate relationships ... -
Ultraconserved words point to deep language ancestry across Eurasia
(2013)The search for ever deeper relationships among the World’s languages is bedeviled by the fact that most words evolve too rapidly to preserve evidence of their ancestry beyond 5,000 to 9,000 y. On the other hand, quantitative ...
