Handling word formation in historical-comparative linguistics

Slide 1

Slide 1 text

Handling word formation in historical-comparative linguistics Annotation and Analysis Johann-Mattis List DFG Research Fellow Centre des recherches linguistiques sur l’Asie Orientale Team Adaptation, Integration, Reticulation, Evolution EHESS and UPMC, Paris 2016/12/01 1 / 38

Slide 2

Slide 2 text

Preliminaries Preliminaries 2 / 38

Slide 3

Slide 3 text

Slide 4

Slide 4 text

Slide 5

Slide 5 text

Preliminaries The Word Formation Problem The Word Formation Problem Frucht, ferner fruchten, befruchten, Befruchtung, fruchtbar, fruchtig Frucht f. ‘der Fortpflanzung der eigenen Art dienendes Produkt einer Pflanze’, auch ‘ungeborenes Lebewesen’, übertragen ‘Ertrag’, ahd. fruht (9. Jh.), mhd. vruht, asächs. fruht, mnd. mnl. nl. vrucht beruhen auf einer frühen Entlehnung von gleichbed. lat. frūctus, abgeleitet vom Verb lat. fruī (frūctus sum) ‘genießen, Nutzen ziehen’ (verwandt mit brauchen, s. d.). Das Deminutiv Früchtchen hat die spezielle Bedeutung [...] inherited from borrowed from derived from PIE *bhreu◌◌̯ Hg◌ ◌ ̑ - “to use” PIE *bhruHg◌ ◌ ̑ -ié- “to use” (present tense) PGM *ƀrūkan- “to use” OHG brūhhan “to use” G brauchen “to use” G Brauch “custom” OHG fruht “profit, fruit” G frugal “modest (food)” Fr fruit “profit,fruit” Fr frugal “modest (food)” Lt fruor, fruī “I enjoy” Lt frūctus “profit” Lt frux “fruit, grain” Lt frugalis “bring profit” Adapted from an Illustration by Hans Geisler (University Düsseldorf) German "Frucht" in Pfei�er (1993, also at http://dwds.de 3 / 38

Slide 6

Slide 6 text

Preliminaries The Word Formation Problem The Word Formation Problem While etymological dictionaries provide us with very detailed scenarios on processes in language change, including processes of inheri- tance, contact, and word formation, they present the knowledge in a prosaic fashion that resists quantiﬁcation and makes it also very diﬃcult to comprehend, especially for those who are not experts in the given language family. 3 / 38

Slide 7

Slide 7 text

Preliminaries The Word Formation Problem The Word Formation Problem solej SUN French sol SUN Spanish SUN zɔnə SUN German SUN suːl Swedish 4 / 38

Slide 8

Slide 8 text

Preliminaries The Word Formation Problem The Word Formation Problem 'soh₂-wl̩- sh₂uˈen- SUN Indo-European 4 / 38

Slide 9

Slide 9 text

Preliminaries The Word Formation Problem The Word Formation Problem 'soh₂-wl̩- sh₂uˈen- SUN Indo-European soːwel- sunːoː- SUN Germanic 4 / 38

Slide 10

Slide 10 text

Preliminaries The Word Formation Problem The Word Formation Problem 'soh₂-wl̩- sh₂uˈen- SUN Indo-European soːwel- sunːoː- SUN Germanic zɔnə SUN German suːl SUN Swedish 4 / 38

Slide 11

Slide 11 text

Preliminaries The Word Formation Problem The Word Formation Problem 'soh₂-wl̩- sh₂uˈen- SUN Indo-European soːwel- sunːoː- SUN Germanic soːl- SUN Romance zɔnə SUN German suːl SUN Swedish 4 / 38

Slide 12

Slide 12 text

Preliminaries The Word Formation Problem The Word Formation Problem 'soh₂-wl̩- sh₂uˈen- SUN Indo-European soːwel- sunːoː- SUN Germanic soːl- SUN soːlikul- SMALL SUN Romance zɔnə SUN German suːl SUN Swedish 4 / 38

Slide 13

Slide 13 text

Slide 14

Slide 14 text

Preliminaries The Word Formation Problem The Word Formation Problem 'soh₂-wl◌◌̩ - sh₂uˈen- SUN Indo-European soːwel- sunːoː- SUN Germanic soːl- SUN soːlikul- SMALL SUN Romance solej SUN French sol SUN Spanish zɔnə SUN German suːl SUN Swedish SEM ANTIC SHIFT M O RPH O LO G ICAL CH AN G E M O R PH O LO G ICA L CH A N G E MORPHOLOGICAL CHANGE MORPHOLOGICAL CHANGE 4 / 38

Slide 15

Slide 15 text

Preliminaries The Word Formation Problem The Word Formation Problem Computational phylogenetic approaches, on the other hand, usually ignore word formation, mak- ing it diﬃcult to study language change in all its complexity. 4 / 38

Slide 16

Slide 16 text

Preliminaries The Word Formation Problem Reconciling Etymology with Computers Can we ﬁnd a way to increase the consis- tency of classical etymological accounts and the complexity of computational approaches to han- dle word formation processes in comparative- historical linguistics in a more reliable and more transparent way? 5 / 38

Slide 17

Slide 17 text

Preliminaries Annotation and Analysis Annotation and Analysis Annotation The ﬁrst step in linguistic reconstruction, during which we assemble our evidence and identify related words and morphemes in and outside languages. Analysis The second, crucial step of linguistic reconstruction, during which we present our hypotheses in form of historical scenarios that explain how the relations that we annotated evolved into their current shape. 6 / 38

Slide 18

Slide 18 text

Preliminaries Annotation and Analysis Annotation and Analysis solej SUN French sol SUN Spanish SUN zɔnə SUN German SUN suːl 7 / 38

Slide 19

Slide 19 text

Preliminaries Annotation and Analysis Annotation and Analysis solej SUN French sol SUN Spanish SUN zɔnə SUN German SUN suːl 7 / 38

Slide 20

Slide 20 text

Preliminaries Annotation and Analysis Annotation and Analysis solej SUN French sol SUN Spanish SUN zɔnə SUN German SUN suːl 7 / 38

Slide 21

Slide 21 text

Preliminaries Annotation and Analysis Annotation and Analysis solej SUN French sol SUN Spanish SUN zɔnə SUN German SUN suːl 7 / 38

Slide 22

Slide 22 text

Preliminaries Annotation and Analysis Annotation Descriptive Annotation The ﬁrst step of annotation in which we only state which relations hold between the entities we analyse and does not make speciﬁc assumptions regarding the historical processes which they result from. Etymological Annotation An interpretive step in the annotation in which certain parts of the reconstruction are already carried out and certain basic processes are postulated. 8 / 38

Slide 23

Slide 23 text

Preliminaries Annotation and Analysis Analysis Linguistic Reconstruction Postulating a classical proto-form which is supposed to have been fulﬁlling a certain function in the proto-language. Etymological Analysis A complete account on a given proto-form, providing the best explanations available to account for the development of the form in the descendant languages (including idiosyncratic processes). 9 / 38

Slide 24

Slide 24 text

Preliminaries Technical Aspects Data Representation Multilingual Word List A list of words from various languages, in which each row corresponds to one word form in one language, marked by a unique identifier in the first column, with additional informa- tion regarding the word (meaning, pronunciation, cognacy, etc.) placed in additional columns. Word List Format Given the very abstract and lightweight character of this word list structure, it can be stored in all computer formats which allow for this kind of data, such as CSV (comma-separated values, pure text file) or more specific spreadsheet formats (Excel, LibreOffice, GoogleSheets, etc.). 10 / 38

Slide 25

Slide 25 text

Preliminaries Technical Aspects Data Representation ID CONCEPT ORTHOGRAPHY VALUE DOCULECT COGNACY 1 hand Hand hant German 1 2 hand hand hænd English 1 3 hand рука ruka Russian 2 4 hand рука ruka Ukrainian 2 5 leg Bein bain German 3 6 leg leg lɛg English 4 7 leg нога noga Russian 5 8 leg нога noha Ukrainian 5 9 Woldemort Waldemar valdemar German 6 10 Woldemort Woldemort wɔldemɔrt English 6 11 Woldemort Владимир vladimir Russian 6 12 Woldemort Володимир volodimir Ukrainian 6 13 Harry Harald haralt German 7 14 Harry Harry hæri English 7 15 Harry Гарри gari Russian 7 16 Harry Гаррi hari Ukrainian 7 11 / 38

Slide 26

Slide 26 text

Preliminaries Technical Aspects Data Representation 11 / 38

Slide 27

Slide 27 text

Preliminaries Technical Aspects Data Representation EDICTOR Version 0.1 (List 2016) http://edictor.digling.org 11 / 38

Slide 28

Slide 28 text

Preliminaries Technical Aspects Examples for Basic Fields DOCULECT The name of the language variety (EDICTOR prefers a simple name, without special charac- ters and whitespace). CONCEPT The gloss for the concept expressed by the word (content arbitrary, as long as diﬀerent concepts are given diﬀerent glosses). TOKENS Machine-readable representation of phonetic transcription. Space-segmented, that is, phonetic/phonological units (“sounds”) are separated by spaces. 12 / 38

Slide 29

Slide 29 text

Preliminaries Technical Aspects Relations COGNACY The identiﬁer for cognate sets by which words which have the same identiﬁer are grouped into the same cognate set. ALIGNMENT The aligned representation of the word when be- ing aligned with cognate words. 13 / 38

Slide 30

Slide 30 text

Preliminaries Technical Aspects Relations 14 / 38

Slide 31

Slide 31 text

Compounding Compounding 15 / 38

Slide 32

Slide 32 text

Compounding Preliminaries Handling Compounding in SEA Languages The following is common work with Nathan Hill (SOAS, London). We developed the ideas for handling and analysing word formation in a project on the history of the Burmish language family. 16 / 38

Slide 33

Slide 33 text

Compounding Preliminaries Compounding in SEA Languages German m oː n t - English m uː n - - Danish m ɔː n - ə Swedish m oː n - e 17 / 38

Slide 34

Slide 34 text

Slide 35

Slide 35 text

Compounding Preliminaries Compounding in SEA Languages German m oː n t - English m uː n - - Danish m ɔː n - ə Swedish m oː n - e Fúzhōu ŋ u o ʔ ⁵ - - - - - - - - - - Měixiàn ŋ i a t ⁵ - - - - - k u o ŋ ⁴⁴ Guǎngzhōu j - y t ² l - œ ŋ ²² - - - - - Běijīng - y ɛ - ⁵¹ l i ɑ ŋ - - - - - - 1 2 3 4 number of morphemes per word 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 relative frequency all words nouns Compounds in the basic vocabulary (Swadesh1952) across 23 Chinese dialects (data by Hamed and Wang 2006) 30% 50% 17 / 38

Slide 36

Slide 36 text

Compounding Preliminaries Partial Cognacy ‘Cognacy is not a binary relation which is either present or not. Instead, we can distinguish diﬀerent subtypes of cognacy, just as biologists can identify speciﬁc types of homol- ogy between genes.’ (List 2016: 133) 18 / 38

Slide 37

Slide 37 text

Compounding Annotation of Compounds Language-External Annotation TOKENS (SEGMENTS) Our phonetic transcriptions are expanded by adding a layer of morphological segmentation in which diﬀerent morphemes in the same word form are separated with a morpheme separation character (usually a +). PARTIAL_COGNATES Partial cognate relations are indicated with help of partial cognate identiﬁers which are separated by a space in the partial-cognate column. PARTIAL_ALIGNMENTS When aligning the words, we still write all alignments in only one column, but we align each morpheme in the word only for the partial cognate set to which it belongs. 19 / 38

Slide 38

Slide 38 text

Compounding Annotation of Compounds Language-External Annotation Partial cognates which are annotated in this way can be directly converted into the “normal” cognate sets we know from the quantitative phylogenetic analyses. Partial cognate annotation would be extremely tedious in spreadsheets or other formats. The EDICTOR tool, however, supports partial cognate annotation, and LingPy oﬀers tools for partial cognate identiﬁcation and alignment (List et al. 2016). 19 / 38