Last changed 20 June 2010
URL: http://www.anu.edu.au/linguistics/nash/papers/lexstat/index.html

Lexical replacement and cognate equilibrium in Australia

Barry Alpher & David Nash

Australian Journal of Linguistics (AJL) 19.1(April 1999),5-56.
Now also available through http://search.informit.com.au/fullText;res=APAFT;dn=991111485

citations

disagreeing about equilibrium <<50%:

R.M.W. Dixon. 1997. The rise and fall of languages. CUP. * refers to the paper's 1984 predecessor
R.M.W. Dixon. 2002. Australian languages. CUP.

supporting equilibrium <<50% :

Harvey, Mark. 1997. The temporal interpretation of linguistic diversity in the Top End, pp.179-185 in Archaeology and Linguistics: Aboriginal Australia in Global Perspective, edited by Patrick McConvell & Nicholas Evans. Melbourne: OUP. * 'The importance of death taboos and diffusion' * pp.181-185 cites the 1984 predecessor, including: "Therefore I would agree with Alpher and Nash that the presently available evidence does not support the proposal that death taboos play a significant role in patterns of lexical replacement." (p.182)

Evans, Nicholas. 2005. Australian languages reconsidered: a review of Dixon (2002). Oceanic Linguistics 44.1, 242-286.

Claire Bowern. 2006. Another look at Australia as a linguistic area, in Yaron Matras, A. M. S. McMahon, and N. Vincent. Linguistic areas : convergence in historical and typological perspective. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. * p.255: 'The 50% figure has been comprehensively discredited by Alpher and Nash (1999)'

"The oft-repeated opinion that vocabulary changes rapidly in Australian languages, because a taboo on pronouncing the name of a deceased person drives lexemes out of use is shown to be false by Alpher and Nash (1999)." p.791 of Johanna Nichols and Tandy Warnow. 2008. Tutorial on computational linguistic phylogeny. Language and Linguistics Compass 2.5,760-820. DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-818X.2008.00082.x * also for test list, p.765

supporting application of lexicostatistics:

Peter Sutton. 2003. Native Title in Australia: An Ethnographic Perspective. CUP. p.163

for 'correspondence mimicry':

Nicholas Evans. 1998. Iwaidja mutation and its origins, pp. 115-149 in Case, Typology, and Grammar. In Honor of Barry J. Blake, ed. by Anna Siewierska & Jae Jung Song. (Typological Studies in Language 38) Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Aikio, Ante. 2007. Etymological nativization of loanwords: a case study of Saami and Finnish, pp. 17–52 in Saami Linguistics, ed. by Ida Toivonen & Diane Nelson. John Benjamins. * preprint PDF
Nicholas Evans "that multilingual speakers of Aboriginal languages are often highly aware of sound correspondences between the languages they speak", p174n11 in 'Doubled up all over again: borrowing, sound change and reduplication in Iwaidja', Morphology 19.2 (October 2009),159-176. DOI:10.1007/s11525-009-9139-4

for test list:

Slaska, Natalia. 2005. Lexicostatistics away from the armchair: handling people, props and problems. Transactions of the Philological Society 103.2,221–242. doi:10.1111/j.1467-968X.2005.00152.x * p.227
Brett Kessler and Annukka Lehtonen. 2006. Multilateral comparison and significance testing of the Indo-Uralic question. Phylogenetic methods and the prehistory of languages, by P. Forster. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
April and Robert McMahon. 2005. Language classification by numbers, OUP; also in their 'Keeping contact in the family: approaches to language classification and contact-induced change' in Matras, A. McMahon & Vincent 2006:68.
Nichols and Warnow (2008:765) (see above)

other:

Paul Black. 2006. Equilibrium Theory applied to Top End Australian languages. Selected Papers from the 2005 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society, edited by Keith Allan.

added references

Banks' vocabulary (p.11) is in NLA Call Number M686 microfilm reel, National Library of Australia.

Collections from the School of Oriental and African Studies relating to Asia and the Pacific [M681-686] [microform] : 1769-1960.

Body parts and some other vocabulary on the last page

CY 3010 / 408

of 'Endeavour journal, 'Some account of that part of New Holland now called New South Wales', August 1770 (Series 03.733)'

Endeavour: Captain Cook's Journal 1768–71. CD-ROM jointly published by the National Library of Australia and the Australian National Maritime Museum, 1998.
Sorensen, Arthur P. 1967. Multilingualism in the northwest Amazon. American Anthropologist 69,670-684.
substitute for Alpher 1997 reference: Alpher, Barry. 2002. Can lexicostatistics contribute an absolute time-scale to discussions of continuity of occupation in Native Title determinations?, pp.245-258 in Linguistics and Native Title, ed. by John Henderson & David Nash. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, Native Title Research Series, AIATSIS.
Harvey, Mark. 1997. The temporal interpretation of linguistic diversity in the Top End, pp.179-185 in Archaeology and linguistics: Aboriginal Australia in global perspective, edited by Patrick McConvell & Nicholas Evans. Melbourne: OUP. * pp.180-1 questions Dixon (1980)'s claim of 40%-60% equilibrium level

related references

Keesing, Roger M. and Jonathan Fifi'i. 1969. Kwaio word tabooing in its cultural context. Journal of the Polynesian Society 78:154-177.
Simons, Gary F. 1982. Word taboo and comparative Austronesian linguistics (Solomon Islands). A paper presented at the Third International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics. Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. 19-24 January 1981. 61pp. SIL microfiche 82-0005. Pacific Linguistics C-76:157-226.

typographical errors

p.12, n8, line 4: for 'and g' read 'and q'
p.17, Fig. 2 caption: add 'Ktj (Kurrtjar)'
p.17, Fig. 2: add 'HR' directly south of 'AL'
p.21n10: for 'Adnyathamathanha' read 'Adnyamathanha'
p.33: delete final parenthesis ) at end of middle paragraph
p.35, note 25: for 'disyllabic forms of the root alternating with disyllabic ones' read 'monosyllabic forms of the root alternating with disyllabic ones'
p.40, line 5: for 'Oy-ka-ngand' read 'Oykangand'
p.43, second-last par: for 'cloumn' read 'column'
p.45: 'Galali' in the Table is the same as 'Garlali' at the bottom of the page
p.45, in Table 7: for 'Wankumara' read 'Wangkumara' (twice)
p.46, line 17 up: for 'some which' read 'some of which'
p.47, line 3: for "the OGVV's" read "OGVV's"
p.49: move last two lines from Alpher 1997 reference to Alpher 1990 reference, and add 'Draft.' to Alpher 1997 reference.
p.51: in Nash 1982, for 'kurdungurtu' read 'kurdungurlu'
p.53: for 'Barr' read 'Barry'
p.53, Appendix title: for 'Lexicostatical' read 'Lexicostatistical'
p.54, in both lists: add "H71" after "leaf" (item 47.)
p.55, in both lists: change "B20" to "B22" after "spear (n.)" (item 77.)

cosmetic

p.22, Table 1: row 5, 120 wd, YY and YTh: '8' and '4' should be right-aligned
p.12, line 23 and note 9: 'ch'; p.24, last line: 'wangal' - should be plain italic rather than underlined
p.19, mid: for "Ogrady" read "O'Grady"
p.40, line 8: for 'none the less' read 'nonetheless'
p.49: italicise book title (twice) Boundary Rider: essays in honour of Geoffrey O'Grady

Lexicostatistical wordlists

Appendix, pp.53-56: 151-item list from O'Grady & Klokeid, Black, Hale

Alpher's supporting comparative worksheets (p.21n11) and Table 7

Supporting worksheet for Table 3
Supporting worksheet for Table 7

Abstract

We estimate the degree to which languages resort to borrowing as a means of lexical replacement, within a group of neighbouring languages of southwestern Cape York Peninsula, using several methods: (1) sound correspondences and correspondence mimicry; (2) the proportion of "local" words in single language lists; and (3) the creation of the vocabulary of special registers. We find that borrowing accounts for at most half of lexical replacement in these languages, and most usually is well below half. We demonstrate that this rate is crucial in the prediction of what fraction of vocabulary might in the long term be common to two neighbouring languages (the 'equilibrium percentage') in a model of lexical similarity that does not distinguish borrowings from common retentions. We then apply these findings to the case study, and compare the methods of lexicostatistical subgrouping (with and without recognition of loans), to results from classification by classic means. We find substantial agreement, and that the effect of "borrowing to equilibrium" on lexicostatistical subgrouping is tolerably small.

Return to Papers

Return to Australian languages page

URL: http://www.anu.edu.au/linguistics/nash/papers/lexstat/index.html