Language is a hallmark of our species and understanding linguistic diversity is an area of major interest. Genetic factors influencing the cultural transmission of language provide a powerful and elegant explanation for aspects of the present day linguistic diversity and a window into the emergence and evolution of language. In particular, it has recently been proposed that linguistic tone-the ...

Categories are not invariant. This paper attempts to explore the dynamic nature of semantic category, in particular, that of fashion language, based on the cognitive theory of Dawkins’ memetics, a new theory of cultural evolution. Semantic attributes of linguistic memes decrease or proliferate in replication and spreading, which involves a dynamic development of semantic category. More specific...

Different structural features of human language change at different rates and thus exhibit different temporal stabilities. Existing methods of linguistic stability estimation depend upon the prior genealogical classification of the world’s languages into language families; these methods result in unreliable stability estimates for features which are sensitive to horizontal transfer between fami...

Understanding the patterns and causes of differential structural stability is an area of major interest for the study of language change and evolution. It is still debated whether structural features have intrinsic stabilities across language families and geographic areas, or if the processes governing their rate of change are completely dependent upon the specific context of a given language o...

This paper described recent activities of the Linguistic Data Consortium in the collection, annotation and distribution of language data the developments of tools and standards for using that data, the creation of metadata to facilitate the search for linguistic resources.

Although it prefigures many advances in linguistic theory, the scholarship of nineteenth century scholar Mikołaj Kruszewski is today largely forgotten. In these papers I hope to rectify this situation somewhat by introducing Kruszewski’s insights to modern discourse on phonology. In addition to a detailed summary of Kruszewski’s major work, An Outline of Linguistic Science (Očerk Nauki O Jazyke...

Although it prefigures many advances in linguistic theory, the scholarship of nineteenth century scholar Mikołaj Kruszewski is today largely forgotten. In these papers I hope to partially rectify this situation by introducing Kruszewski’s insights to modern discourse on phonology. In addition to a detailed summary of Kruszewski’s major work, An Outline of the Science of Language (Očerk Nauki O ...

A potentially fruitful area for applied linguistic research is the nature of the linguistic systems used by second language learners as they learn--or even after they appear to have stopped learning. It has been suggested at various times that the findings of this sort of research would be useful not only to language teachers and textbook writers, but also to our understanding of language conta...