Computational methods have revolutionized evolutionary biology. In this paper we explore the impact these methods are now having on our understanding of the forces that both affect the diversification of human languages and shape human cognition. We show how these methods can illuminate problems ranging from the nature of constraints on linguistic variation to the role that social processes pla...

We examine situations in which linguistic changes have probably been propagated via normal contact as opposed to via conquest, recent settlement and large-scale migration. We proceed then from two simplifying assumptions: first, that all linguistic variation is the result of either diffusion or independent innovation, and, second, that we may operationalize social contact as geographical distan...

The aim of this paper is to explore the degree to which semantic maps and conceptual spaces may comprehensively describe the cross-linguistic variation, by discussing the types of phenomena that may be consistently represented in a unified account. By analyzing the cross-linguistic coding of coordination relations, it will be argued that the degree to which every conceptual situation is explici...

Fundamental frequency of vocal fold vibration (F0) and acoustic intensity are correlated for physiological and linguistic reasons. Previous studies have established that aerodynamic factors and vocal fold control mechanisms are partly responsible for the correlation. Intonational accents are also a source of co-variation of F0 and intensity. This paper addresses the question of whether these ph...

In sociolinguistics, approaches that use the variables of socioeconomic class and social network have often been thought to be irreconcilable. In this article, we explore the connection between these variables and suggest the outlines of a model that can integrate them in a coherent way. This depends on linking a consensus-based microlevel of network with a conflict-based macrolevel of social c...

Asia harbors substantial cultural and linguistic diversity, but the geographic structure of genetic variation across the continent remains enigmatic. Here we report a large-scale survey of autosomal variation from a broad geographic sample of Asian human populations. Our results show that genetic ancestry is strongly correlated with linguistic affiliations as well as geography. Most populations...

The categories named by spatial terms vary considerably across languages. It is often proposed that underlying this variation is a universal set of primitive spatial concepts that are combined differently in different languages. Despite the inherently cognitive assumptions of this proposal, such spatial primitives have generally been inferred in a top-down manner from linguistic data. Here we s...

A central part of NLP research is devoted to the development of parsing systems which analyze the way words combine to form phrases and sentences. This analysis is considered the first step towards natural language understanding, or, as it is often put, extracting “who did what to whom”. Such information is crucial for computer programs that perform tasks such as information retrieval, question...

The linguistic expression of space draws from and is constrained by basic, probably universal, elements of perceptual/cognitive structure. Nevertheless, there are considerable cross-linguistic differences in how these fundamental space concepts are segmented and packaged into sentences. This cross-linguistic variation has led to the question whether the language one speaks could affect the way ...

Ranking fuzzy numbers plays a very important role in linguistic decision making and other fuzzy application systems. In spite of many ranking methods, no one can rank fuzzy numbers with human intuition consistently in all cases. Shortcoming are found in some of the convenient methods for ranking triangular fuzzy numbers such as the coefficient of variation (CV index), distance between fuzzy set...