The role of frequency of use in lexical change
Evidence from Latin and Greek
Based on the number of words per meaning across the Indo-European Swadesh list, Pagel et al. (2007) suggest that frequency of use is a general mechanism of linguistic evolution. We test
this claim using within-language change. From the IDS (Key & Comrie 2015) we
compiled a comparative word list of 1,147 cognate pairs for Classical Latin and Modern Spanish, and 1,231 cognate pairs for
Classical and Modern Greek. We scored the amount of change for each cognate pair in the two language histories according to a
novel 6-point scale reflecting increasing levels of change from regular sound change to external borrowing. We find a weak
negative correlation between frequency of use and lexical change for both the Latin-Spanish and Classical-Modern Greek language
developments, but post hoc tests reveal that low frequency of use of borrowed words drive these patterns, casting some doubt on
frequency of use as a general mechanism of language change.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Background
- 3.Methods
- 3.1Stability of FoU
- 3.2Operationalizing amount of change
- 4.Results
- 5.Discussion and conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
References (74)
Alonso, Maria Angeles, Angel Fernandez & Emiliano Diez
2011 Oral frequency norms for 67,979 Spanish words.
Behavior Research 431. 449–458.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Altmann, Eduardo G., Zakary L. Whichard & Adilson E. Motter
2013 Identifying trends in word frequency dynamics.
Journal of Statistical Physics 151(1). 277–288.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Atkinson, Quentin D. & Russell D. Gray
2005 Curious parallels and curious connections-phylogenetic thinking in biology and historical linguistics.
Systematic Biology 54(4). 513–26.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Atkinson, Quentin D. & Russell D. Gray
2006a Are accurate dates an intractable problem for historical linguistics? In
Carl P. Lipo,
Michael J. O’Brien,
Mark Collard &
Stephen J. Shennan (eds.),
Mapping our ancestors: Phylogenetic methods in anthropology and prehistory, 269–296. Chicago: Aldine.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Atkinson, Quentin D. & Russell D. Gray
2006b How old is the Indo-European language family? Illumination or more moths to the flame? In
Peter Forster &
Colin Renfrew (eds.),
Phylogenetic methods and the prehistory of languages, 91–109. Cambridge, UK: The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Atkinson, Quentin D., Andrew M. Meade, Chris Venditti, Simon J. Greenhill & Mark Pagel
2008 Languages evolve in punctuational bursts. Science 319(5863). 588.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Atkinson, Quentin D., Geoff Nicholls, David Welch & Russell D. Gray
2005 From words to dates: Water into wine, mathemagic or phylogenetic inference? Transactions of the Philological Society 103(2). 93–219.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Babiniotis, George
1998 Dictionary of Modern Greek [
Leksiko tis Neas Elinikis Glosas]. Athens: Kentro Leksikologias.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Baxter, Gareth J., Richard A. Blythe, William Croft & Alan J. McKane
2009 Modeling language change: An evaluation of Trudgill’s theory of the emergence of New Zealand English.
Language Variation and Change 21(2). 257–296.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Biber, Douglas
1993 Representativeness in corpus design.
Literary and Linguistic Computing 8(4). 243–257.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bowern, Claire & Quentin D. Atkinson
2012 Computational phylogenetics and the internal structure of Pama-Nyungan.
Language 88(4). 817–845.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bowern, Claire, Patience Epps, Russell Gray, Jane Hill, Keith Hunley, Patrick McConvell & Jason Zentz
2011 Does lateral transmission obscure inheritance in hunter-gatherer languages? PLOS ONE 6(9). 1–9.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Boyd-Bowman, Peter
1954 From Latin to Romance in sound charts. Kalamazoo: Kalamazoo College Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bybee, Joan
2002 Word frequency and context of use in the lexical diffusion of phonetically conditioned sound change.
Language Variation and Change 141. 261–290.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bybee, Joan
2006 From usage to grammar: The mind’s response to repetition.
Language 82(4). 711–733.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bybee, Joan & Joanne Scheibman
1999 The effect of usage on degrees of constituency: The reduction of don’t in English.
Linguistics 27(4). 575–596.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bybee, Joan & Sandra Thompson
1997 Three frequency effects in syntax. In
Proceedings of the twenty-third annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General session and parasession on pragmatics and grammatical structure, 378–388.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bybee, Joan L.
2011 Markedness: Iconicity, economy, and frequency. In
Jae Jung Song (ed.),
The handbook of linguistic typology, 131–147. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bybee, Joan L.
2017 Grammatical and lexical factors in sound change: A usage-based approach.
Language Variation and Change 291. 273–300.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Calude, Andreea S. & Mark Pagel
2011 How do we use language? Shared patterns in the frequency of word use across 17 world languages.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 366(1567). 1101–1107.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Campbell, Lyle
2004 Historical linguistics: An introduction, 2nd edn. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Crane, Gregory R.
1987–2016 Perseus digital library.
[URL]
Croft, William
2000 Explaining language change: An evolutionary approach. Harlow: Pearson Longman.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Croft, William
2008 Evolutionary linguistics.
Annual Review of Anthropology 371. 219–234.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Davies, Mark E.
2002 Corpus del Español: 100 million words, 1200s-1900s.
[URL]
Dunn, Michael, Stephen C. Levinson, Eva Lindström, Ger Reesink & Angela Terrill
2008 Structural phylogeny in historical linguistics: Methodological explorations applied in Island Melanesia.
Language 84(4). 710–759.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Dyen, Isidore, Joseph B. Kruskal & Paul Black
1992 An Indoeuropean classification: A lexicostatistical experiment.
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 82(5). 1–132.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Fitch, W. Tecumseh
2008 Co-evolution of phylogeny and glossogeny: There is no ‘logical problem of language evolution’.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31(5). 521–522.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Fosler-Lussier, Eric & Nelson Morgan
1999 Effects of speaking rate and word frequency on pronunciation in conversational speech.
Speech Communication 291. 137–158.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Gómez de Silva, Guido
1985 Elsevier’s concise Spanish etymological dictionary. Amsterdam u.a: Elsevier.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Gray, Russell D. & Quentin D. Atkinson
2003 Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin.
Nature 4261. 435–9.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Gregory, Morgan L., W. D. Raymond, Alan Bell, Eric Fosler-Lussier & Daniel Jurafsky
1999 The effects of collocational strength and contextual predictability in lexical production. In
Proceedings of the 35th meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 151–166. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hare, Mary & Jeffrey L. Elman
1995 Learning and morphological change.
Cognition 56(1). 61–98.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Haspelmath, Martin & Uri Tadmor
2009 The loanword typology project and the world loanword database. In
Martin Haspelmath &
Uri Tadmor (eds.),
Loanwords in the world’s languages: A comparative handbook, 1–34. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hay, Jennifer
2001 Lexical frequency in morphology: Is everything relative? Linguistics 39(6). 1041.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hay, Jennifer & Paul Foulkes
2016 The evolution of medial /t/ over real and remembered time.
Language 92(2). 298–330.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hooper, Joan
1976 Word frequency in lexical diffusion and the source of morphophonological change. In
William M. Christie Jr. (ed.),
Current progress in historical linguistics, Amsterdam, NL: North Holland.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Horrocks, Geoffrey C.
2010 Greek: A history of the language and its speakers, 2nd edn. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
ILSP
1999–2009 Hellenic national corpus (HNC).
Institute for Language and Speech Processing,
Web Version 3.0,
[URL], (accessed March 4 2015).
Kaiser, Mark & Vitaly Shevoroshkin
1988 Nostratic.
Annual Review of Anthropology 171. 309–329.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Keller, Daniela Barbara & Jörg Schultz
2013 Connectivity, not frequency, determines the fate of a morpheme.
PLoS ONE 8(7). 1–8.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Key, Mary Ritchie & Bernard Comrie
2015 Intercontinental Dictionary Series.
[URL]
Krug, Manfred G.
1998 String frequency: A cognitive motivating factor in coalescence, language processing, and linguistic change.
Journal of English Linguistics 261. 286–320.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Leech, Geoffrey, Paul Rayson & Wilson Andrew
2001 Word frequencies in written and spoken english: Based on the British National Corpus. London: Longman.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lieberman, Erez, Jean-Baptiste Michel, Joe Jackson, Tina Tang & Martin A. Nowak
2007 Quantifying the evolutionary dynamics of language.
Nature 449(7163). 713–71.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
McMahon, April, Paul Heggarty, Robert McMahon & Natalia Slaska
2005 Swadesh sublists and the benefits of borrowing: An Andean case study.
Transactions of the Philological Society 103(2). 147–170.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
McMahon, April & Robert McMahon
2003 Finding families: Quantitative methods in language classification.
Transactions of the Philological Society 101(1). 7–55.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
McMahon, April. & Robert McMahon
2005 Language classification by numbers. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
McMahon, April & Robert McMahon
2008 Genetics, historical linguistics and language variation.
Language and Linguistics Compass 2(2). 264–288.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Mendeloff, Henry
1969 A manual of comparative Romance linguistics: Phonology and morphology. Washington: Catholic University of America Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Nakhleh, Luay, Don Ringe & Tandy Warnow
2005 Perfect phylogenetic networks: A new methodology for reconstructing the evolutionary history of natural languages.
Language 81(2). 382–420.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Nelson-Sathi, Shijulal, Johann-Mattis List, Hans Geisler, Heiner Fangerau, Russell D. Gray, William Martin & Tal Dagan
2011 Networks uncover hidden lexical borrowing in Indo-European language evolution.
Proceedings: Biological Sciences 278(1713). 1794–1803.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Nettle, Daniel
2007 Review of Ritt, Nikolaus. 2004.
Selfish sounds and linguistic evolution: A Darwinian approach to language change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Journal of Linguistics 43(2). 482–486.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
NIST
1992 Switchboard corpus: Recorded telephone conversations.
National Institute of Standards and Technology Speech Disc 9–11 to 9–25.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Pagel, Mark, Quentin D. Atkinson & Andrew Meade
2007 Frequency of word-use predicts rates of lexical evolution throughout Indo-European history.
Nature 4491. 717–221.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Pagel, Mark, Quentin D. Atkinson, Andreea S. Calude & Andrew Meade
2013 Ultraconserved words point to deep language ancestry across Eurasia.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110(21). 8471–8476.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Pappas, Panayiotis A. & Arne O. Mooers
2011 Phylogenetic methods in historical linguistics: Greek as a case study.
Journal of Greek Linguistics 11(2). 198–220.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Phillips, Betty S.
1984 Word frequency and the actuation of sound change.
Language 60(2). 320–342.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Phillips, Betty S.
1994 Southern English glide deletion.
American Speech 69(2). 115–127.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Phillips, Betty S.
2006 Word frequency and lexical diffusion. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Pluymaekers, Mark, Mirjam Ernestus & R. Harald Baayen
2005 Lexical frequency and acoustic reduction in spoken Dutch.
Acoustical Society of America 2561–2569.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Polinsky, Maria & Ezra Van Everbroeck
2003 Development of gender classifications: Modeling the historical change from Latin to French.
Language 79(2). 356–390.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Renfrew, Colin & David Nettle
(eds.) 1999 Nostratic: Examining a linguistic macrofamily. Cambridge, UK: The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Ringe, Don, Tandy Warnow & Ann Taylor
2002 Indo-European and computational cladistics.
Transactions of the Philological Society 1001. 59–129.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Schuchardt, Hugo
1972[1885] On sound laws: Against the Neogrammarians. In
Theo Vennemann &
Terence H. Wilbur (eds.),
Schuchardt, the Neogrammarians, and the transformational theory of phonological change, 39–72. Frankfurt: Athenaum.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Sharoff, Serge
2005 Methods and tools for development of the Russian Reference Corpus. In
Andrew Wilson,
Dawn Archer &
Paul Rayson (eds.),
Corpus linguistics around the world, 167–180. Amsterdam, NL: Rodopi.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Swadesh, Morris
1952 Lexico-statistic dating of prehistoric ethnic contacts: With special reference to North American Indians and Eskimos.
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 96(4). 452–463.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Tiersma, Peter M.
1982 Local and general markedness.
Language 58(4). 832–849.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Wang, William S.-Y.
(ed) 1977 The lexicon in phonological change. The Hague, NL: Mouton.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Woods, M. J.
2001 Spanish word frequency: A historical surprise.
Computers and the Humanities 35(2). 231–236.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Zipf, George K.
1929 Relative frequency as a determinant of phonetic change.
Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 401. 1–95.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cited by (1)
Cited by 1 other publications
Wichmann, Søren, Eric W. Holman & José A. Hinojosa
2023.
Cross-linguistic conditions on word length.
PLOS ONE 18:1
► pp. e0281041 ff.
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 1 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.