Cover not available
Part of
Building Categories in Interaction: Linguistic resources at work
Edited by Caterina Mauri, Ilaria Fiorentini and Eugenio Goria
[Studies in Language Companion Series 220] 2021
► pp. 111–154

Chapter 5
Are new words predictable?

A pilot study on the origin of neologies by means of natural selection

| Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich

Research on neologisms has so far been dominated by retrospective investigations (cf. e.g. Schmid 2008; Kerremans & Prokić 2018). By contrast, the present study is probably the first to directly tap into speakers’ linguistic competence by eliciting names for unfamiliar entities. Building on early assumptions by Darwin (1859, 1871) and others an evolutionary, fitness-based approach is developed to predict und thus explain the selections made by groups of German speakers of successful neologisms from self-generated pools. Four main factors are identified as crucial: quantity (brevity), quality (truthfulness), relation (distinctiveness) and manner (attractiveness). In order to test the viability of the theory an experiment is conducted and replicated. The results provide preliminary support for the assumptions made.

Keywords: language change, prediction, experimental linguistics, lexicon, neologisms, Darwinian evolution, natural selection, fitness
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Predictive language theories and their moving target
    • 1.2Language change and neology
    • 1.3Language evolution: From Darwin via Haeckel, Schleicher and Müller back to Darwin
    • 1.4The incredible career of a neologism and Engelbart’s Question
    • 1.5Naming and categorization: Clarifications and sample case observations
  • 2.Investigating form and fate of neologisms: An experimental approach
    • 2.1Creating demand for names of unknown objects: Meet the Fribbles
    • 2.2Preparatory data collection: Five objects, five name pools and an initial hypothesis
    • 2.3Venturing a first hypothesis
  • 3.Pretest: Deriving preference hypotheses from estimated natural selection
    • 3.1Pretest
    • 3.2Pretest results: Five pools resulting from artificial and estimated natural selection
    • 3.3Developing a selection predictor: Factors of fitness ranking
      • 1.Quantity
      • 2.Quality
      • 3.Relation
      • 4.Manner
    • 3.4Assigning degrees of fitness: The coding algorithm
      • 1.Quantity
      • 2.Quality
      • 3.Relation
      • 4.Manner
  • 4.Experiment: Testing the fitness rank predictor with forced natural selection
    • 4.1Experiment
    • 4.2Comparing observed and predicted rankings
      • 4.2.1Object 1 experiment ranking
      • 4.2.2Object 2 experiment ranking
      • 4.2.3Object 3 experiment ranking
      • 4.2.4Object 4 experiment ranking
      • 4.2.5Object 5 experiment ranking
      • 4.2.6Overview of experiment rankings
    • 4.3Discussion of the experiment results
      • 4.3.1Limits of ecological validity
      • 4.3.2Other possible constraints
      • 4.3.3Tackling the replicability issue
  • 5.Replication: Retesting the fitness rank predictor
    • 5.1Replication procedure
    • 5.2Comparing observed and predicted replication rankings
      • 5.2.1Object 1 replication ranking
      • 5.2.2Object 2 replication ranking
      • 5.2.3Object 3 replication ranking
      • 5.2.4Object 4 replication ranking
      • 5.2.5Object 5 replication ranking
      • 5.2.6Overview of replication rankings
    • 5.3Discussion of the replication
      • 5.3.1Group dynamics
      • 5.3.2Optimizing fitness categories?
  • 6.Overall analysis
    • 6.1Ways of estimating correlation strength of incomplete rankings with ties
    • 6.2Statistical overview of experiment and replication results
  • 7.Summary and outlook
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 December 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.220.05zae
References
Aronoff, Mark
2016 Competition and the lexicon. In Livelli di analisi e fenomeni di interfaccia, Annibale Elia, Claudio Iacobini & Miriam Voghera (eds), 39–52. Roma: Bulzoni.Google Scholar
2017 Darwinism tested by the science of language. In On Looking into Words (and Beyond), Claire Bowern, Laurence Horn & Raffaella Zanuttini (eds), 443–456. Berlin: Language Science Press.Google Scholar
Beaumont, Claudine
2008 Computer mouse celebrates 40th birthday. [URL]> (2 March 2020)
Barry, Tom J., Griffith, James W., De Rossi, Stephanie & Hermans, Dirk
2014 Meet the Fribbles: Novel stimuli for use within behavioural research. Frontiers in Psychology, 5(article 103): 1–8. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bloomfield, Leonard
1926 A set of postulates for the science of language. Language 2(3): 153–164. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Casasanto, Daniel
2009a Embodiment of abstract concepts: Good and bad in right-and left-handers. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 138(3): 351. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009b When is a linguistic metaphor a conceptual metaphor? In New Directions in Cognitive Linguistics [Human Cognitive Processing 24], Vyvyan Evans & Stéphanie Pourcel (eds), 127–145. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Jacob
1988 Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles
1859 On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
1871 The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Engelbart, Douglas Carl
1995 Toward augmenting the human intellect and boosting our collective IQ. Communications of the ACM 38(8): 30–33. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
English, William K., Engelbart, Douglas C. & Huddart, Bonnie
1965 Computer-Aided Display Control. Final Report, Contract NASl-3988, SRI Project, 5061(1).Google Scholar
Gause, Georgij F.
1934 The Struggle for Existence. Baltimore MD: Williams and Wilkins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Girard, Gabriel
1718 La justesse de la langue françoise ou les différentes significations des mots qui passent pour synonimes, Paris: Laurent d’Houry.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele E.
2019 Explain me This: Creativity, Competition, and the Partial Productivity of Constructions. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Grice, H. Paul
1975 Logic and conversation. In Syntax & Semantics: Speech Acts, Vol. 3, Peter Cole & Jerry L. Morgan (eds), 41–58. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Haeckel, Ernst
1866 Generelle Morphologie der Organismen. Allgemeine Grundzüge der organischen Formen-Wissenschaft, mechanisch begründet durch die von Charles Darwin reformirte Descendenz-Theorie, Band 2. Berlin: Reimer.Google Scholar
Hagoort, Peter, Baggio, Giosuè & Willems, Roel M.
2009 Semantic unification. In The Cognitive Neurosciences (4th edn), Michael S. Gazzaniga (ed.), 819–836. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hughes, Geoffrey
1991 Swearing: A Social History of Foul Language, Oath and Profanity in English. Cambridge MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel
1781 [1881] Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Friedrich Max Müller as Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: In Commemoration of the Centenary of Its First Publication. Londen: Macmillan and Company 1881.Google Scholar
Kendall, Maurice G.
1945 The treatment of ties in ranking problems. Biometrika 33(3): 239–251. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kerremans, Daphné & Prokić, Jelena
2018 Mining the web for new words: Semi-automatic neologism identification with the NeoCrawler. Anglia 136(2): 239–268. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lewis, David
1969 Convention: A Philosophical Study. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lai, Randy
2018 Arrangements: Fast generators and iterators for permutations, combinations and partitions. R Package Version 1.1.5. [URL]> (2 March 2020).
Lee, Ellen C., Whitehead, Amy L., Jacques, Richard M. & Julious, Steven A.
2014 The statistical interpretation of pilot trials: Should significance thresholds be reconsidered? BMC Medical Research Methodology 14: 41. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mesoudi, Alex, Whiten, Andrew & Laland, Kevin N.
2006 Towards a unified science of cultural evolution. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29(4): 329–347. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moseley, Tom
2016 The rise of the word Brexit. BBC News 25 December 2016 <[URL]> (2 March 2020).
Müller, Max
1870 Darwinism tested by the Science of Language (translation 1869 of Schleicher 1863). Review. Nature 1: 256–259Google Scholar
Obermaier, Frederik & Obermayer, Bastian
2017 Wie die Paradise Papers entstanden. Antworten auf die wichtigsten Fragen rund um das neue Datenleck, das der SZ zugespielt wurde. Süddeutsche Zeitung Dienstag, 7. November 2017 (255): 14.Google Scholar
Pashler, Harold & Wagenmakers, Eric Jan
2012 Editors’ introduction to the special section on replicability in psychological science: A crisis of confidence? Perspectives on Psychological Science 7(6): 528–530. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peels, Rik
2019 Replicability and replication in the humanities. Research Integrity and Peer Review 4(1): 2. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pinker, Steven & Bloom, Paul
1990 Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13(4): 707–727. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Progovac, Ljiljana
2019 A Critical Introduction to Language Evolution: Current Controversies and Future Prospects [Springer Expert Briefs in Linguistics]. Cham: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
R Core Team
2018 R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. [URL]> (25 March 2021).
Richards, Robert J.
2008 The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought. Chicago IL: The University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Richerson, Peter J. & Boyd, Richard
2005 Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution. Chicago IL: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schafer, Joseph L. & Graham, John W.
2002 Missing data: Our view of the state of the art. Psychological Methods 7: 147–177. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schleicher, August
1863 Die Darwinsche Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft – offenes Sendschreiben an Herrn Dr. Ernst Häckel, a. o. Professor der Zoologie und Director des zoologischen Museums an der Universität Jena. Weimar: Hermann Böhlau.Google Scholar
1869 Darwinism Tested by the Science of Language, Translated by Dr. Alex V. W. Bikkers. London: John Camden Hotten. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schmid, Hans-Jörg
2008 New words in the mind: Concept-formation and entrenchment of neologisms. Anglia-Zeitschrift für englische Philologie 126(1): 1–36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Smith, Richard
1997 Keeping the bad news from journalists. British Medical Journal 314: 81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sterrett, Susan G.
2002 Darwin’s analogy between artificial and natural selection: How does it go? Studies in History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences 33(1): 151–168. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Veale, Tony & Butnariu, Cristina
2006 Exploring linguistic creativity via predictive lexicology. In The Third Joint Workshop on Computational Creativity, ECAI 2006.Google Scholar