APPROXIMATELY INDEPENDENT FEATURES OF LANGUAGES

Eric W. Holman ()
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Eric W. Holman: Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1563, USA

International Journal of Modern Physics C (IJMPC), 2008, vol. 19, issue 02, 215-220

Abstract: To facilitate the testing of models for the evolution of languages, the present paper offers a set of linguistic features that are approximately independent of each other. To find these features, the adjusted Rand index(R′)is used to estimate the degree of pairwise relationship among 130 linguistic features in a large published database. Many of theR′values prove to be near zero, as predicted for independent features, and a subset of 47 features is found with an averageR′of -0.0001. These 47 features are recommended for use in statistical tests that require independent units of analysis.

Keywords: Hypothesis tests; linguistic typology; statistical independence; WALS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
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DOI: 10.1142/S0129183108012029

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