<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=Windows-1252">
</head>
<body>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
Dear Omri,</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
If you’re looking for methods, please see this paper and the accompanying software packages: </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
Paper:</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L., and Erich R. Round. 2022. ‘Challenges of Sampling and How Phylogenetic Comparative Methods Help: With a Case Study of the Pama-Nyungan Laminal Contrast’. Linguistic Typology 26 (3): 533–72.
<a href="https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2021-0025." data-outlook-id="5903c04e-21f6-46f7-824a-84efd37765f6">
https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2021-0025.</a></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
Software:</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
Round, Erich R. 2021. glottoTrees: Phylogenetic Trees in Linguistics. V. 0.1. Released. https://github.com/erichround/glottoTrees.</div>
<div style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
Round, Erich R. 2021. phyloWeights: Calculation of Genealogically-Sensitive Proportions and Averages. V. 0.3. Released.
<a href="https://github.com/erichround/phyloWeights." data-outlook-id="fe52256a-d36c-44a4-b12c-6f412b6e5d2c">
https://github.com/erichround/phyloWeights.</a></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The paper itself explains the logic of phylogenetic averages and their relation to discussions of sampling
in typology. The software </span><span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">gives you the ability quantify the prevalence of a feature, taking
</span><span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">phylogeny
</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">into account. It allows you to use Glottolog’s language subgrouping as a default, and to alter it to reflect your own expert views or hypotheses about
</span><span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">subgrouping</span>. The supplementary materials for the paper (34pp) provide an extended tutorial for applying
the software to the kind of question you’re asking.</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
Very best,</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
Erich</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<br>
</div>
<div id="ms-outlook-mobile-signature">
<p style="margin: 0cm; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">-- </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0cm; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt; color: rgb(1, 21, 77);">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Prof. Erich Round</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0cm; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt; color: rgb(1, 21, 77);">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Director, Surrey Morphology Group,</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0cm; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193);"><u><a href="https://www.smg.surrey.ac.uk/" data-outlook-id="6f722e1b-f415-473b-86fb-765bc30cd548" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">https://www.smg.surrey.ac.uk/</a></u></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0cm; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193);"><br>
</span></p>
</div>
<div id="mail-editor-reference-message-container">
<div class="ms-outlook-mobile-reference-message skipProofing" style="text-align: left; padding: 3pt 0in 0in; border-width: 1pt medium medium; border-style: solid none none; border-color: rgb(181, 196, 223) currentcolor currentcolor; font-family: Aptos; font-size: 12pt; color: black;">
<b>From: </b>Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Omri Amiraz via Lingtyp <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org><br>
<b>Date: </b>Thursday, 20 November 2025 at 09:38<br>
<b>To: </b>lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org><br>
<b>Subject: </b>Re: [Lingtyp] Reporting cross-linguistic frequencies<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
Dear all,</div>
<div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
I agree with Ian that, in addition to genealogical and areal biases, the very question of what counts as a language versus a dialect is partly subjective. This makes actual frequencies even more problematic, since we would obtain different results depending
on whether we treat Wu Chinese as one language or as thirty separate languages, as Ian pointed out.</div>
<div class="elementToProof" style="font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
Juergen wrote: "We can empirically assess the extent to which the probability of a random language having a certain property depends on (or is influenced by, or varies with, etc.) it being related to certain other languages, or being spoken (or signed) in
a particular area."</div>
<div dir="ltr" class="elementToProof" style="font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof" style="font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
I wonder whether it might be useful to have a measure of the genealogical and areal spread of a feature, essentially quantifying how broadly it is distributed across families and regions in the present-day world. Such a measure might be more straightforward
to interpret than an adjusted frequency/probability, since it is not clear whether the described population is a hypothetical set of isolated isolates or something else.</div>
<div dir="ltr" class="elementToProof" style="font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof" style="font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
Is anyone aware of an existing metric that captures genealogical or areal spread in this way?</div>
<div dir="ltr" class="elementToProof" style="font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof" style="font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
Best,</div>
<div class="elementToProof" style="font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
Omri</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>