<html aria-label="message body"><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><p class="p1"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Dear all,</span></p><p class="p3"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Nice to see linguistic brains already flying — so let me add a small contribution from mathematics. One thing we typically insist on is grounding: analogies should come from attested cases; otherwise the reasoning floats in directions that cannot be checked.</span></p><p class="p3"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Another point that seems relevant here concerns exceptions. Isolates, unusual cases, outliers — they matter, but they do not govern the system. For an algorithm to work correctly (this is taught so in computer science), we need to identify all exceptions at the outset (the “elsewhere principle” comes to mind). We list them at the beginning so that the default pattern can emerge clearly afterwards. The English plural is a familiar illustration: you have really mastered the system not when you know the regular <i>-s</i>, but when you know all the exceptions. And yet, it is <i>-s</i> that represents the system.</span></p><p class="p1"><span style="font-size: 14px;">All the best,</span></p><p class="p3"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Stela</span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
</div>
<div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>On 21.11.2025, at 07:59, Martin Haspelmath via Lingtyp <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div>
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<div><p>Thanks, Jürgen! I like the "wave vs. particle" analogy, because
these concrete expressions help us make sense of what seems to be
going on (given the experimental results).</p><p>In worldwide comparative linguistics, we also want to make sense
of what is going on, but it seems to me that we need analogies not
only for interpreting results, but also for understanding what we
are aiming for. For me, "removing areal and
genealogical/phylogenetic bias" has the aim of detecting universal
tendencies that are caused by universal/non-historical factors.</p><p>I would think that on the imagined concrete scenario of a sample
of isolated isolates (e.g. 100 languages that have long existed on
isolated islands, maybe of the Rapanui type), looking at these 100
isolates should give the same results as looking at 100 sample
languages from larger families that have been shaped also by
contact.</p><p>Are there reasons to doubt this? If not, then we can take the
"isolated isolates" scenario simply as a way of illustrating our
goals in concrete terms (somewhat like "wave" and "particle" serve
as concrete illustrations). </p><p>But maybe the imagined scenario (which is not an "assumption"!!)
is somehow problematic, because the goals of our enterprise are
DIFFERENT. In Bickel's (2007) paper (LiTy 11), which has been
widely cited, the idea seems to be that looking for "history-free"
tendencies is somehow an obsolete goal.</p><p>Some people have suggested that in identifying universal trends,
one MUST take into account genealogies, and isolates are
problematic because they are not part of any genealogy. This is
because we should not look primarily at languages, but at
*transitions* (changes from one type to another). If I understood
Verkerk et al. (2025) correctly, they solved the "isolates
problem" by using an artificial world tree (where all languages
are somehow included; the very beautiful tree is used in <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://www.mpg.de/25723124/1114-evan-enduring-patterns-in-the-world-s-languages-150495-x">the
press release</a>). Are Verkerk et al. pursuing a different
goal? That is not really clear to me.</p><p>I find the notion of an artificial world tree profoundly strange,
much stranger than the hypothetical scenario of 100 isolates on
remote islands. But maybe it is needed, because the goal of the
enterprise is somehow different (along Bickel's lines)? So I like
the imagined "isolated isolates" scenario also because it
clarifies what I'm interested in.</p><p>(And isn't Trudgill's idea that isolates are somehow "exotic"
very speculative? Shcherbakova et al. 2023 have not provided
strong evidence against the idea, but they simply did not find
evidence in favour of it.)</p><p>One last point: Yes, all isolates are survivors from some larger
family, but why is that relevant? Languages may have existed for
half a million years or longer, and we know almost nothing about
that deep past. Most of the currently existing families probably
had more branches in earlier times, and the protolanguages we
reconstruct may or may not have been isolates themselves. We
cannot tell, but I don't see why we would need to know.</p><p>Best,</p><p>Martin</p><p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 21.11.25 07:07, Juergen Bohnemeyer
via Lingtyp wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:PH0PR15MB4702117CEF038CB041DB7E47DDD5A@PH0PR15MB4702.namprd15.prod.outlook.com">
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Dear all — Here’s a quick explanation of why the assumption of
an “isolated isolate” is profoundly strange: </div>
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<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Leaving aside sign languages,
constructed languages, and artificial languages, nobody seems
to entertain the possibility that languages have emerged
spontaneously out of something that we wouldn’t consider a
language itself over the last few thousands of years. In other
words, the languages we consider isolates are without
exception lone survivors; but they did descend from ancestors
which are often
</span><span style="font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">lost
and unknown</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, and these
ancestors biased the offshoot's properties by dint of
inheritance/transmission.</span></div>
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<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
The reason isolates are interesting from a sampling perspective
is that they may represent entire genera or families without
forcing us to pick a member. But being an isolate does not mean
being free of phylogenetic bias. On the contrary: isolates of
unknown descend are actually particularly problematic in the
sense that they are shaped by biases that we have no way of
identifying directly since the biasing ancestors have been lost
to time.</div>
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<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">As to contact. Languages that are
not in contact with other languages over long stretches of
time are extremely rare and unusual. In fact, as I’m sure
everyone here is aware, such languages have been plausibly
argued to tend to evolve exotic properties as a result of
their isolation (</span><span style="font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lupyan
& Dale 2010;
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Trudgill 2011), although
this is controversial (Shcherbakova et al. 2023). In any case,
I would certainly not want to make such languages the basis
for causal inference in typology.</span></div>
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<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
But it gets a lot worse. The “isolated isolate” interpretation
doesn’t just require us to think of a language that isn’t
currently in contact with any other language. We would have to
assume a language that has
<b>never</b> come into contact with any other language at any
point in its history (at least not long/intensively enough to
change as a result of it). I’m seriously uncertain whether such
a language has ever existed on this planet. </div>
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<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
Here’s an analogy from quantum mechanics: Schrödinger’s and
Heisenberg’s equations are mathematical models that describe the
experimentally observed behavior of elementary particles under
various conditions. The particle and the wave interpretation are
interpretations that we use to make sense of these mathematical
models. We find these models useful because most of us don’t
think in mathematical equations (not even theoretical
physicists, it would seem). But if we push these interpretations
beyond a certain point, they break down. To begin with, we can’t
think of something simultaneously as a wave and as a particle. </div>
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<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
In the same way, we can mathematically describe the influence
phylogeny and areality exert on the probability of a particular
language having certain properties. The “isolated isolate”
interpretation is just that - an interpretation of the
statistical models; but, as I tried to show above, it runs into
absurdities rather more quickly than the particle and wave
interpretations in quantum mechanics. </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
Best — Juergen</div>
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<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
G. Lupyan, R. Dale, Language structure is partly determined by
social structure. PLOS ONE5, e8559 (2010).</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
O. Shcherbakova, S. M. Michaelis, H. J. Haynie, et al. Societies
of strangers do not speak less complex languages.
<i>Scientific Advances </i>9, eadf7704 (2023).</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
P. Trudgill, <i>Sociolinguistic Typology: Social Determinants
of Linguistic Complexity
</i>(OxfordUniv. Press, 2011).</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<br>
</div>
<div id="ms-outlook-mobile-signature"><div style="margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;">Juergen
Bohnemeyer (He/Him)<br>
Professor, Department of Linguistics<br>
University at Buffalo <br>
<br>
Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus<br>
Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260 <br>
Phone: (716) 645 0127 <br>
Fax: (716) 645 3825<br>
Email: </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt; color: rgb(0, 120, 212);"><u><a href="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu" title="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu" data-outlook-id="4d6fa45e-9b0a-42bb-a28f-16e0996f2dac" style="color: rgb(0, 120, 212); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">jb77@buffalo.edu</a></u></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"><br>
Web: </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt; color: rgb(5, 99, 193);"><u><a href="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/" title="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/" data-outlook-id="8ba2b51b-80f8-43d0-9f78-c7115b9189fa" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/</a></u></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"> <br>
<br>
</span><span style="">Office hours Tu/Th
3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585 520
2411; Passcode Hoorheh) </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"><br>
<br>
There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets
In <br>
(Leonard Cohen) </span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">-- </div><p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </p>
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<b>From: </b>Lingtyp
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org"><lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org></a> on behalf of
Matías Guzmán Naranjo via Lingtyp
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org"><lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org></a><br>
<b>Date: </b>Thursday, November 20, 2025 at 04:01<br>
<b>To: </b><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org"><lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org></a><br>
<b>Subject: </b>Re: [Lingtyp] Reporting cross-linguistic
frequencies<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="PlainText" style="font-size: 11pt;">I'll jump in
with some thoughts.<br>
<br>
<br>
- Dryer's method and ours aim at doing basically the same
thing:<br>
quantifying what's "left" after removing genetic and areal
bias.<br>
<br>
- Whether you should call them proportions or adjusted
frequencies...<br>
I'm not sure that it matters that much? As long as you
understand how<br>
they were calculated...<br>
<br>
- How you want to interpret this "what's left" is debatable, I
guess,<br>
but I don't think I agree with Jürgen. As far as I can tell it
should be<br>
compatible with something along the lines of an "isolated
isolate" as<br>
described by Martin. You can also see them as 'universal'
preferences<br>
(more or less the same thing?).<br>
<br>
- "the probability of a random language having a certain
property<br>
depends on (or is influenced by, or varies with, etc.) it
being related<br>
to certain other languages, or being spoken (or signed) in a
particular<br>
area" -> In our approach we assumes that the probability of
a language L<br>
having some feature value F depends on three things: 1) its
relatedness<br>
to other languages, 2) its contact to other languages, 3) some
universal<br>
preference for F. Kind of the point of what we do is that we
try to<br>
estimate each of these factors. [We can add more factors and
more<br>
structure, but that's the most basic model]<br>
<br>
- You can quantify the contribution of the phylogenetic
component and<br>
the areal component(s) with our techniques, but this is a bit
tricky<br>
because there is unavoidable overlap in the information each
one<br>
contains. These measures also have a different meaning than
the adjusted<br>
frequency and can't be used as a replacement for them, you can
use them<br>
in addition to.<br>
<br>
<br>
Matías<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
El 20/11/25 a las 9:36, Omri Amiraz via Lingtyp escribió:<br>
> Dear all,<br>
> I agree with Ian that, in addition to genealogical and
areal biases,<br>
> the very question of what counts as a language versus a
dialect is<br>
> partly subjective. This makes actual frequencies even
more<br>
> problematic, since we would obtain different results
depending on<br>
> whether we treat Wu Chinese as one language or as thirty
separate<br>
> languages, as Ian pointed out.<br>
> Juergen wrote: "We can empirically assess the extent to
which the<br>
> probability of a random language having a certain
property depends on<br>
> (or is influenced by, or varies with, etc.) it being
related to<br>
> certain other languages, or being spoken (or signed) in
a particular<br>
> area."<br>
><br>
> I wonder whether it might be useful to have a measure of
the<br>
> genealogical and areal spread of a feature, essentially
quantifying<br>
> how broadly it is distributed across families and regions
in the<br>
> present-day world. Such a measure might be more
straightforward to<br>
> interpret than an adjusted frequency/probability, since
it is not<br>
> clear whether the described population is a hypothetical
set of<br>
> isolated isolates or something else.<br>
><br>
> Is anyone aware of an existing metric that captures
genealogical or<br>
> areal spread in this way?<br>
><br>
> Best,<br>
> Omri<br>
><br>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/">https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/</a></pre>
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