Cyclic changes in verbal person-number indexes are unlikely

Abstract

This paper discusses the emergence and demise of verbal person-number indexes on the basis of a sample of 310 languages. First, qualitative evidence is provided to show that there are different ways in which indexes may emerge, and that independent anaphoric pronouns are not the only possible source. Second, quantitative evidence is provided against the claim that indexes tend to demise via phonological attrition in the course of time. A considerable degree of demise is not a universally likely process, but rather a major restructuring process that requires additional – areal – triggers in order to come about. Thus, 92% of the languages of my sample do not show any strong tendency toward losing their indexes, and the degree of demise of their indexes is persistently low when compared to the proto-forms. This is despite the fact that indexes constantly change over time, and the phonetic shape found in the proto-languages is never faithfully preserved in the modern languages. Finally, those few languages that exhibit a relatively high degree of demise are not randomly distributed across the world, but are clustered in the following areas: Northwestern Europe, Eastern South East Asia with Oceania and, possibly, Mid Africa as well Northern South America.

Bibliotherapy in the Pandemic Time: A Bibliometric Analysis

“…From this table, it seems that it is in accordance with the main character of bibliotherapy which is based on therapeutic efforts on the basis of the use of texts including literary materials or certain texts that are selected as part of health recovery treatment [25]. This reveals that the influence of writers who put forward the form of bibliotherapy as part of anticipating the spread of covid-19 through text and literary elements is greater than writing articles with a focus on bibliotherapy alone [26]. This tendency seems to be inseparable from the view that the strength of handling mental or health impacts lies in the use of texts, including text selection and presentation.…”

Universal attractors in language evolution provide evidence for the kinds of efficiency pressures involved

“…To summarize, despite continuous processes of various phonetic and morphological changes and restructurings (Seržant, 2021a), there is a stable blueprint in the coding of person-number indexes. Regardless of the lengths in the respective proto-language, modern languages on average stick to the attractor lengths by the right combination of diachronic processes leading to reduction, enlargement, or retention (see Moroz, 2021 for an exception).…”

“…Although the coding of indexes in particular languages is subject to various independent and language-specific processes including various types of reduction, reanalyses, analogical extensions, etc. (Seržant, 2021a), there are universal pressures that channel their development over time. More specifically, we provided synchronic and dynamic evidence for a universal attractor in the domain of indexing.…”

“…Moreover, conventionalized, offline strings are not static but constantly changing over time (Hopper, 1987;Bybee and Hopper, 2001;Seržant, 2021a). Change may be driven by semantic change or various external and sociolinguistic factors (Seržant, 2021b).…”

The Role of Solidarity as Social Networks News from the Digital Newspaper: Transitivity Perspective

“…This study uses a descriptive qualitative research design by collecting and analyzing data. Qualitative design is concerned with the way in which phenomena are expressed, interpreted, understood, experienced, produced or constituted [15][16][17]. Meanwhile, descriptive qualitative analysis is the approach used by researchers to confirm the meaning embedded in the text.…”