Linguistic Divergence in Romance

Grimes, Joseph E.; Agard, Frederick B.

doi:10.2307/410598

Cited by 21 publications

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“…If we were to compare by these three parameters alone, then assuming the parameters are assigned equal weight, the overall similarity rating for this pair of phones would be 2 out of 3, or 0.67. Note again that, although there are some similarities between this method and that of Grimes and Agard (1959), there are also very significant differences. In particular, the method put forward here compares phones rather than phonemes; it uses a far bigger range of parameters of comparison; and it does not limit analysis to segments but incorporates the concept of gestures as found in Articulatory Phonology (see Browman and Goldstein 1992).…”

Section: The Quantification Problemmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…Crucially, however, any overall numerical values compounded from more than one feature will be next to meaningless unless the features involved are also balanced, or 'weighted', against each other. Indeed, the failure to pay attention to doing so adequately can be seen as one of the greatest weaknesses of previous quantification methodologies which might seem superficially similar to the method being developed here (see, for example, Grimes and Agard 1959). Quantification cannot simply be a matter of measuring and counting a set of features; it also has to be about establishing the relative significance of those features.…”

Section: Measuring Phonetic Similaritymentioning

confidence: 97%

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From phonetic similarity to dialect classification: A principled approach

Heggarty¹,

McMahon²,

McMahon³

2005

Perspectives on Variation

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Language versus dialect comparisonIn many ways, dialects are like related languages: in both cases, we are dealing with synchronic similarities, and an underlying history of divergence. One might therefore expect that any tools developed for classifying language families would generalize naturally to the dialect level. Yet in fact the preoccupations of classificatory historical linguisticsparticularly following the recent controversies over Greenberg (1987) and Dixon (1997), for instance -lie mainly with very large-scale comparison, and dialects tend to be ignored. Even if we did try to include dialects, the questions to be asked are not the same: we are not worrying about whether varieties are related, but how closely, and the usual models in historical linguistics simply do not work at the required level of resolution, or of detail.To illustrate this, consider what is perhaps the best known approximately quantificational method for calculating degrees of similarity between languages, namely lexicostatistics. This involves selecting some basic word meaning; identifying (or choosing -and this begs the significant question of just how we determine what the 'normal' translation is) its corresponding lexemes in a number of languages; and seeing if they are cognate. With the meaning 'castle', for instance, lexicostatistics would identify these corresponding forms in various Romance languages: Italian castello, Spanish Castillo, and French chäteau (fort); and all of these are derived from Latin castellum. It follows that a lexicostatistical quantification of the 'linguistic distance' between some Romance language varieties on the basis of this set of words would produce the outcome illustrated in Figure 1 below.Of course, Figure 1 is rather obvious, and might be thought a little unfair. However, it does make clear one most important point, which is that lexicostatistics is blind to what it scarcely takes a linguist to tell: namely that Italian castello [kas'tello] is far more like Spanish castillo [kas'tiXo] than either is to French chäteau [jato]. There is a great deal of comparative data in these words, awaiting quantification; but this cannot be achieved on

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Section: The Quantification Problemmentioning

confidence: 89%

Section: Measuring Phonetic Similaritymentioning

confidence: 97%

From phonetic similarity to dialect classification: A principled approach

Heggarty¹,

McMahon²,

McMahon³

2005

Perspectives on Variation

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show abstract

“…Rigorous definition of a distance between linguistic Systems will at least eliminate the linguistic contribution to imprecision on this issue. Among existing attempts to define distances we have Grimes and Agard (1959) historical-phonetic, Peterson and Harary (1961) phoneticinterlinguistic, Avram (1965Avram ( , 1967 phonological, Kucera and Monroe (1968) phonological-probabilistic-interlinguistic (see also 3.2 in this paper), Keller and Saporta (1955) phonological. Herdan (1964) discusses some of Kucera's early work, mostly along its mathematical aspects.…”

Section: The Distance Notionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distance, Variation and Chance in Phonology: Stochastic Aspects

Afendras¹,

Tzannes²,

Trépanier³

1973

Folia Linguistica

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“…Perhaps, the best-known procedure is that of G r im e s and A g a r d [5 ] which was used for the measurement of the phonetic divergence of cognate languages. It has 6 parameter classes or variables: (1) Point of articulation, (2) degree of constriction at the center line, (3) effective timing of the central constriction, (4) secondary shaping, (5) velic action, (6) laryngeal action, within which the phonetic parameters are ranked.…”

Section: Phonetic Differencementioning

confidence: 99%

Differences between Phonemes

Altmann¹

1969

Phonetica

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Linguistic Divergence in Romance

Cited by 21 publications

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From phonetic similarity to dialect classification: A principled approach

From phonetic similarity to dialect classification: A principled approach

Distance, Variation and Chance in Phonology: Stochastic Aspects

Differences between Phonemes

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