Linking Linguistic and Geographic Distance in Four Semantic Domains: Computational Geo-Analyses of Internal and External Factors in a Dialect Continuum

Abstract

Dialectometry studies patterns of linguistic variation through correlations between geographic and aggregate measures of linguistic distance. However, aggregating smooths out the role of semantic characteristics, which have been shown to affect the distribution of lexical variants across dialects. Furthermore, although dialectologists have always been well-aware of other variables like population size, isolation and socio-demographic features, these characteristics are generally only included in dialectometric analyses afterwards for further interpretation of the results rather than as explanatory variables. This study showcases linear mixed-effects modelling as a method that is able to incorporate both language-external and language-internal factors as explanatory variables of linguistic variation in the Limburgish dialect continuum in Belgium and the Netherlands. Covering four semantic domains that vary in their degree of basic vs. cultural vocabulary and their degree of standardization, the study models linguistic distances using a combination of external (e.g., geographic distance, separation by water, population size) and internal (semantic density, salience) sources of variation. The results show that both external and internal factors contribute to variation, but that the exact role of each individual factor differs across semantic domains. These findings highlight the need to incorporate language-internal factors in studies on variation, as well as a need for more comprehensive analysis tools to help better understand its patterns.

When less is more

“…In this case the loss of information enabled a comprehensive analysis that would otherwise have been impossible, but it is easy to imagine research questions for which this loss of information would be terminal. The point is that there are many research questions for which the less discriminating analysis is sufficient, e.g., questions about the distribution of aggregate linguistic variation, and questions about the relation of dialectal distribution to aggregate familial relatedness (Manni et al 2008); questions about the role culture plays in mobility (Falck et al 2012); or questions about the degree to which semantic relatedness shapes dialect distribution (Huisman et al 2021).…”

Sources of convergence in indigenous languages: Lexical variation in Yucatec Maya

“…The rate of the effects of the gravity model (parameter k in (1)) can be influenced by various factors. For instance, [181] added the degree of similarity between the varieties at issue as an additional parameter; [ 26 ] has shown that the effects of the model in determining linguistic distances depend on the domain of communication (as reflected in different semantic fields).…”