https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/s10051-023-00488-0
Regular Article - Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
Evolution of grammatical forms: some quantitative approaches
1
Institut de Physique Théorique, Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS and CEA, 91191, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
2
Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics, Clarendon Institute, Walton Street, OX1 2HG, Oxford, UK
Received:
14
November
2022
Accepted:
4
February
2023
Published online:
16
February
2023
Grammatical forms are said to evolve via two main mechanisms. These are, respectively, the ‘descent’ mechanism, where current forms can be seen to have descended (albeit with occasional modifications) from their roots in ancient languages, and the ‘contact’ mechanism, where evolution in a given language occurs via borrowing from other languages with which it is in contact. We use ideas and concepts from statistical physics to formulate a series of static and dynamical models which illustrate these issues in general terms. The static models emphasise the relative numbers of rules and exceptions, while the dynamical models focus on the emergence of exceptional forms. These unlikely survivors among various competing grammatical forms are winners against the odds. Our analysis suggests that they emerge when the influence of neighbouring languages exceeds the generic tendency towards regularisation within individual languages.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, SIF and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
