ArticlePloS one2013
Some structural aspects of language are more stable than others: a comparison of seven methods.
Article in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Gradient in grammatical structure of indigenous languages reflects pathway of human expansion in the Americas.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Grammars Across Time Analyzed (GATA): a dataset of 52 languages.Scientific data · 2023Article
- Grambank reveals the importance of genealogical constraints on linguistic diversity and highlights the impact of language loss.Science advances · 2023Article
- Geospatial distributions reflect temperatures of linguistic features.Science advances · 2021Article
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- Diachronic Atlas of Comparative Linguistics (DiACL)-A database for ancient language typology.PloS one · 2018Article
- Language Structures May Adapt to the Sociolinguistic Environment, but It Matters What and How You Count: A Typological Study of Verbal and Nominal Complexity.Frontiers in psychology · 2018Article
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2 authors.
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Abstract
Understanding the patterns and causes of differential structural stability is an area of major interest for the study of language change and evolution. It is still debated whether structural features have intrinsic stabilities across language families and geographic areas, or if the processes governing their rate of change are completely dependent upon the specific context of a given language or language family. We conducted an extensive literature review and selected seven different approaches to conceptualising and estimating the stability of structural linguistic features, aiming at comparing them using the same dataset, the World Atlas of Language Structures. We found that, despite profound conceptual and empirical differences between these methods, they tend to agree in classifying some structural linguistic features as being more stable than others. This suggests that there are intrinsic properties of such structural features influencing their stability across methods, language families and geographic areas. This finding is a major step towards understanding the nature of structural linguistic features and their interaction with idiosyncratic, lineage- and area-specific factors during language change and evolution.
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