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Quantifying the evolutionary dynamics of language
Words on the brink
As a language evolves, grammatical rules emerge and exceptions die out. Lieberman
et al
. have calculated the rate at which a language grows more regular, based on 1,200 years of English usage. Of 177 irregular verbs, 79 became regular in the last millennium. And the trend follows a simple rule: a verb's half-life scales as the square root of its frequency. Irregular verbs that are 100 times as rare regularize 10 times faster. The emergence of a rule (such as adding –
ed
for the past tense) spells death for exceptional forms. The cover graphic makes the point: verb size corresponds to usage frequency, so large verbs stay at the top, and small verbs fall to the bottom. '
Wed
', the next irregular verb to go, is on the brink. In a separate study, Pagel
et al
. looked at changing word meanings. Across the Indo-European languages, words like '
tail
' or '
bird
' evolve rapidly and are expressed by many unrelated words. Others, like '
two
', are expressed by closely related word forms across the whole language family. Data from over 80 modern languages show that the more a word is used, the less it changes.
During language evolution, rules emerge and exceptions decline. A quantitative study measures the rate at which a human language becomes more regular over time. Specifically, the regularization of English verbs over the last 1200 years was studied, and it was found that half-life of a verb scales as the square root of its frequency, meaning that irregular verbs that are 100 times as rare regularize ten times faster.
Human language is based on grammatical rules
1
,
2
,
3
,
4
. Cultural evolution allows these rules to change over time
5
. Rules compete with each other: as new rules rise to prominence, old ones die away. To quantify the dynamics of language evolution, we studied the regularization of English verbs over the past 1,200 years. Although an elaborate system of productive conjugations existed in English’s proto-Germanic ancestor, Modern English uses the dental suffix, ‘-ed’, to signify past tense
6
. Here we describe the emergence of this linguistic rule amidst the evolutionary decay of its exceptions, known to us as irregular verbs. We have generated a data set of verbs whose conjugations have been evolving for more than a millennium, tracking inflectional changes to 177 Old-English irregular verbs. Of these irregular verbs, 145 remained irregular in Middle English and 98 are still irregular today. We study how the rate of regularization depends on the frequency of word usage. The half-life of an irregular verb scales as the square root of its usage frequency: a verb that is 100 times less frequent regularizes 10 times as fast. Our study provides a quantitative analysis of the regularization process by which ancestral forms gradually yield to an emerging linguistic rule.
Journal Article
Charlie Joe Jackson's guide to planet girl
\"Everyone has a girlfriend except Charlie Joe! But he won't be left in the dust. Look out for make-ups, break-ups, and hilarious romance tips as Charlie Joe figures out this crazy little thing called love\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Discrete patterns of microbiome variability across timescales in a wild rodent population
Mammalian gastrointestinal microbiomes are highly variable, both within individuals and across populations, with changes linked to time and ageing being widely reported. Discerning patterns of change in wild mammal populations can therefore prove challenging. We used high-throughput community sequencing methods to characterise the microbiome of wild field voles (
Microtus agrestis
) from faecal samples collected across 12 live-trapping field sessions, and then at cull. Changes in α- and β-diversity were modelled over three timescales. Short-term differences (following 1–2 days captivity) were analysed between capture and cull, to ascertain the degree to which the microbiome can change following a rapid change in environment. Medium-term changes were measured between successive trapping sessions (12–16 days apart), and long-term changes between the first and final capture of an individual (from 24 to 129 days). The short period between capture and cull was characterised by a marked loss of species richness, while over medium and long-term in the field, richness slightly increased. Changes across both short and long timescales indicated shifts from a Firmicutes-dominant to a Bacteroidetes-dominant microbiome. Dramatic changes following captivity indicate that changes in microbiome diversity can be rapid, following a change of environment (food sources, temperature, lighting etc.). Medium- and long-term patterns of change indicate an accrual of gut bacteria associated with ageing, with these new bacteria being predominately represented by Bacteroidetes. While the patterns of change observed are unlikely to be universal to wild mammal populations, the potential for analogous shifts across timescales should be considered whenever studying wild animal microbiomes. This is especially true if studies involve animal captivity, as there are potential ramifications both for animal health, and the validity of the data itself as a reflection of a ‘natural’ state of an animal.
Journal Article
Charlie Joe Jackson's guide to making money
\"When his weekly allowance just isn't cutting it anymore, lovable slacker Charlie Joe devises ways to make more money--and fast\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Katie Friedman gives up texting! (and lives to tell about it)
\"Charlie Joe Jackson's best friend Katie Friedman is tough, but can she convince her fellow middle schoolers to give up their phones for a week?\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
'Modulated Perfectly': Scotland's Neoliberal Culture of Moderated Alcohol Dependency
The popular, especially British, imaginary casts Scotland as a drunken nation, just as Thatcherite political discourse presents Scotland as welfare-addicted at an individual and national level, apparently drunk on English money. In this article, I argue that Scottish literary culture
has written back through a 'moderated' alcohol dependency, wherein alcohol provides emergency psychotherapy for a neoliberal professional class. I examine four novels featuring alcohol-dependent focalisers which date from the mid-1980s through to peak British alcohol consumption in 2004, namely
Alasdair Gray's 1982, Janine (1984), Ron Butlin's The Sound of My Voice (1987), Janice Galloway's The Trick is to Keep Breathing (1989) and A. L. Kennedy's Paradise (2004). All of these texts look past the stereotypical immiseration of unemployed men in urban peripheral
housing estates and towards a different constituency of alcohol addicts: qualified, productive, responsibilised, and self-modulating. In so doing, the works renegotiate physical, economic and constitutional dependency in Britain. But in a larger frame, they establish alcohol toxicomania in
the context: of the psychopathological economy - in which productivity can only be sustained through the palliation of neoliberalism's mental health crises - and in late capitalism's reordering of social relations, or what Bernard Stiegler calls a 'liquidation of relations of fidelity'.
Journal Article
Pete Milano's guide to being a movie star
Pete Milano has always been the class clown and proud of it. What's the point of having friends if you can't make them laugh, right? Even if doing so has the unfortunate side effect of constantly getting him into trouble. But, for once, Pete's tricks have led him to just the right place at just the right time.
Book
'MODULATED PERFECTLY': SCOTLAND'S NEOLIBERAL CULTURE OF MODERATED ALCOHOL DEPENDENCY
The popular, especially British, imaginary casts Scotland as a drunken nation, just as Thatcherite political discourse presents Scotland as welfare-addicted at an individual and national level, apparently drunk on English money. In this article, I argue that Scottish literary culture has written back through a 'moderated' alcohol dependency, wherein alcohol provides emergency psychotherapy for a neoliberal professional class. I examine four novels featuring alcohol-dependent focalisers which date from the mid-1980s through to peak British alcohol consumption in 2004, namely Alasdair Gray's 1982, Janine (1984), Ron Butlin's The Sound of My Voice (1987), Janice Galloway's The Trick is to Keep Breathing (1989) and A. L. Kennedy's Paradise (2004). All of these texts look past the stereotypical immiseration of unemployed men in urban peripheral housing estates and towards a different constituency of alcohol addicts: qualified, productive, responsibilised, and self-modulating. In so doing, the works renegotiate physical, economic and constitutional dependency in Britain. But in a larger frame, they establish alcohol toxicomania in the context: of the psychopathological economy - in which productivity can only be sustained through the palliation of neoliberalism's mental health crises - and in late capitalism's reordering of social relations, or what Bernard Stiegler calls a 'liquidation of relations of fidelity'.
Journal Article