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Article published In: Diachronica
Vol. 36:3 (2019) ► pp.299–336

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Significance testing of the Altaic family

 | University of Pennsylvania
Published online: 17 September 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.17007.ceo
Abstract
Historical linguists have been debating for decades about whether the classical comparative method provides sufficient evidence to consider Altaic languages as part of a single genetic unity, like Indo-European and Uralic, or whether the implicit statistical robustness behind regular sound correspondences is lacking in the case of Altaic. In this paper, I run a significance test on Swadesh-lists representing Turkish, Mongolian and Manchu to see if there are regular patterns of phonetic similarities or correspondences among word-initial phonemes in the basic vocabulary that cannot be expected to have arisen by chance. The methodology draws on Oswalt, Robert L. 1970. The detection of remote linguistic relationships. Computer Studies in the Humanities and Verbal Behavior 3(3). 117–129.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, Ringe, Donald A. 1992. On calculating the factor of chance in language comparison. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 82(1). 1–110. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, Baxter, William H. & Alexis Manaster Ramer. 2000. Beyond lumping and splitting: Probabilistic issues in historical linguistics. In Colin Renfrew, April McMahon & Larry Trask (eds.), Time depth in historical linguistics 167–188. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar and Kessler (Kessler, Brett. 2001. The significance of word lists. Stanford, California: Center for the Study of Language and Information.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, . 2007. Word similarity metrics and multilateral comparison. In Proceedings of Ninth Meeting of the ACL Special Interest Group in Computational Morphology and Phonology, 6–14. Association for Computational Linguistics. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). The results only partially point towards an Altaic family: Mongolian and Manchu show significant sound correspondences, while Turkish and Mongolian show some marginally significant phonological similarity, that might however be the consequence of areal contact. Crucially, Turkish and Manchu do not test positively under any condition.
Résumé
Les linguistes diachroniciens débattent depuis des décennies si la méthode comparative classique fournit des preuves suffisantes pour considérer les langues altaïques comme faisant partie d’une unité génétique, comme les langues indo-européennes et les langues ouraliennes, ou si la robustesse statistique implicite qui sous-tend les correspondances sonores régulières fait défaut dans le cas des langues altaïques. Dans cet article, je conduis un test statistique sur les listes Swadesh représentant le turc, le mongol et le mandchou pour voir s’il existe des correspondances ou similitudes phonétiques systématiques entre les phonèmes initiaux des mots du vocabulaire de base qui ne pourraient pas être dues au hasard. La méthodologie employée s’appuie sur Oswalt, Robert L. 1970. The detection of remote linguistic relationships. Computer Studies in the Humanities and Verbal Behavior 3(3). 117–129.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, Ringe, Donald A. 1992. On calculating the factor of chance in language comparison. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 82(1). 1–110. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, Baxter, William H. & Alexis Manaster Ramer. 2000. Beyond lumping and splitting: Probabilistic issues in historical linguistics. In Colin Renfrew, April McMahon & Larry Trask (eds.), Time depth in historical linguistics 167–188. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar et Kessler (Kessler, Brett. 2001. The significance of word lists. Stanford, California: Center for the Study of Language and Information.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, . 2007. Word similarity metrics and multilateral comparison. In Proceedings of Ninth Meeting of the ACL Special Interest Group in Computational Morphology and Phonology, 6–14. Association for Computational Linguistics. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Les tests n’indiquent que partiellement l’appartenance à une famille altaïque: le mongol et le mandchou présentent des correspondances sonores significatives, tandis que le turc et le mongol présentent une similitude phonétique importante, qui pourrait toutefois être la conséquence d’un contact territorial. De manière cruciale, les tests ne montrent aucun rapport significatif entre le turc et le mandchou, quelle que soit la condition.
Zusammanfassung
Sprachhistoriker debattieren seit Jahrzehnten darüber, ob die klassische historisch-vergleichende Methode hinreichende Beweise dafür bietet, die altaischen Sprachen als Teil einer einzigen genetischen Einheit wie Indoeuropäisch und Uralisch zu betrachten, oder ob die implizite statistische Robustheit regelmäßiger Lautentsprechungen im Falle des Altaischen fehlt. In diesem Artikel führe ich Signifikanztests mit Swadesh-Listen für Türkisch, Mongolisch und Manchu durch, um festzustellen, ob im Grundwortschatz regelmäßige phonetische Ähnlichkeiten oder Entsprechungen zwischen wortanlautenden Phonemen vorliegen, die nicht als zufällig entstanden angenommen werden können. Die Methodologie stützt sich auf Oswalt, Robert L. 1970. The detection of remote linguistic relationships. Computer Studies in the Humanities and Verbal Behavior 3(3). 117–129.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, Ringe, Donald A. 1992. On calculating the factor of chance in language comparison. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 82(1). 1–110. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, Baxter, William H. & Alexis Manaster Ramer. 2000. Beyond lumping and splitting: Probabilistic issues in historical linguistics. In Colin Renfrew, April McMahon & Larry Trask (eds.), Time depth in historical linguistics 167–188. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar und Kessler (Kessler, Brett. 2001. The significance of word lists. Stanford, California: Center for the Study of Language and Information.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, . 2007. Word similarity metrics and multilateral comparison. In Proceedings of Ninth Meeting of the ACL Special Interest Group in Computational Morphology and Phonology, 6–14. Association for Computational Linguistics. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Die Tests deuten nur teilweise auf eine altaische Familie hin: Mongolisch und Mandschu weisen signifikante Lautentsprechungen auf. Türkisch und Mongolisch dagegen zeigen zwar einige bedeutende phonetische Ähnlichkeiten, die jedoch auf räumlichen Kontakt zurückzuführen sein könnten. Entscheidend ist, dass die Tests Türkisch und Mandschu unter keinen Bedingungen als verwandt werten.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Altaic controversy
  • 3.Methods
    • 3.1Phonetic algorithms
    • 3.2Phonological classes
    • 3.3Regular correspondences
  • 4.Wordlists
  • 5.Polymorphism
  • 6.False positives
    • 6.1Testing Kessler & Lehtonen’s (2006) algorithm
    • 6.2Testing Baxter & Manaster Ramer’s (2000) algorithm
    • 6.3Testing the presence of sound correspondences
  • 7.Results
    • 7.1Turkish, Manchu and Mongolian with Kessler & Lehtonen’s (2006) algorithm
    • 7.2Turkish, Manchu and Mongolian with Baxter &
      Manaster Ramer’s (2000) algorithm
    • 7.3Evaluating sound correspondences
  • 8.Loanwords
  • 9.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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