How many possible languages are there?

被引：12

作者：

Bortolussi L. ^{[1
]}

Sgarro A. ^{[1
,2
]}

Longobardi G. ^{[3
]}

Guardiano C. ^{[4
]}

机构：

[1] Dept. of Mathematics and Informatics, University of Trieste, I34127, Trieste

[2] CBM, Trieste, Area Science Park

[3] DISCAM, University of Trieste

[4] Department of Sciences of Language and Culture, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia

来源：

Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications | 2011年 / 228卷

关键词：

Language phylogeny; Monte Carlo Sampling; Parametric Comparison Method; Universal Grammar;

D O I：

10.3233/978-1-60750-762-8-168

中图分类号：

学科分类号：

摘要：

We adopt a description of natural languages in terms of strings of crosslinguistically variable syntactic features (parameters), complying with a specified hypothesis of universal grammar, and we deal with two problems: first, assessing the statistical significance of language distances calculated on the basis of such features and recently used to reconstruct phylogenetic trees; second, counting the minimal overall number of possible human languages, i.e. of strings satisfying the implicational rules which describe dependencies between parameters of the specified universal grammar. In order to accomplish these tasks, we had to develop a sampling algorithm capable of dealing correctly with such rules. The potential significance of these results for historical and theoretical linguistics is then briefly highlighted. © 2011 The authors and IOS Press. All rights reserved.

引用

页码：168 / 179

页数：11

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