Probabilistic Meaning of Multiple Matchings for Language Relationship
Gwang-Yoon Goh · Journal of Quantitative Linguistics · 2000
This paper addresses problems found in Ringe’s (1992) probabilistic method of determining language relationship by demonstrating how the consideration of multiple matchings (MMs, i.e., the occurrence of more than one instance of recurrent matchings (RMs) in a given word position) can improve the probabilistic prediction of (non-)chance relationship between two putatively related languages. It is shown that the non-chance probability of MMs, unlike that of RMs, can be determined for the total word list and that the alternative method using MMs provides a better prediction about (non-)chance relationships, enabling us to deal with hard-to-handle cases such as the English-Turkish pair without resorting to extra-probabilistic arguments as in Ringe.