| 1. |
- de Heer, Mervi, et al.
(author)
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Loanwords in Basic Vocabulary as an Indicator of Borrowing Profiles
- 2024
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In: Journal of Language Contact. - : Brill Academic Publishers. - 1877-4091 .- 1955-2629. ; 16:1, s. 54-103
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Loanwords carry information on linguistic interactions, and can also reveal (pre-)historicalpopulation contacts. The contact history of a particular language family is an essential component of historical linguistics, but it is also illuminating for integrative studies of the human past. However, data availability and the time-consuming nature of etymology mean that comprehensive research on loanword layers exists for relatively few languages, forcing us to rely on limited material for others. This paper compares the loanword layers in the basic and total vocabulary of six well-studied Uralic languages, assessing how accurately the borrowing profile in basic vocabulary reflects the full profile of a language. We define “borrowing profile” as the known contact history of a language reflected by its loanword layers. We demonstrate that the loanword layers in basic vocabulary provide an adequate cross-section of the full borrowing profile, although basic vocabulary manifests prehistoric contacts more strongly than more recent contacts.
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| 2. |
- Honkola, Terhi, et al.
(author)
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Evolution within a language : Environmental differences contribute to divergence of dialect groups
- 2018
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In: BMC Evolutionary Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1471-2148. ; 18:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: The processes leading to the diversity of over 7000 present-day languages have been the subject of scholarly interest for centuries. Several factors have been suggested to contribute to the spatial segregation of speaker populations and the subsequent linguistic divergence. However, their formal testing and the quantification of their relative roles is still missing. We focussed here on the early stages of the linguistic divergence process, that is, the divergence of dialects, with a special focus on the ecological settings of the speaker populations. We adopted conceptual and statistical approaches from biological microevolution and parallelled intra-lingual variation with genetic variation within a species. We modelled the roles of geographical distance, differences in environmental and cultural conditions and in administrative history on linguistic divergence at two different levels: between municipal dialects (cf. in biology, between individuals) and between dialect groups (cf. in biology, between populations). Results: We found that geographical distance and administrative history were important in separating municipal dialects. However, environmental and cultural differences contributed markedly to the divergence of dialect groups. In biology, increase in genetic differences between populations together with environmental differences may suggest genetic differentiation of populations through adaptation to the local environment. However, our interpretation of this result is not that language itself adapts to the environment. Instead, it is based on Homo sapiens being affected by its environment, and its capability to adapt culturally to various environmental conditions. The differences in cultural adaptations arising from environmental heterogeneity could have acted as nonphysical barriers and limited the contacts and communication between groups. As a result, linguistic differentiation may emerge over time in those speaker populations which are, at least partially, separated. Conclusions: Given that the dialects of isolated speaker populations may eventually evolve into different languages, our result suggests that cultural adaptation to local environment and the associated isolation of speaker populations have contributed to the emergence of the global patterns of linguistic diversity.
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| 3. |
- Moilanen, Ulla, et al.
(author)
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New tools for studying Finnish archaeology and Uralic languages
- 2021
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In: Antiquity. - : Antiquity Publications. - 0003-598X .- 1745-1744. ; 95:383
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Between 2018 and 2020 the Kipot ja kielet [Beakers and Speakers] project (KiKi) collected a typological database of archaeological artefacts in Finland and a typological linguistic database of Uralic languages. Both datasets will be accessible through a public online interface (URHIA) from 2021. The data will help integrate Finnish- and Uralic-speaking areas into global perspectives on human history.
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| 4. |
- Norvik, Miina, et al.
(author)
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Uralic typology in the light of a new comprehensive dataset
- 2022
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In: Journal of Uralic Linguistics. - : John Benjamins Publishing Company. - 2772-3720 .- 2772-3739. ; 1:1, s. 4-42
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper presents the Uralic Areal Typology Online (UraTyp 1.0), a typological dataset of 35 Uralic languages and a total of 360 features, mainly covering the levels of morphology, syntax, and phonology. The features belong to two different datasets: 195 features’ definitions originate from the Grambank (GB) database, developed for comparison of world language typology, whereas 165 features (UT) have been designed specifically to describe the typological variation within the Uralic language family. We present a series of analyses of the dataset demonstrating its scope and possibilities. The complete data set correctly identifies the main Uralic subgroups in a Principal Components Analysis, whereas GB data alone is insufficiently granular to detect this family-internal structure. Similar analyses limited to various typological subdomains also give variable results. A model-based admixture analysis identifies four distinct areas of historical interaction: Saami, Finnic, the Volga area and Ob-Ugric.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Syrjånen, Kaj, et al.
(author)
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Crouching TIGER, hidden structure : Exploring the nature of linguistic data using TIGER values
- 2021
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In: JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE EVOLUTION. - : Oxford University Press. - 2058-458X .- 2058-4571. ; 6:2, s. 99-118
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In recent years, techniques such as Bayesian inference of phylogeny have become a standard part of the quantitative linguistic toolkit. While these tools successfully model the tree-like component of a linguistic dataset, real-world datasets generally include a combination of tree-like and nontree-like signals. Alongside developing techniques for modeling nontree-like data, an important requirement for future quantitative work is to build a principled understanding of this structural complexity of linguistic datasets. Some techniques exist for exploring the general structure of a linguistic dataset, such as NeighborNets, delta scores, and Q-residuals; however, these methods are not without limitations or drawbacks. In general, the question of what kinds of historical structure a linguistic dataset can contain and how these might be detected or measured remains critically underexplored from an objective, quantitative perspective. In this article, we propose TIGER values, a metric that estimates the internal consistency of a genetic dataset, as an additional metric for assessing how tree-like a linguistic dataset is. We use TIGER values to explore simulated language data ranging from very tree-like to completely unstructured, and also use them to analyze a cognate-coded basic vocabulary dataset of Uralic languages. As a point of comparison for the TIGER values, we also explore the same data using delta scores, Q-residuals, and NeighborNets. Our results suggest that TIGER values are capable of both ranking tree-like datasets according to their degree of treelikeness, as well as distinguishing datasets with tree-like structure from datasets with a nontree-like structure. Consequently, we argue that TIGER values serve as a useful metric for measuring the historical heterogeneity of datasets. Our results also highlight the complexities in measuring treelikeness from linguistic data, and how the metrics approach this question from different perspectives.
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| 7. |
- Vesakoski, Outi, et al.
(author)
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Reckless males, rational females: Dynamic trade-off between food and shelter in the marine isopod Idotea balthica
- 2008
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In: Behavioural Processes. - : Elsevier BV. - 0376-6357. ; 79, s. 175-181
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Habitat choice of herbivores is expected to be a resolution of a trade-off between food and shelter. The resolution of this trade-off may, however, be dynamic within a species because distinct phenotypes may value these factors differently and the value may vary temporally. We studied this hypothesis in the marine herbivore Idotea balthica (Isopoda), by simultaneously manipulating both food and shelter, and investigated whether the resolution of the trade-off differed between sexes, colour morphs and day and night (i.e. high and low predation risk). Isopods chose between exposing and concealing backgrounds in which the quantity or quality of food varied. When choosing between the backgrounds in the absence of food, females preferred the concealmentmore than males did.However, in a trade-off situation the isopods traded shelter for food, and females more so than males. Thus, males’ lower preference for the shelterwas not counterbalanced by a stronger preference for food. The microhabitat use also differed between night and day showing adaptation to diurnally fluctuating predation risk. We suggest that microhabitat utilization of females is more strongly tied to variation in risk and resources than that of males, for whomother factors, such as seeking mates, may be more important.
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