1887
Volume 29, Issue 1
  • ISSN 0176-4225
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9714
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

In the absence of comparative method reconstruction, high rate of lexical cognate candidates is often used as evidence for relationships between languages. This paper uses the Oswalt Monte Carlo Shift test (a variant of Oswalt 1970) to explore the statistical basis of the claim that the four Papuan languages of the Solomon Islands have greater than chance levels of lexical similarity. The results of this test initially appear to show that the lexical similarities between the Central Solomons Papuan languages are statistically significant, but the effect disappears when known Oceanic loanwords are removed. The Oswalt Monte Carlo test is a useful technique to test a claim of greater than chance similarity between any two word lists — with the proviso that undetected loanwords strongly increase the chance of spurious identification.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/dia.29.1.01dun
2012-01-01
2025-02-12
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/dia.29.1.01dun
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error