Diversification Act

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In linguistics , the law of diversification deals with the formal or functional- semantic differentiation of a unit. It states that the frequencies with which different forms of a linguistic category (e.g. the different inflected forms of a verb or the parts of speech ) or the different meanings of a word occur in texts are represented according to a language law that Gabriel Altmann (1985; 1991) derived and established.

Diversification of the plural endings of German nouns

Take the plural of German nouns as an example. In this case, one inflection category is diversified. For a series of letters by Heinrich von Kleist , Brüers & Heeren examined how often the various plural allomorphs of nouns appear in them. German has the following plural allomorphs: -e (the table - the table-e), -n (the aunt - the aunt-n), -en (the bank - the banks), -er (the child - the child-er), -s (the car - the car-s), umlaut (= U) (the father - the fathers), U + e (the stand - the stand-e), U + -er (the Forest - the forests), -Ø (the lever - the lever-Ø). ( -Ø is the zero allomorph ). It turned out that in 21 letters the plural allomorphs appear in various numbers and not always all; but if one arranges the occurring forms for each text separately according to their frequency, then one can show that their occurrence behaves in all cases according to the geometric distribution . Instead, the 1-shifted negative hypergeometric distribution was applied to the plural allomorphs in 21 short stories by Wolfdietrich Schnurre with very good results. The Hyperpoisson distribution proved itself in a press release.

As an example follows the adaptation of the negative hypergeometric distribution to Schnurre's short story Detour Into Life ; The occurring plural allomorphs are divided into ranks 1–8 according to their frequency in this text, where rank 1 is assigned to the most common allomorph, rank 2 to the second most common, and so on:

rank Plural allomorph n ( x ) NP ( x )
1 - {n} 59 58.89
2 -{O} 33 31.30
3 - {e} 20th 23.13
4th - {en} 18th 18.54
5 U + - {er} 18th 15.28
6th U + - {e} 12 12.60
7th U 10 10.08
8th -{he} 7th 7.18

(Where n ( x ) is the frequency of the respective plural allomorphs observed in this text; NP ( x ) is the frequency of the respective plural allomorphs, which is calculated when the hypergeometric distribution is adapted to the observed data. Result: the negative Hypergeometric distribution is a good model for this text with the test criterion P = 0.90, where P is considered good if it is greater than / equal to 0.05. For more detailed explanations, please refer to the cited literature.)

Further diversifications

The vocabulary of a language is also subject to diversification: It is made up of hereditary words and words from different languages ​​of origin ( foreign or loan words ), the relationships between which (the so-called word or foreign word spectrum ) follow the law of diversification. Family names are another area in which diversification is often noticeable. Different spellings (for example: Schmidt, Schmitz, Schmitt, Schmid, Schmied) have developed for many names . If one arranges the variants according to their frequency, it can be shown that, as in the case of the plural allomorphs, the rankings are based on certain regularities. The same goes for the different shapes of the joints in composites . The law of diversification can also be used as a model for the frequency with which different types of abbreviations are used. The diversification of the allophones of the phoneme / r / in German can be demonstrated on the phonetic-phonological level . Another field of application is verse construction: the use of hexameter types in German, Greek and Latin poetry is subject to the same law. An example from writing systems: The V-sign of the Danube script with its variants is also subject to the law of diversification.

While the examples given so far concern the expression side of language, corresponding investigations can also be made for the meaning side. The first research on this was directed at Hungarian prefixes. Further work was mainly devoted to prepositions. For example, one can investigate which other expressions with roughly the same meaning can be used to replace a preposition in its context. This shows that, depending on the context, different substitutions are possible for one and the same preposition, as research on the German prepositions 'auf' and 'von' has shown. These replacement expressions can be seen as evidence of the different meanings of the preposition examined. If they are ranked according to their frequency, it can be shown that there is legal diversification here too. A study on the English preposition 'in' and another on the Polish preposition 'w' came to the same conclusion.

The same procedure was successfully carried out using the example of the French conjunction 'et'.

Altmann (2018) has given a new overview of the variety of phenomena that follow the Diversification Act using a newly developed uniform model. For this purpose Kolenčíková & Altmann have presented a study of Slovak prepositions.

Importance of the diversification law

The law of diversification is one of many language laws that quantitative linguistics suggests. There is an abundance of reviews, particularly on the distribution of parts of speech in texts in different languages ​​that support the theory.

literature

  • Gabriel Altmann : Diversification Processes of the Word. In: Peter Schmidt (Ed.): Glottometrika 15. Issues in General Linguistic Theory and the Theory of Word Length . Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, Trier 1996, pp. 102–111. ISBN 3-88476-228-1 .
  • Gabriel Altmann: Diversification processes. In: Reinhard Köhler , Gabriel Altmann & Rajmund G. Piotrowski (eds.): Quantitative Linguistics - Quantitative Linguistics. An international manual . de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, pp. 646–658. ISBN 3-11-015578-8 .
  • Gabriel Altmann: Unified Modeling of Diversification in Language. RAM-Verlag, Lüdenscheid 2018. ISBN 978-3-942303-63-7 .
  • Gabriel Altmann, Karl-Heinz Best, Bernd Kind: A generalization of the law of semantic diversification. In: Ingeborg Fickermann (Ed.): Glottometrika 8 . Brockmeyer, Bochum 1987, pp. 130-139. ISBN 3-88339-559-5 .
  • Karl-Heinz Best : Bibliography: Diversification. In: Glottometrics. 28, 2014, pp. 87–91 (PDF full text ).
  • Ursula Rothe: Diversification Processes in Grammar. An Introduction. In: Ursula Rothe (Ed.), Diversification Processes in Language: Grammar . Margit Rottmann Medienverlag, Hagen 1991, pp. 3-32.
  • Ursula Rothe (Ed.): Diversification Processes in Language: Grammar. Margit Rottmann Medienverlag, Hagen 1991. ISBN 3-926862-21-1 .

Web links

Wiktionary: Law of diversification  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ lql.uni-trier.de ( Memento of the original from February 21, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / lql.uni-trier.de
  2. ^ Gabriel Altmann: Semantic Diversification. In: Folia Linguistica XIX, 1985, pp. 177-200; Gabriel Altmann: Modeling diversification phenomena in language. In: Rothe, Ursula (Ed.), Diversification Processes in Language: Grammar. Margit Rottmann Medienverlag, Hagen 1991, pp. 33–46.
  3. ↑ Nina Brüers & Anne Heeren: Plural allomorphs in letters from Heinrich von Kleist. In: Glottometrics. 7, 2004, pp. 85-90 (PDF | full text ).
  4. ↑ Katharina Meuser, Jana Madlen Schütte & Sina Stremme: Pluralallomorphs in the short stories by Wolfdietrich Schnurre. In: Glottometrics. 17, 2008, pp. 12–17 (PDF full text ).
  5. ^ Karl-Heinz Best : Quantitative Linguistics. An approximation . 3rd, heavily revised and expanded edition. Peust & Gutschmidt, Göttingen 2006, p. 81. ISBN 3-933043-17-4 .
  6. ↑ Katharina Meuser, Jana Madlen Schütte & Sina Stremme: Pluralallomorphs in the short stories by Wolfdietrich Schnurre. In: Glottometrics. 17, 2008, p. 14 (PDF full text ).
  7. ↑ Karl-Heinz Best , Emmerich Kelih (Ed.): Borrowings and foreign words: Quantitative aspects. RAM-Verlag, Lüdenscheid 2014. ISBN 978-3-942303-23-1 . The book contains two corresponding contributions.
  8. ^ Karl-Heinz Best: Diversification of proper names. In: Peter Grzybek & Reinhard Köhler (Eds.): Exact Methods in the Study of Language and Text. Dedicated to Gabriel Altmann on the occasion of his 75th birthday. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-019354-1 , pp. 21–31.
  9. ^ Karl-Heinz Best: Distribution of joint elements in German. In: Göttinger Contributions to Linguistics 16, 2008, pp. 7–16. (Published 2010),
  10. ^ Karl-Heinz Best: tendencies towards shortening in German from the point of view of quantitative linguistics. In: Jochen A. Bär, Thorsten Roelcke & Anja Steinhauer (eds.): Linguistic brevity. Conceptual, structural and pragmatic aspects . de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2007, pp. 45–62. ISBN 978-3-11-017542-4 .
  11. ^ Karl-Heinz Best: Diversification of the Phoneme / r / in German. In: Glottometrics. 18, 2009, pp. 26–31 (PDF full text ).
  12. ^ Karl-Heinz Best: For the diversification of Latin and Greek hexameters. In: Glottometrics. 17, 2008, pp. 43–50 (PDF full text );
    Karl-Heinz Best: On the diversification of German hexameters. In: Naukovyj Visnyk Černivec'koho Universytetu: Hermans'ka filolohija. Vypusk 431, 2009, pp. 172-180.
  13. ^ Karl-Heinz Best: Diversification of a single sign of the Danube script. In: Glottometrics. 22, 2011, pp. 1–4 (PDF full text ); Test p. 2, graphic on p. 3.
  14. ↑ Erszébet Beőthy, Gabriel Altmann: The diversification of meaning of Hungarian verbal prefixes. I. '-meg-'. In: Ursula Rothe (Ed.): Diversification Processes in Language: Grammar. Margit Rottmann Medienverlag, Hagen 1991, pages 60–66. ISBN 3-926862-21-1 .
  15. ↑ Erszébet Beőthy, Gabriel Altmann: The diversification of meaning of Hungarian verbal prefixes. II. 'Ki-'. In: Finnisch-Ugrische Mitteilungen 8, 1984, pp. 29–37.
  16. ↑ Erszébet Beőthy, Gabriel Altmann: Semantic Diversification of Hungarian Verbal Prefixes. III. "Föl-", "el-", "be". In: Ursula Rothe (ed.): Glottometrika 7. Brockmeyer, Bochum 1984. ISBN 3-88339-423-8 . Pages 45–56.
  17. ↑ Karl-Heinz Best: 'Von': On the diversification of a particle in German. In: Ursula Rothe (Ed.): Diversification Processes in Language: Grammar. Margit Rottmann Medienverlag, Hagen 1991, pages 94-104. ISBN 3-926862-21-1 .
  18. ↑ Rinje Fuchs: Semantic diversification of the German preposition on '. In: Ursula Rothe (Ed.): Diversification Processes in Language: Grammar. Margit Rottmann Medienverlag, Hagen 1991, pages 105–115. ISBN 3-926862-21-1 .
  19. ↑ Anja Hennern: On the semantic diversification of 'in' in English. In: Ursula Rothe (Ed.): Diversification Processes in Language: Grammar. Margit Rottmann Medienverlag, Hagen 1991, pages 116–126. ISBN 3-926862-21-1 .
  20. ↑ Rolf Hammerl, Jadwiga Sambor: Investigations into the distribution of meanings of the polyfunctional Polish preposition 'w' in the text. In: Ursula Rothe (Ed.): Diversification Processes in Language: Grammar. Margit Rottmann Medienverlag, Hagen 1991, pages 127-137. ISBN 3-926862-21-1 .
  21. ↑ Ursula Rothe: The semantics of the textual 'et'. Peter Lang, Frankfurt / Bern / New York 1986. ISBN 3-8204-9660-2 . Chapter: Diversification Analysis , pages 63-68, 93-95, 105-107, 117-120.
  22. ↑ Natália Kolenčíková, Gabriel Altmann: Analysis of Prepositions in 'Marína' (Slovak Romantic Poem). In: Glottometrics. 48, 2020, pages 88-107 (PDF full text )
  23. ↑ lql.uni-trier.de ( Memento of the original from January 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / lql.uni-trier.de