On the relation between structural diversity and geographical distance among languages: observations and computer simulations

Abstract

The recent availability of larger typological databases such as Haspelmath et al. (2005) has brought the linguistics community closer to having a solid, empirical foundation for making actual claims about prehistoric migrations, deep genealogical relationship, and patterns of areal linguistic interaction. Nevertheless, still more data are needed, and more than anything a number of methodological problems need to be adressed. These problems, which are the focus of this paper. These questions will be addressed from two perspectives. The first perspective is an empirical one, where observations primarily derive from analyses of the data of Haspelmath et al. (2005). The second perspective is a computational one, where simulations are drawn upon to test the effects of different parameters on the development of structural linguistic diversity. The results suggest that there is indeed some hope that we may derive new empirical insights regarding linguistic prehistory by drawing upon typological data. We do not, however, make any specific empirical claims in this paper, but instead concentrate our efforts on methodology