Language Change Research Articles

Automatic build repair for test cases using incompatible Java versions

Context:Bug bisection is a common technique used to identify a revision that introduces a bug or indirectly fixes a bug, and often involves executing multiple revisions of a project to determine whether the bug is present within the revision. However, many legacy revisions often cannot be successfully compiled due to changes in the programming language or tools used in the compilation process, adding complexity and preventing automation in the bisection process. Objective:In this paper, we introduce an approach to repair test cases of Java projects by performing dependency minimization. Our approach aims to remove classes and methods that are not required for the execution of one or more test cases. Unlike existing state-of-the-art techniques, our approach performs minimization at source-level, which allows compile-time errors to be fixed. Methods:A standalone Java tool implementing our technique was developed, and we evaluated our technique using subjects from Defects4J retargeted against Java 8 and 17. Results:Our evaluation showed that a majority of subjects can be repaired solely by performing minimization, including replicating the test results of the original version. Furthermore, our technique is also shown to achieve accurate minimized results, while only adding a small overhead to the bisection process. Conclusion:Our proposed technique is shown to be effective for repairing build failures with minimal overhead, making it suitable for use in automated bug bisection. Our tool can also be adapted for use cases such as bug corpus creation and refactoring.

On the Functional Convergence of Pragmatic Markers in Arizona Spanish

Tags, compared to other types of pragmatic markers (PMs), are typically considered as separate yet related phenomena and are usually differentiated by their syntactic positions and discourse functions, among other factors. The current work explores this differentiation utilizing 36 sociolinguistic interviews with Spanish-English bilinguals in southern Arizona, USA. Standard language variation and change (LVC) methodologies were used in the extraction, coding, and statistical analyses of this dataset (n = 591), with four PM variants identified for study through an exploratory methodology: the tags no and qué no and the discourse markers (DMs) you know and saber. The results of our analyses indicate that, while utterance position, self-reported gender, and length of residence were all significant in the multivariate analysis, discourse function was dropped from the statistical model. Therefore, we interpret this finding as an indication that functional differences between these two pragmatic resources have been levelled through grammaticalization, demonstrating that for Arizona Spanish, tags and DMs belong in the same functional category of PMs. Furthermore, an analysis of codeswitching behavior triggered by the incoming variant you know demonstrates that it is becoming incorporated into the Spanish pragmatic system, patterning similarly to its counterpart saber in terms of function and position, without attrition of the native variant.

Linguistic change in times of the COVID-19 pandemic: a corpus linguistic comparison of language contact phenomena in Romance languages

Abstract The radical social, political, and economic changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are clearly reflected in language use through the appearance of numerous neologisms, most of which can be considered borrowings from English. In this article, we take a contrastive linguistic approach and focus on the emergence of new lexemes in the press language of four Romance languages (European Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Italian and European French) with a special focus on language contact. Since no press corpora were available with specific data on the COVID-19 pandemic, we created our own corpora for the entire year 2020 using Python in order to compare how lexical innovation is dealt with in the four languages. Our results show that conceptual innovation, especially when it occurs abruptly, can lead to equivalent, often phonotactically adapted neologisms in the case of neighbouring languages. However, the integration of foreign words and the formation of neologisms also show language-specific peculiarities which are not only related to structural characteristics of the respective languages, but also to sociolinguistic and sociocultural factors. Our study elaborates on the relationship between these factors and shows the potential of contrastive and computational approaches for the study of lexical repercussions of language contact.

“GƏNC QRAMMATİKLƏR” MƏKTƏBİNİN DİLÇİLİK TARİXİNDƏ OYNADIĞI ROLA DAİR

On The Role of the "Young Grammar School" in the History of Linguistics Summary The term "young grammarians" refers to a group of linguists formed in Leipzig in the 1970s. The main representatives of young grammarians were A. Leskien, B. Delbrück, G.Paul, G.Osthoff, K.Brugman, W.Brounet and E. Severs. Young grammarians consider linguistics exclusively as a diachronic, historical-comparative discipline. This is expressed in the most important work of the time, The Principles of Linguistic History by Herman Paul. With their hypothesis of the "non-exclusivity of the laws of sounds", they attempted to re-establish linguistics within a purely scientific framework. This development was the result of the growing competition between the humanities and the natural sciences. According to them, language changes occur without exception on the basis of the natural laws of sound. Linguistic knowledge should be based solely on observable facts and not on abstractions. Key words: linguistic schools, neogrammarians, the principle of historicism, phonetics, phonology, sound, comparison

AZƏRBAYCAN DİLİNİN DİALEKTOLOGİYASI VƏ QARABAĞ DİALEKTİNİN BƏZİ NƏZƏRƏÇARPAN CƏHƏTLƏRİ HAQQINDA

Dialectology of the Azerbaijan Language and Karabakh on some Controversial Aspects of Dialect Summary The paper addresses the most significant problems related to the study of the living domestic dialect and language history. Dialects study archaisms that have vanished from the language of literature. Our literary language changes according to the demands of contemporary times as a consequenceof the basic research of dialects. In Azerbaijani linguistics, a great deal of job has been performed in the field of historical dialectology. Key words: literary language, national dialects, modern eras, different words, language development

DİLÇİLİK NƏZƏRİYYƏSİNİN İNKİŞAF TARİXİ

History of the Development of the Theory of Linguistics Summary The origin and development history of linguistic theory is reflected in the article. Here is also brief information about the emergence of linguistics and schools of linguistics since ancient times. The history of linguistics has developed through historical stages such as Indian linguistics, Greek linguistics, Roman linguistics, and Arabic linguistics until modern times. Linguistics examines and studies all parts of language, including its units, nature, structure, and change over time. This term was first used in 1829. In general, linguistics studies language and means of communication between people. The theoretical part of this field includes very important and diverse concepts that answer questions such as the origin and purpose of language creation, language characteristics, the process of language learning, language changes, and the role of language in human personality. In the practical part, the analysis of sentence structure, the role of words, semantics, the formation of sounds, language disorders, etc. is being investigated. Key words: history of linguistics, science of linguistics, Indian linguistics, Greek linguistics, Roman linguistics, historical linguistics, applied linguistics

Metalinguistic awareness as a factor in contact-induced language change

Abstract This opinion paper considers the role of metalinguistic awareness as a cognitive factor in contact-induced change (CIC). Although research in neighboring fields – for example, language pedagogy and second and third language acquisition – has shown that metalinguistic awareness is a non-structural factor, but does interact with cross-linguistic influences, metalinguistic awareness and its connection to CIC have largely remained undiscussed in contact linguistics. The goal of this contribution is threefold: (i) to put metalinguistic awareness on the agenda in language contact research; (ii) to relate metalinguistic awareness and CIC; and (iii) to showcase how CIC might be linked to different language experiences. To narrow the structural scope, I examine changes in passive constructions and discuss what role metalinguistic awareness might have played in the different developments.

Prosodic Change in Breton: The Loss of Stressed Clitics1

AbstractMost dialects of Breton have largely penultimate stress, and are also said to exhibit stress on certain clitics when they precede monosyllabic content words. However, data suggest that this prosodic process may not be maintained consistently by modern Breton speakers. This study explores the nature of clitic stress in Breton and investigates its potential loss by examining the indefinite article, low numerals and the adverb re ‘too’ in three pre‐existing corpora: two linguistic atlases and a more recent online repository of Breton recordings. The findings show that the loss of stressed clitics is greater in south‐eastern Brittany, and more advanced for the indefinite article than for other contexts. It is suggested that this is due to the fact that the process does not occur with the definite article, and that the clitics are being reanalysed such that they have a less cohering relationship with their hosts. Given the unstable nature of Breton as an endangered language with a high proportion of older speakers, it is unclear whether this ongoing language change will continue along the same path, or if revitalisation is likely either to halt or accelerate it.

A Synopsis of the Lexical Variations in British and American English

The focal point of this research work is to find out the lexical distinctions between British and American varieties of English and their persistently reciprocal impacts. Over the years, both the British and American vocabularies have been influencing each other, specially due to politics, economics, diplomatic relationships, information technology and globalization. From time to time, the variance of vocabulary in the two varieties results in increasing the number of English synonyms which is, in fact, an asset for the language. But sometimes, the synonyms may cause serious differences in meaning as some words may mean something in British English; the same may denote something else in American English and vice versa. One should, therefore, be careful and consistent about their use.It is most probable that as a result of various procedures of the change in lexical meaning and language, the two varieties would someday merge by turning them into an identical entity. So, this paper intends to provide the reader and/or the user of English with the correct application of the two varieties for our day-to-day life.

Facilitators and barriers to asylum seeker and refugee oral health care access: a qualitative systematic review.

Objectives Asylum seekers and refugees (ASRs) encounter barriers when accessing oral health care (OHC). A qualitative systematic review was conducted to understand the perceptions, attitudes, behaviours and experiences of ASRs regarding their OHC. Themes were extracted to identify the barriers and facilitators ASRs face when accessing OHC.Data sources PubMed, APA PsycInfo, Cochrane Database, Web of Science and CINAHL were searched on 4 and 5 October 2022.Data selection Primary studies including ASRs of any age or nationality were included. Qualitative data of ASRs' lived experiences of oral health (OH) and accessing OHC were extracted. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme quality appraisal tool was applied.Data synthesis Data findings were extracted and meta-aggregation performed using inductive reasoning. A total of 13 primary qualitative studies were included. Three barriers were identified, including difficulty accessing treatments and appointments, cultural and language changes, and ASRs' lack of OHC knowledge or incongruous beliefs surrounding OH. Two facilitators were identified as good OH education and support from care providers or government.Conclusions Decision-makers should adapt policy to facilitate access to OHC and educate ASRs on OH. More research is needed to understand the barriers and facilitators to OHC for other people groups who experience health inequalities.

Language change and multilingualism in an ethnic city in China: a diachronic linguistic landscape perspective

ABSTRACT This study adopts an apparent-time diachronic linguistic landscape (LL) approach to investigate the vitality of an ethnic minority language in China, namely the Nuosu Yi (诺苏彝). Diachronic LL research is concerned with changes in language use on signage over time. It provides insights into phenomena such as language shift, which is challenging to be unveiled through synchronic research. This study collected a total of 1233 signboards, which were made from 2002 to 2021, and thirty follow-up interviews with store owners. By analysing the data statistically and qualitatively, this study demonstrates the changes in language use on private signs of Xichang (the capital city of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture). A significant finding was a trend for multilingualism, in which the status of Chinese has changed from a monolingual to multilingual dominance, and English has benefited the most from the trend. The use of Nuosu Yi has been high over the two decades, but some issues have arisen with its use on some of the recent-made signs. This study provides a new approach to apparent-time LL research and demonstrates its importance in understanding the dynamic nature of the vitality of ethnic minority languages.

Addressing Polymorphism in Linguistic Phylogenetics

AbstractUnderstanding how languages change is important not only for the reconstruction of protolanguages and for estimating diversification dates (i.e. the dates when languages split), but also for the inference of evolutionary trees (or phylogenetic networks) of language families. We propose a parametric model of language change that addresses lexical polymorphism (two or more words for a given basic meaning) based on what is known about how languages change. Under our model, changes of state in lexical characters occur only due to semantic shift or borrowing, leading to (potentially brief) periods in which polymorphism is present. Across a wide range of model conditions, we find that a simple and natural modification to the maximum parsimony (MP) criterion (which seeks the tree with the fewest number of changes) to allow it to handle polymorphic characters has the best accuracy, substantially improving on well‐known Bayesian methods based on appearances and disappearances of words. We also provide a new analysis of Indo–European that takes polymorphism into account, finding support for a previous tree (Nakhleh et al., 2006) and a new tree that differs from the previous tree in the relationship between Italo‐Celtic and Tocharian.

Gradualness of Grammaticalization and Abrupt Change Reconciled: Evidence from Microvariation in Romance

Grammaticalization has long been understood as a process that takes place gradually, but within it, discrete and abrupt changes take place. This tension has been reconciled by claiming that the semblance of a gradual process is given by different parts of a construction undergoing changes at different points in time. Focusing on synchronic microvariation as gradience, this article discusses cases of clitic loss in four Romance varieties (Brazilian Portuguese, Raeto-Romance, some northeastern Italo-Romance varieties, and French), and identifies common patterns in the cells of the paradigms that are most vulnerable to the process of loss. Relating the grammatical and semantic properties of these cells to established typological hierarchies, the paper explores how general cognitive principles can account for the key properties of gradualness and gradience and, ultimately, language change.

Pelvic cavity and its spaces - anatomical overview.

Anatomical nomenclature commonly does not follow changes in the clinical language and demands. Therefore we tried to explain the pelvic relationships based on the changes that occur in the pelvis as well as to compare different nomenclatural strategies used in every day language. Courses of fasciae in the male and female pelvis are also considered.

Christian Ludwig (1660–1728) and the beginnings of German/English lexicography

Christian Ludwig’s 1706 A dictionary English, German, and French and his 1716 Teutsch–Englisches Lexicon were the first bilingual dictionaries published in response to an emerging German interest in learning English. Setting the dictionaries in the wider context of European bilingual lexicography, I argue that such dictionaries are valuable sources for linguistic and cultural history, in parallel to the more widely studied monolingual dictionaries. Taking advantage of the digitisation of Ludwig’s dictionaries, I show that in his 1706 English–German dictionary, adapted from the English/French dictionaries of Abel Boyer to fill a gap he identified as a practising teacher, Ludwig did not merely translate, but made systematic changes. In his larger German–English dictionary of 1716, Ludwig took his word-list largely from Kramer’s German–Italian dictionary (1700–1702), but used his own judgement in structuring entries and choosing — as well as expanding the range of — examples, reflecting his experience as a teacher and translator. I suggest that the different approach taken in dictionaries by teachers of non-native learners to explaining word meaning, pronunciation, and usage has yielded sources which — newly accessible thanks to digitisation - will enrich our understanding of language change and language standardisation, and of cultural change and exchange, where I argue for the value of taking a cross-linguistic, comparative perspective.

On an Interaction Model of General Language Change

ABSTRACT In the following article, we construct an interaction model of general language change. This contributes in particular to quantitative studies on reversible language change initiated by G. Altmann by adding explanatory character in tracing global features of general language change back to the individual interaction of speakers. Although the corresponding coupled differential equations are (presumably) non-integrable, we use methods from the theory of dynamical systems to deduce the long-term behaviour (depending on four interaction parameters) of the model for any given initial constellation of speakers. Subsequent numerical analysis of real data on language change is used to justify the relevance of the constructed model for the practicing quantitative linguist. We show how data-fitting methods can be used to determine the four interaction parameters and predict from them the long-term behaviour of the system, i.e. if complete language change or reversible language change will take place.

Understanding policy evolution using institutional grammar: net metering policies in the United States

Policy process scholars have expressed a long-standing interest in policy evolution, though such assessments offer a limited understanding of how policy language changes across time. These micro-level assessments of policy design evolution lend insights into substantive aspects of policy adjustment over time. In this paper, we conduct a comparative case study of changes in the text of net metering legislation in four US states. Specifically, using the Institutional Grammar (IG), we measure policy evolution as: (1) change in policy provisions that define the net metering policy system or regulate behavior, (2) change in different types of provisions (rules), and (3) calibration of policy provisions. Furthermore, we identify the dynamics of policy patching and packaging with these measures, demonstrating more information is revealed about the dynamics of policy evolution at the micro-level. For scholars and practitioners, our novel micro-level measurement allows discernment of changes in who is being incentivized, in what ways they are being incentivized, and the extent to which they are being incentivized. Furthermore, our approach can assist practitioners in identifying policy provisions and the language of those provisions that are changing more frequently, as we find policy language does not evolve evenly.

Interlanguage Pragmatic Competence of University Students: An Error Analysis of Apology Speech Act Strategies in Japanese Learners

While acquiring a second language, learners may encounter challenges and difficulties in effectively carrying out verbal communication in the second language. Mastering the apology speech act is a challenge for L2 learners. The objective of this study is to identify the apology strategies utilized by individuals learning the Japanese language, as well as the specific types and underlying causes of errors produced during the execution of apologetic speech acts. The results of this study were gathered via the Discourse Completion Test (DCT), which encompassed a sample of 150 Japanese language learners. The gathered data were further classified using eight semantic formulas based on the research conducted by Haristiani and Sopiyanti (2019), while the various types and sources of error categorization were conducted based on the theories proposed by Corder (1981) and Richards (1975). The results of this study suggest that Japanese learners utilize the same primary strategies in apology speech acts. Furthermore, the study findings indicated that learners at the intermediate level displayed a higher frequency of errors in their speech compared to learners at the beginner levels and pre-intermediate levels, particularly in the strategy of taking responsibility. The main reason for this was primarily a lack of familiarity with the conventions of sentence structures, the proper use of language, and the appropriate use of expressions. The other sources of errors in language learning are likely to be ignoring language rule restrictions, incomplete application of rules, the learner’s false hypothesis, overgeneralization, and language transfer. This study is anticipated to function as a point of reference for research in interlanguage pragmatics, second-language acquisition, and error analysis. Gaining comprehension of the various problems and difficulties encountered when performing the speech act of apology in Japanese can assist both learners and educators in reducing these errors.

How Network Structure Shapes Languages: Disentangling the Factors Driving Variation in Communicative Agents.

Languages show substantial variability between their speakers, but it is currently unclear how the structure of the communicative network contributes to the patterning of this variability. While previous studies have highlighted the role of network structure in language change, the specific aspects of network structure that shape language variability remain largely unknown. To address this gap, we developed a Bayesian agent-based model of language evolution, contrasting between two distinct scenarios: language change and language emergence. By isolating the relative effects of specific global network metrics across thousands of simulations, we show that global characteristics of network structure play a critical role in shaping interindividual variation in language, while intraindividual variation is relatively unaffected. We effectively challenge the long-held belief that size and density are the main network structural factors influencing language variation, and show that path length and clustering coefficient are the main factors driving interindividual variation. In particular, we show that variation is more likely to occur in populations where individuals are not well-connected to each other. Additionally, variation is more likely to emerge in populations that are structured in small communities. Our study provides potentially important insights into the theoretical mechanisms underlying language variation.

Ensuring Linguistic Sustainability in Bangladesh: Challenges and Approaches

This study investigates the obstacles to language sustainability in Bangladesh, which boasts a wealth of linguistic diversity, and proposes a comprehensive plan to support this variety. The study begins with an examination of Bangladesh’s linguistic demographics, highlighting the multitude of languages spoken by the country’s various ethnic communities. It then delves into the historical context of language movements in Bangladesh and illustrates how language serves as a crucial marker of identity and unity. Subsequently, this research explores the socioeconomic, political, and educational factors that contribute to language endangerment and change. It discusses the consequences of these changes on cultural identity, transmission of knowledge, and community well-being. This study proposes a comprehensive framework for language sustainability in Bangladesh, emphasising five key components: documentation and revitalisation of endangered languages, implementation of comprehensive multilingual education policies, utilisation of modern technology in language preservation, promotion of cross-cultural understanding through exchange programs, and national policy support for language rights and diversity. These initiatives aim to enhance linguistic sustainability, foster social cohesion, and empower marginalised communities. This study argues that by addressing these challenges and adopting these strategies, Bangladesh can secure a sustainable linguistic future and preserve its diverse cultural heritage.