Distributional biases in language families

Abstract

This paper introduces a method (the Family Bias Method) that estimates statistical biases in diachronic developments on the basis of synchronic samples. Estimates of developments are sought from their expected synchronic results: if a structure S outnumbers non-S significantly in a family, a change toward S in this family was more likely than a change away from it – either because S was there in the protolanguage and then hardly ever got lost, or because S was not there and then it was was innovated early or often in the family. If st Show more