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COMPUTATIONAL PHYLOGENETICS AND THE INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF PAMA-NYUNGAN
"... We present the first proposal of detailed internal subgrouping and higher-order structure of the Pama-Nyungan family of Australian languages. Previous work has identified more than twenty-five primary subgroups in the family, with little indication of how these groups might fit together. Some work h ..."
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We present the first proposal of detailed internal subgrouping and higher-order structure of the Pama-Nyungan family of Australian languages. Previous work has identified more than twenty-five primary subgroups in the family, with little indication of how these groups might fit together. Some work has assumed that reconstruction of higher nodes in the tree was impossible, either be-cause extensive internal borrowing has obscured more remote relations, or because the languages are not sufficiently well attested (see, for example, Bowern & Koch 2004b, Dixon 1997). With re-gard to the first objection, work by Alpher and Nash (1999) and Bowern and colleagues (2011)
Phylogenetic Models of Language Diversification
, 2010
"... Language diversification is a stochastic process which presents similarities with phylogenetic evolution. Recently, there has been interest in modelling this ..."
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Cited by 1 (1 self)
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Language diversification is a stochastic process which presents similarities with phylogenetic evolution. Recently, there has been interest in modelling this
Editorial Current Advances in Molecular Phylogenetics
"... License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Since its inception some 50 years ago, phylogenetics has permeated nearly every branch of biology. Initially developed to classify objects based on a set of cladistic ..."
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License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Since its inception some 50 years ago, phylogenetics has permeated nearly every branch of biology. Initially developed to classify objects based on a set of cladistic rules, it has now become the central paradigm of evolutionary biology and a key framework for making sense of a wide range of disciplines [1], such as genomics [2], community ecology [3], epidemiology [4], conservation biology [5], and population dynamics [6], to name just a few. It is a testament to the power of phylogenetic methods that its application has expanded far beyond its original inception, now including the study of human culture, such as language and cultural memes [7]. Phylogenetic principles are used to reconstruct com-plex ancestral traits of morphological characters, genome
testing for divergent transmission histories among Cultural Characters: A study using Bayesian Phylogenetic methods and iranian tribal textile data. PLoS ONE 6
, 2011
"... Background: Archaeologists and anthropologists have long recognized that different cultural complexes may have distinct descent histories, but they have lacked analytical techniques capable of easily identifying such incongruence. Here, we show how Bayesian phylogenetic analysis can be used to ident ..."
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Background: Archaeologists and anthropologists have long recognized that different cultural complexes may have distinct descent histories, but they have lacked analytical techniques capable of easily identifying such incongruence. Here, we show how Bayesian phylogenetic analysis can be used to identify incongruent cultural histories. We employ the approach to investigate Iranian tribal textile traditions. Methods: We used Bayes factor comparisons in a phylogenetic framework to test two models of cultural evolution: the hierarchically integrated system hypothesis and the multiple coherent units hypothesis. In the hierarchically integrated system hypothesis, a core tradition of characters evolves through descent with modification and characters peripheral to the core are exchanged among contemporaneous populations. In the multiple coherent units hypothesis, a core tradition does not exist. Rather, there are several cultural units consisting of sets of characters that have different histories of descent. Results: For the Iranian textiles, the Bayesian phylogenetic analyses supported the multiple coherent units hypothesis over the hierarchically integrated system hypothesis. Our analyses suggest that pile-weave designs represent a distinct cultural unit that has a different phylogenetic history compared to other textile characters. Conclusions: The results from the Iranian textiles are consistent with the available ethnographic evidence, which suggests that the commercial rug market has influenced pile-rug designs but not the techniques or designs incorporated in the other
The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database: From Bioinformatics
"... Abstract: Phylogenetic methods have revolutionised evolutionary biology and have recently been applied to studies of linguistic and cultural evolution. However, the basic comparative data on the languages of the world required for these analyses is often widely dispersed in hard to obtain sources. H ..."
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Abstract: Phylogenetic methods have revolutionised evolutionary biology and have recently been applied to studies of linguistic and cultural evolution. However, the basic comparative data on the languages of the world required for these analyses is often widely dispersed in hard to obtain sources. Here we outline how our Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database (ABVD) helps remedy this situation by collating wordlists from over 500 languages into one web-accessible database. We describe the technology underlying the ABVD and discuss the benefits that an evolutionary bioinformatic approach can provide. These include facilitating computational comparative linguistic research, answering questions about human prehistory, enabling syntheses with genetic data, and safe-guarding fragile linguistic information.
