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Valence-dependent mutation in lexical evolution

Author

Listed:
  • Joshua Conrad Jackson

    (Northwestern University)

  • Kristen Lindquist

    (University of North Carolina)

  • Ryan Drabble

    (University of North Carolina)

  • Quentin Atkinson

    (University of Auckland
    Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology)

  • Joseph Watts

    (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
    University of Otago)

Abstract

A central goal of linguistics is to understand how words evolve. Past research has found that macro-level factors such as frequency of word usage and population size explain the pace of lexical evolution. Here we focus on cognitive and affective factors, testing whether valence (positivity–negativity) explains lexical evolution rates. Using estimates of cognate replacement rates for 200 concepts on an Indo-European language tree spanning six to ten millennia, we find that negative valence correlates with faster cognate replacement. This association holds when controlling for frequency of use, and follow-up analyses show that it is most robust for adjectives (‘dirty’ versus ‘clean’; ‘bad’ versus ‘good’); it does not consistently reach statistical significance for verbs, and never reaches significance for nouns. We also present experiments showing that individuals are more likely to replace words for negative versus positive concepts. Our findings suggest that emotional valence affects micro-level guided variation, which drives macro-level valence-dependent mutation in adjectives.

Suggested Citation

  • Joshua Conrad Jackson & Kristen Lindquist & Ryan Drabble & Quentin Atkinson & Joseph Watts, 2023. "Valence-dependent mutation in lexical evolution," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(2), pages 190-199, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nathum:v:7:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1038_s41562-022-01483-8
    DOI: 10.1038/s41562-022-01483-8
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