Computational Approaches for Integrating out Subjectivity in Cognate Synonym Selection

arXiv:2404.19328v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Working with cognate data involves handling synonyms, that is, multiple words that describe the same concept in a language. In the early days of language phylogenetics it was recommended to select one synonym only. However, as we show here, binary character matrices, which are used as input for computational methods, do allow for representing the entire dataset including all synonyms. Here we address the question how one can and if one should include all synonyms …

abstract arxiv binary computational concept cs.cl data however language multiple q-bio.pe show type words