A PL/I Program to Assist the Comparative Linguist

A practical PL/I program is described which
can assist comparative linguists to determine
the regular sound correspondences between genetically related languages.
The investigator must arrange data for input by aligning pairs
of suspected cognates.  The program tabulates the correspondences,
and uses list processing techniques to sort and count them.
Each pair of words is then assigned a relative value that is a function
of the total frequency in the data of each correspondence found
in that pair of words.  The output is a list of all correspondence
types with their frequency of occurrence in the data, and a
separate listing of each correspondence with all word-pairs showing
that correspondence (unless their relative value is below an arbitrarily 
chosen cutoff point).  The article explains the usefulness,
as well as the limitations, of the programs, and illustrates its
use with a small portion of hypothetical data.

CACM June, 1970

Frantz, D. G.

comparative linguistics, natural
language processing, comparative method, historical linguistics, diachronic
linguistics, genetic relationship, sound change, sound
correspondence, regular correspondence, list processing

3.42

CA700604 JB February 13, 1978  11:51 AM

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