Computer Simulation of Dialect Feature Diffusion. Issue 1 (March 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kretzschmar, William A.; Juuso, Ilkka; Bailey, C. Thomas
• Is Part Of: Journal of linguistic geography. Volume 2:Issue 1(2014)
• Page Start: 41
• Page End: 57
• Publication Date: 2014-03
• Subjects: Linguistic geography -- Periodicals; 409
• DOI: 10.1017/jlg.2014.2
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0022-2267

Abstract

Abstract : This paper describes the independent construction and implementation of two cellular automata that model dialect feature diffusion as the adaptive aspect of the complex system of speech. We show how a feature, once established, can spread across an area, and how the distribution of a dialect feature as it stands in Linguistic Atlas data could either spread or diminish. Cellular automata use update rules to determine the status of a feature at a given location with respect to the status of its neighboring locations. In each iteration all locations in a matrix are evaluated, and then the new status for each one is displayed all at once. Throughout hundreds of iterations, we can watch regional distributional patterns emerge as a consequence of these simple update rules. We validate patterns with respect to the linguistic distributions known to occur in the Linguistic Atlas Project.