Over-representation of phonological features in basic vocabulary doesn't replicate when controlling for spatial and phylogenetic effects

TL;DR

This study reevaluates the over-representation of phonological features in basic vocabulary across languages, demonstrating that many previously observed patterns are not robust when accounting for genealogical and spatial dependencies.

Contribution

It introduces a revised model controlling for phylogenetic and areal effects, revealing which sound symbolism patterns are genuinely robust across a larger language sample.

Findings

Most previously observed phonological patterns are not robust after controls.

A few sound symbolism patterns remain stable across diverse languages.

Highlights the importance of controlling for genealogical and spatial dependencies in linguistic studies.

Abstract

The statistical over-representation of phonological features in the basic vocabulary of languages is often interpreted as reflecting potentially universal sound symbolic patterns. However, most of those results have not been tested explicitly for reproducibility and might be prone to biases in the study samples or models. Many studies on the topic do not adequately control for genealogical and areal dependencies between sampled languages, casting doubts on the robustness of the results. In this study, we test the robustness of a recent study on sound symbolism of basic vocabulary concepts which analyzed 245 languages.The new sample includes data on 2864 languages from Lexibank. We modify the original model by adding statistical controls for spatial and phylogenetic dependencies between languages. The new results show that most of the previously observed patterns are not robust, and in fact many patterns disappear completely when adding the genealogical and areal controls. A small number of patterns, however, emerges as highly stable even with the new sample. Through the new analysis, we are able to assess the distribution of sound symbolism on a larger scale than previously. The study further highlights the need for testing all universal claims on language for robustness on various levels.