通过词义共用模式，揭示语言演化中概念变化的规律
Investigating Lexical Change through Cross-Linguistic Colexification Patterns
- 用系统发育模型分析三语系词典数据，研究词义共用的演化机制
- 关联性强的概念更易共用且变化慢，高频/易借词更易变化且少共用
- 不同语系差异明显，提示地域与文化因素影响词义演化
语言持续演变，其意义表达方式不断变化。尽管研究多年，影响意义演变的原因仍不完全清楚。词义共用（colexification）——即同一词形表达多个不同概念——为理解跨语言意义演化提供了重要窗口。本文利用系统发育比较模型，分析南岛、印欧和乌拉尔三个语族的词典数据，评估三种预测因子的影响：概念关联性、可借用性和使用频率。结果表明，关联性更强的概念对在更大范围的语系树中出现共用，并表现出较慢的变化速率；而使用频率高且易被借用的概念对则变化更快，共用频率更低。此外，不同语族间存在显著差异，提示地理与文化因素可能在词义演化中起作用。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
One of the most intriguing features of language is its constant change, with ongoing shifts in how meaning is expressed. Despite decades of research, the factors that determine how and why meanings evolve remain only partly understood. Colexification -- the phenomenon of expressing multiple distinct concepts using the same word form -- serves as a valuable window onto the dynamics of meaning change across languages. Here, we apply phylogenetic comparative models to dictionary data from three language families, Austronesian, Indo-European, and Uralic, in order to shed light on the evolutionary dynamics underlying the colexification of concept pairs. We assess the effects of three predictors: associativity, borrowability, and usage frequency. Our results show that more closely related concept pairs are colexified across a larger portion of the family tree and exhibit slower rates of change. In contrast, concept pairs that are more frequent and more prone to borrowing tend to change more rapidly and are less often colexified. We also find considerable differences between the language families under study, suggesting that areal and cultural factors may play a role.
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