Towards a computational model of grammaticalization and lexical diversity

Christian Bentz, Paula Buttery

Abstract:

Languages use different lexical inventories to encode information, ranging from small sets of simplex words to large sets of morphologically complex words. Grammaticalization theories argue that this variation arises as the outcome of diachronic processes whereby co-occurring words merge to one word and build up complex morphology. To model these processes we present a) a quantitative measure of lexical diversity and b) a preliminary computational model of changes in lexical diversity over several generations of merging highly frequent collocates.