CHIELD: the causal hypotheses in evolutionary linguistics database

Sean G Roberts; Anton Killin; Angarika Deb; Catherine Sheard; Simon Greenhill; Kaius Sinnemaki; Jose Segovia-Martin; Jonas Nolle; Aleksandrs Berdicevskis; Archie Humphreys-Balkwill; Hannah Little; Christopher Opie; Guillaume Jacques; Lindell Bromham; Stephen Mann; Hedvig Skirgård

doi:10.1093/jole/lzaa001

CHIELD: the causal hypotheses in evolutionary linguistics database

Sean G Roberts, Anton Killin, Angarika Deb, Catherine Sheard, Simon Greenhill, Kaius Sinnemaki, Jose Segovia-Martin, Jonas Nolle, Aleksandrs Berdicevskis, Archie Humphreys-Balkwill, Hannah Little, Christopher Opie, Guillaume Jacques, Lindell Bromham, Stephen Mann, Hedvig Skirgård

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Abstract

Language is one of the most complex of human traits. There are many hypotheses about how it originated, what factors shaped its diversity, and what ongoing processes drive how it changes. We present the Causal Hypotheses in Evolutionary Linguistics Database (CHIELD, https://chield.excd.org/), a tool for expressing, exploring, and evaluating hypotheses. It allows researchers to integrate multiple theories into a coherent narrative, helping to design future research. We present design goals, a formal specification, and an implementation for this database. Source code is freely available for other fields to take advantage of this tool. Some initial results are presented, including identifying conflicts in theories about gossip and ritual, comparing hypotheses relating population size and morphological complexity, and an author relation network.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	101-120
Journal	Journal of Language Evolution
Volume	5
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/jole/lzaa001
Publication status	Published - 2020

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Roberts, S. G., Killin, A., Deb, A., Sheard, C., Greenhill, S., Sinnemaki, K., Segovia-Martin, J., Nolle, J., Berdicevskis, A., Humphreys-Balkwill, A., Little, H., Opie, C., Jacques, G., Bromham, L., Mann, S., & Skirgård, H. (2020). CHIELD: the causal hypotheses in evolutionary linguistics database. Journal of Language Evolution, 5(2), 101-120. https://doi.org/10.1093/jole/lzaa001

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title = "CHIELD: the causal hypotheses in evolutionary linguistics database",

abstract = "Language is one of the most complex of human traits. There are many hypotheses about how it originated, what factors shaped its diversity, and what ongoing processes drive how it changes. We present the Causal Hypotheses in Evolutionary Linguistics Database (CHIELD, https://chield.excd.org/), a tool for expressing, exploring, and evaluating hypotheses. It allows researchers to integrate multiple theories into a coherent narrative, helping to design future research. We present design goals, a formal specification, and an implementation for this database. Source code is freely available for other fields to take advantage of this tool. Some initial results are presented, including identifying conflicts in theories about gossip and ritual, comparing hypotheses relating population size and morphological complexity, and an author relation network.",

author = "Roberts, {Sean G} and Anton Killin and Angarika Deb and Catherine Sheard and Simon Greenhill and Kaius Sinnemaki and Jose Segovia-Martin and Jonas Nolle and Aleksandrs Berdicevskis and Archie Humphreys-Balkwill and Hannah Little and Christopher Opie and Guillaume Jacques and Lindell Bromham and Stephen Mann and Hedvig Skirg{\aa}rd",

year = "2020",

doi = "10.1093/jole/lzaa001",

language = "English",

volume = "5",

pages = "101--120",

journal = "Journal of Language Evolution",

issn = "2058-458X",

publisher = "Oxford University Press",

number = "2",

}

Roberts, SG, Killin, A, Deb, A, Sheard, C, Greenhill, S, Sinnemaki, K, Segovia-Martin, J, Nolle, J, Berdicevskis, A, Humphreys-Balkwill, A, Little, H, Opie, C, Jacques, G, Bromham, L, Mann, S & Skirgård, H 2020, 'CHIELD: the causal hypotheses in evolutionary linguistics database', Journal of Language Evolution, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 101-120. https://doi.org/10.1093/jole/lzaa001

TY - JOUR

T1 - CHIELD: the causal hypotheses in evolutionary linguistics database

AU - Roberts, Sean G

AU - Killin, Anton

AU - Deb, Angarika

AU - Sheard, Catherine

AU - Greenhill, Simon

AU - Sinnemaki, Kaius

AU - Segovia-Martin, Jose

AU - Nolle, Jonas

AU - Berdicevskis, Aleksandrs

AU - Humphreys-Balkwill, Archie

AU - Little, Hannah

AU - Opie, Christopher

AU - Jacques, Guillaume

AU - Bromham, Lindell

AU - Mann, Stephen

AU - Skirgård, Hedvig

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - Language is one of the most complex of human traits. There are many hypotheses about how it originated, what factors shaped its diversity, and what ongoing processes drive how it changes. We present the Causal Hypotheses in Evolutionary Linguistics Database (CHIELD, https://chield.excd.org/), a tool for expressing, exploring, and evaluating hypotheses. It allows researchers to integrate multiple theories into a coherent narrative, helping to design future research. We present design goals, a formal specification, and an implementation for this database. Source code is freely available for other fields to take advantage of this tool. Some initial results are presented, including identifying conflicts in theories about gossip and ritual, comparing hypotheses relating population size and morphological complexity, and an author relation network.

AB - Language is one of the most complex of human traits. There are many hypotheses about how it originated, what factors shaped its diversity, and what ongoing processes drive how it changes. We present the Causal Hypotheses in Evolutionary Linguistics Database (CHIELD, https://chield.excd.org/), a tool for expressing, exploring, and evaluating hypotheses. It allows researchers to integrate multiple theories into a coherent narrative, helping to design future research. We present design goals, a formal specification, and an implementation for this database. Source code is freely available for other fields to take advantage of this tool. Some initial results are presented, including identifying conflicts in theories about gossip and ritual, comparing hypotheses relating population size and morphological complexity, and an author relation network.

U2 - 10.1093/jole/lzaa001

DO - 10.1093/jole/lzaa001

M3 - Article

VL - 5

SP - 101

EP - 120

JO - Journal of Language Evolution

JF - Journal of Language Evolution

SN - 2058-458X

IS - 2

ER -

CHIELD: the causal hypotheses in evolutionary linguistics database

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