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The deep history of the number words.

ABSTRACT: We have previously shown that the 'low limit' number words (from one to five) have exceptionally slow rates of lexical replacement when measured across the Indo-European (IE) languages. Here, we replicate this finding within the Bantu and Austronesian language families, and with new data for the IE languages. Number words can remain stable for 10 000 to over 100 000 years, or around 3.5-20 times longer than average rates of lexical replacement among the Swadesh list of 'fundamental vocabulary' items. Ordinal evidence suggests that number words also have slow rates of lexical replacement in the Pama-Nyungan language family of Australia. We offer three hypotheses to explain these slow rates of replacement: (i) that the abstract linguistic-symbolic processing of 'number' links to evolutionarily conserved brain regions associated with numerosity; (ii) that number words are unambiguous and therefore have lower 'mutation rates'; and (iii) that the number words occupy a region of the phonetic space that is relatively full and therefore resist change because alternatives are unlikely to be as 'good' as the original word.This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'The origins of numerical abilities'.

SUBMITTER: Pagel M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5784043 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The deep history of the number words.

Pagel Mark M Pagel Mark M Meade Andrew A

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences 20170201 1740

We have previously shown that the 'low limit' number words (from one to five) have exceptionally slow rates of lexical replacement when measured across the Indo-European (IE) languages. Here, we replicate this finding within the Bantu and Austronesian language families, and with new data for the IE languages. Number words can remain stable for 10 000 to over 100 000 years, or around 3.5-20 times longer than average rates of lexical replacement among the Swadesh list of 'fundamental vocabulary' i ...[more]

PMID: 29292363

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Project description:Humans not only process and compare magnitude information such as size, duration, and number perceptually, but they also communicate about these properties using language. In this respect, a relevant class of lexical items are so-called scalar adjectives like "big," "long," "loud," and so on which refer to magnitude information. It has been proposed that humans use an amodal and abstract representation format shared by different dimensions, called the generalised magnitude system (GMS). In this paper, we test the hypothesis that scalar adjectives are symbolic references to GMS representations, and, therefore, GMS gets involved in processing their meaning. Previously, a parallel hypothesis on the relation between number symbols and GMS representations has been tested with the size congruity paradigm. The results of these experiments showed interference between the processing of number symbols and the processing of physical (font-) size. In the first three experiments of the present study (total N = 150), we used the size congruity paradigm and the same/different task to look at the potential interaction between physical size magnitude and numerical magnitude expressed by number words. In the subsequent three experiments (total N = 149), we looked at a parallel potential interaction between physical size magnitude and scalar adjective meaning. In the size congruity paradigm, we observed interference between the processing of the numerical value of number words and the meaning of scalar adjectives, on the one hand, and physical (font-) size, on the other hand, when participants had to judge the number words or the adjectives (while ignoring physical size). No interference was obtained for the reverse situation, i.e., when participants judged the physical font size (while ignoring numerical value or meaning). The results of the same/different task for both number words and scalar adjectives strongly suggested that the interference that was observed in the size congruity paradigm was likely due to a response conflict at the decision stage of processing rather than due to the recruitment of GMS representations. Taken together, it can be concluded that the size congruity paradigm does not provide evidence in support the hypothesis that GMS representations are used in the processing of number words or scalar adjectives. Nonetheless, the hypothesis we put forward about scalar adjectives is still is a promising potential line of research. We make a number of suggestions for how this hypothesis can be explored in future studies.

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The deep history of the number words.

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The deep history of the number words.

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