Revisiting population size vs. phoneme inventory size
Language • Vol/Iss. 88(4) • Linguistic Society of America • • Published In • Pages: 877-893 •
By Moran, Steven, McCloy, Daniel, Wright, Richard
Hypothesis
Higher population sizes are correlated with a higher number of quality-only vowel contrasts in a language.
Note
The result is significant, however, the effect size of .0095 predicts an insignificant change in the amount of quality-only vowel constants in a given language, falling well within the standard error for phoneme inventory sizes. The significance in this case is likely the result of a large sample size.
| Test Name | Support | Significance | Coefficient | Tail |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hierarchical Mixed-Effects Model | Not supported | p<.05 | effect size = .0095 | UNKNOWN |
| Variable Name | Variable Type | OCM Term(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Population Size | Independent | Population |
| Number of quality-only vowel constants | Dependent | Phonology |