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◀ Janet Ganon-Davey▲ ProceedingsGordon G. Berthin; Robert Schoch ▶



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The Efficiency of Spelling-Sound and Speling-Meaning Mappings in Two Logographic Writing Systems
Noah Hermalin
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Abstract. A line of research in linguistics and cognitive science argues that many properties of language and linguistic structure are shaped, at least in part, by functional pressures to communicate efficiently, with efficiency defined relative to the trade-off between the accuracy and effort of communication. Research in this vein has argued that certain properties in language which seem intuitively inefficient, such as lexical ambiguity, are not only less inefficient than is commonly thought, but may in fact support, rather than contradict, the hypothesis that efficiency pressures shape language. The work presented here applies this line of thinking to two unrelated writing systems, written Sumerian and written Japanese, which both prominently feature properties which might be seen as inefficient, namely ambiguity and logography. Drawing on methods from information theory and past work on communicative efficiency, the efficiency of mappings between written forms and sound and between written forms and meanings is quantified for these two writing systems and compared against a battery of plausible hypothetical competitor systems, including variants which make greater use of phonography. The real systems are found to be more efficient overall than the hypothetical competitors, which is consistent with the efficiency hypothesis. The results are discussed relative to the question of efficiency pressures in writing systems, the inefficient ‘reputation’ of certain writing systems, and the linguistic fit of writing systems.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36824/2024-graf-herm


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@UNPUBLISHED{abdullah2021acoustic,
   AUTHOR = {Abdullah, Badr M. and Mosbach, Marius and Zaitova, Iuliia and M{\"o}bius, Bernd and Klakow, Dietrich},
   TITLE = {Do acoustic word embeddings capture phonological similarity? {A}n empirical study},
   YEAR = {2021},
   NOTE = {arXiv:2106.08686},
}

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Noah Hermalin (2024), “The Efficiency of Spelling-Sound and Speling-Meaning Mappings in Two Logographic Writing Systems,” in Proceedings of Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century, 2024 (Yannis Haralambous, Ed.), Grapholinguistics and Its Applications, Vol. 12, Brest: Fluxus Editions, 551–595.


@INPROCEEDINGS{gla12-herm,
   AUTHOR = {Noah Hermalin},
   EDITOR = {Haralambous, Yannis},
   TITLE = {{The Efficiency of Spelling-Sound and Speling-Meaning Mappings in Two Logographic Writing Systems}},
   BOOKTITLE = {{Proceedings of Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century, 2024}},
   SERIES = {{Grapholinguistics and Its Applications}},
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   DOI = {https://doi.org/10.36824/2024-graf-herm},
}