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The measurement of interference in old texts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Marcel Danesi*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto

Extract

As Bott (1970: 217-19) points out, one of the most successful applications of computer to language research has been in the production of concordances—alphabetical lists of all the words in a written corpus followed by a reference system (i.e., page and line number) and a context (i.e., the line in which the word occurs). This valuable tool has greatly facilitated the description of the language of old texts.

The literature on the synchronic problems related to languages in contact is abundant. However, the effects of borrowing on the formation of a language have not been studied in any detail mainly because (in our opinion) of the lack of appropriate analytical tools. Clearly, the diagnosis and examination of interference mechanisms in old texts is important not only for a complete historical description of a language at a particular stage in its development, but also as a means of understanding the nature of contact phenomena. With the advent of computer concordances this lacuna may soon be filled.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1977

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