CreatingPhylogenic Language Trees.pptVIP

CreatingPhylogenic Language Trees Michele Fretta Saint Michael’s College Colchester, Vermont Phylogenic Trees Trees are a useful way to visualize the connections between things. The methods we will use here are often used in biological genetics. Language Trees We will construct tree graphs which model the relationships between the words of 12 languages. Warning! The trees in this presentation are examples only. The data they are based on is not statistically significant. In (language) trees, it is assumed that a genetic relationship implies an evolutionary relationship Suppose we have data of words from several different languages. How can we use the data to construct a visual representation of the relationships among them (i.e., a tree)? Branch and Bound Method Sample Cognate Table Cognates are words in two different languages which have similar sound and meaning. Cognate Matrix Sample “1” indicates that there is a cognate between the two languages “0” indicates that there is no cognate. Pair-wise Percentage Similarity Then, we use the cognate matrices to find the percentage of similarity between each pair of languages. Group and average. Building the tree, group by group Kruskal’s Algorithm Method Parsimony trees are based on the assumption that the least number of evolutionary steps is the most likely. We will construct a graph which represents all possible language relationships, And we will use a greedy algorithm in order to find the shortest (most likely) relationships. Pair-wise Cognate Percentages Begin with our matrix of cognate percentages: The Complete Graph Implementing Kruskal’s Algorithm Our Minimum Spanning Tree Modifying the Tree Remember the tree with Latin? Latin is an internal vertex because it is an ancestor. Some of the vertices in our minimal spanning tree are internal vertices, but we want them all to be leaves This is because leaves will represent present-day languages, which we are working with in this case. Modifying the Tree