In this study, we use temporally aligned word embeddings and a large diachronic corpus of English to quantify language change in a data-driven, scalable way, which is grounded in language use. We show a unique and reliable relation between measures of language change and age of acquisition ("AoA") while controlling for frequency,…

Emotion (positive and negative) words are typically recognized faster than neutral words. Recent research suggests that emotional valence, while often treated as a unitary semantic property, may be differentially represented in concrete and abstract words. Studies that have explicitly examined the interaction of emotion and concreteness, however,…

This study is based on a broad research question: How does the translation into Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) capture and convey the meanings embedded within languages belonging both inside and outside the sphere of the Arab world? To answer this question, a translation and literary study of borrowings, combining the methods of etymology and…

Reports on two studies exploring the contrast effects in judgments of messages exhibiting high or low lexical and syntactic diversity. Suggests that listeners are sensitive to variations in lexical diversity but not syntactic diversity. (RL)