The Cross-evaluation Crux for Computational Phylogenetic Linguistics

Afanasev I.

The flourishing of computational phylogenetic linguistics increased the pressing need for
cross-evaluation between the existing classification approaches, which are often imperfect,
whether performed by a human or a computer. We present a study of cross-evaluation
approaches for both methods (including an interdisciplinary approach to test the linguistic
findings against) and data (complementing traditional word lists by linguistic atlases, surveys
and databases). The focus of the research is on the use of insufficient cross-evaluation which
leads to misleading conclusions about methods. We perform a case study of cross-evaluation
misuse in computational phylogenetic linguistics research of South American languages
based on Levenshtein distance measurement between Swadesh list items. The conclusion
presents the prospects of language outgroup comparison implementation. It is a new possible
cross-evaluation method that joins method cross-evaluation and data cross-evaluation.

Keywords: классификация языков, автоматическая классификация, Levenshtein distance, расстояние Левенштейна, language classification, automatic language distance measurement, computational phylogenetic linguistics, cross-evaluation, перекрестная оценка, вычислительная филогенетическая лингвистика

In book

Digital Geography: Proceedings of the International Conference on Internet and Modern Society (IMS 2022)

Springer, 2024.