ORCID Profile
0000-0002-8259-1275
Current Organisation
University of Aberdeen
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Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 10-2019
DOI: 10.1098/RSOS.191385
Abstract: Languages do not replace their vocabularies at an even rate: words endure longer if they are used more frequently. This effect, which has parallels in evolutionary biology, has been demonstrated for the core vocabulary, a set of common, unrelated meanings. The extent to which it replicates in closed lexical classes remains to be seen, and may indicate how general this effect is in language change. Here, we use phylogenetic comparative methods to investigate the history of 10 kinship categories, a type of closed lexical class of content words, across 47 Indo-European languages. We find that their rate of replacement is correlated with their usage frequency, and this relationship is stronger than in the case of the core vocabulary, even though the envelope of variation is comparable across the two cases. We also find that the residual variation in the rate of replacement of kinship terms is related to genealogical distance of referent to kin. We argue that this relationship is the result of social changes and corresponding shifts in the entire semantic class of kinship terms, shifts typically not present in the core vocabulary. Thus, an understanding of the scope and limits of social change is needed to understand changes in kinship systems, and broader context is necessary to model cultural evolution in particular and the process of system change in general.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 24-02-2022
DOI: 10.1111/ELE.13898
Abstract: Functional traits offer a rich quantitative framework for developing and testing theories in evolutionary biology, ecology and ecosystem science. However, the potential of functional traits to drive theoretical advances and refine models of global change can only be fully realised when species‐level information is complete. Here we present the AVONET dataset containing comprehensive functional trait data for all birds, including six ecological variables, 11 continuous morphological traits, and information on range size and location. Raw morphological measurements are presented from 90,020 in iduals of 11,009 extant bird species s led from 181 countries. These data are also summarised as species averages in three taxonomic formats, allowing integration with a global phylogeny, geographical range maps, IUCN Red List data and the eBird citizen science database. The AVONET dataset provides the most detailed picture of continuous trait variation for any major radiation of organisms, offering a global template for testing hypotheses and exploring the evolutionary origins, structure and functioning of bio ersity.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 24-02-2022
DOI: 10.1111/ELE.13795
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 24-05-2023
DOI: 10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0283218
Abstract: For a single species, human kinship organization is both remarkably erse and strikingly organized. Kinship terminology is the structured vocabulary used to classify, refer to, and address relatives and family. Diversity in kinship terminology has been analyzed by anthropologists for over 150 years, although recurrent patterning across cultures remains incompletely explained. Despite the wealth of kinship data in the anthropological record, comparative studies of kinship terminology are hindered by data accessibility. Here we present Kinbank, a new database of 210,903 kinterms from a global s le of 1,229 spoken languages. Using open-access and transparent data provenance, Kinbank offers an extensible resource for kinship terminology, enabling researchers to explore the rich ersity of human family organization and to test longstanding hypotheses about the origins and drivers of recurrent patterns. We illustrate our contribution with two ex les. We demonstrate strong gender bias in the phonological structure of parent terms across 1,022 languages, and we show that there is no evidence for a coevolutionary relationship between cross-cousin marriage and bifurcate-merging terminology in Bantu languages. Analysing kinship data is notoriously challenging Kinbank aims to eliminate data accessibility issues from that challenge and provide a platform to build an interdisciplinary understanding of kinship.
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
No related grants have been discovered for Catherine Sheard.