Toward a dialectological yardstick*

Abstract

Dialectometry measures the differences between dialects in ways which may involve many independently varying parameters which must be specified in combination in order to arrive at measures of difference. The existence of many parameters of measurement and their possible interaction introduces the problem of how to choose parameter values and combinations of them intelligently. This paper proceeds from the assumption that dialectology proper must reveal geographic coherence in language variation in order to propose a yardstick with which to compare measurements made using various parameter settings, and it presents some results of its application.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Dr. Charlotte Gooskens, Professor Dr. Hermann Niebaum, Ms. Christine Siedle, and the audience at Qualico 2003, including especially Dr. Harald Baayen, for discussion of the ideas presented here. A particular word of thanks to Dr. Wilbert Heeringa, whose stimulating work on validation partially inspired the ideas presented here, and with whom we spoke at length.