{"pk":49337,"title":"Usage frequency predicts lexicalization across languages","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Languages are more likely to have lexical items for some concepts (e.g. CHILD) than others (e.g. PARENT). We propose that the communicative need of a concept influences how often it is lexicalized across languages, and test the hypothesis that usage frequency (which also reflects communicative need) predicts  lexicalization across languages. Our analyses consider more than a thousand concepts, and demonstrate that  average usage frequency across dozens of languages is a relatively good predictor of the typological prevalence of lexicalization across hundreds of languages. This finding implies that cross-linguistic regularities in lexicalization can be attributed in part to shared communicative need across cultures.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"Anthropology; Linguistics; Concepts and categories; Semantics of language; Cross-linguistic analysis"}],"section":"Abstracts with Oral Presentation","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1m3870tq","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Temuulen","middle_name":"","last_name":"Khishigsuren","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Melbourne","department":""},{"first_name":"Francis","middle_name":"","last_name":"Mollica","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Melbourne","department":""},{"first_name":"Ekaterina","middle_name":"","last_name":"Vylomova","name_suffix":"","institution":"The University of Melbourne","department":""},{"first_name":"Charles","middle_name":"","last_name":"Kemp","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Melbourne","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2025-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/49337/galley/37298/download/"}]}