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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Complex Syst.
Sec. Multi- and Cross-Disciplinary Complexity
Volume 2 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fcpxs.2024.1429114
This article is part of the Research Topic Complexity in Language Variation and Change View all 6 articles

Revisiting Southern Gallo-Romance from a Complexity Theory Standpoint: Occitan

Provisionally accepted
Jean Léo LEONARD Jean Léo LEONARD *
  • Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier III, Montpellier, France

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In this paper, the inner structure of the Occitan dialect network is revisited in the light of a range of cumulative (Ward's method) vs reductive (Complete linkage, Groupe Average, Weighted Average) hierarchical algorithms provided by Gabmap, an Online dialectometric application for calculating distance/similarities by edit distance (Levenshtein algorithm). Reticularity of the Occitan geolinguistic space is addressed through connectograms using Gephi, and Multidimensional Scaling is also used to some extent. After sketching the canonical classifications of the Occitan geolinguistic space (Bec, Ronjat), providing the “eponymous dialects” (Nerbonne & Kretzschmar (2003), we explore the deep patterns of this diasystem, bringing to light a hierarchy of systemic entities constituting an array of “invisible dialects”, corresponding to entities of various size and functions (macrodialects, dialects, subdialects, varieties, hubs, small worlds, buffer zones, default dialects). The approach is based on concrete linguistic data from the THESOC database (Université de Nice/CNRS), contrasting the major isoglosses (macrodialectal features) with the “intricate variables”, i.e. segmental nexi, extracting data relating to strategic points in the complex dialectal network from reductionist algorithms.

    Keywords: Occitan, dialect, Dialectometry, Taxonomy, Edit distance, Diasystem, external factors, language dynamics

    Received: 07 May 2024; Accepted: 15 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 LEONARD. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Jean Léo LEONARD, Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier III, Montpellier, France

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