Quantitative Comparative Linguistics - Detection of Borrowing

Detection of Borrowing

Loanwords can severely affect the topology of a tree so efforts are made to exclude borrowings. However, undetected ones sometimes still exist. McMahon and McMahon showed that around 5% borrowing can affect the topology while 10% has significant effects. In networks borrowing produces reticulations. Minett and Wang examined ways of detecting borrowing automatically.