| Abstract: | In this text we present``profile-based linguistic uniformity', a methoddesigned to compare language varieties on thebasis of a wide range of potentiallyheterogeneous linguistic variables. In manyrespects a parallel can be drawn with currentmethods in dialectometry (for an overview, see,Nerbonne and Heeringa, 2001; Heeringa, Nerbonneand Kleiweg, 2002): in both casesdissimilarities between varieties on the basisof individual variables are summarized inglobal dissimilarities, and a series oflanguage varieties are subsequently clusteredor charted using multivariate techniques suchas cluster analysis or multidimensionalscaling. This global similarity between themethods makes it possible to compare them andto investigate the implications of notabledifferences. In this text we specifically focuson, and defend one characteristic of ourmethodology, its profile-based nature. |
