Toward a systematic method for identifying language areas

arXiv:2607.25305v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Macroareas are geographical areas used in typological research for grouping variables of interest. In linguistic typology, languages in a given macroarea are considered to have potential for contact, in contrast to those outside the area, where contact is less likely. Along with language family membership, macroareas are used as controls for models in linguistic typology, in an attempt to address the problem of autocorrelation - the observation tha...