# Quantifying Cognitive Factors in Lexical Decline

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.05775 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.05775/

## Key facts

- Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 5 of its 56 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 Oct 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Distributed Representations of Words and Phrases and their Compositionality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1310.4546/) (2013)
- [Diachronic Word Embeddings Reveal Statistical Laws of Semantic Change](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1605.09096/) (2016)
- [Where New Words Are Born: Distributional Semantic Analysis of Neologisms and Their Semantic Neighborhoods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.07740/) (2020)
- [Making "fetch" happen: The influence of social and linguistic context on nonstandard word growth and decline](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.04140/) (2018)
- [The Natural Selection of Words: Finding the Features of Fitness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.07013/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [PWESuite: Phonetic Word Embeddings and Tasks They Facilitate](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.02541/) (2023)
- [Verbing Weirds Language (Models): Evaluation of English Zero-Derivation in Five LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17856/) (2024)
- [Automating Sound Change Prediction for Phylogenetic Inference: A Tukanoan Case Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.01582/) (2024)
- [Mathematically Modeling the Lexicon Entropy of Emergent Language](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.15783/) (2022)
- [Modeling Emergent Lexicon Formation with a Self-Reinforcing Stochastic Process](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.11146/) (2022)
- [Exploration of the Usage of Color Terms by Color-blind Participants in Online Discussion Platforms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.11905/) (2022)
- [On the Interplay between Musical Preferences and Personality through the Lens of Language](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.18208/) (2025)
- [From sunblock to softblock: Analyzing the correlates of neology in published writing and on social media](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.13123/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We adopt an evolutionary view on language change in which cognitive factors (in addition to social ones) affect the fitness of words and their success in the linguistic ecosystem. Specifically, we propose a variety of psycholinguistic factors -- semantic, distributional, and phonological -- that we hypothesize are predictive of lexical decline, in which words greatly decrease in frequency over time. Using historical data across three languages (English, French, and German), we find that most of our proposed factors show a significant difference in the expected direction between each curated set of declining words and their matched stable words. Moreover, logistic regression analyses show that semantic and distributional factors are significant in predicting declining words. Further diachronic analysis reveals that declining words tend to decrease in the diversity of their lexical contexts over time, gradually narrowing their 'ecological niches'.