Divergence

The influence of Quarternary glacial cycles on the extant diversity of Holarctic species has been intensively studied. It has been hypothesized that palaeoclimatic changes are responsible for divergence events in lineages. A constant improvement in DNA sequencing and modeling methods, as well as palaeoclimatic reconstruction, permit a deeper exploration of general causes of speciation in geological time. In the present study, we sampled, as exhaustively as possible, the butterflies belonging to the genus Melitaea (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae), which are widely spread in the Palaearctic region. We conducted analyses to assess the phylogeny of the genus and estimated the timing of divergence and the most likely distribution of ancestral populations. The results obtained indicate that the systematics of the genus is in need of revision and that the diversity of the genus has been profoundly shaped by palaeoenvironmental changes during its evolutionary history. The present study also emphasizes that, when employed with caveats, major palaeoenvironmental events could represent very powerful tools for the calibration of the dating of divergences using molecular data. © 2009 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2009, 97, 346–361.

Cet article se propose d’étudier différents aspects du changement linguistique actuel dans le domaine du catalan nord-occidental grâce à un corpus contemporain conçu spécialement à ces fins. Pour ce faire, nous nous appuierons sur plusieurs méthodes dialectométriques – basées sur la distance de Levenshtein et l’interface Gabmap – afin de calculer et analyser la distance linguistique entre ces variétés en temps apparent et selon une perspective quantitative globale. Concrètement, notre attention se portera sur le processus de perte structurelle qui affecte plusieurs variétés nord-occidentales de Catalogne et d’Andorre à la suite d’une advergence progressive avec les variétés orientales et le standard, situation totalement opposée au phénomène de relative stabilité des dialectes situés dans les régions soumises à l’administration aragonaise. Nous prendrons donc en considération le double processus d’advergence verticale des variétés catalanes et andorranes avec les variétés de prestige et en revanche, la divergence horizontale entre celles-ci et les différentes variétés de la Franja ; le résultat en étant une plus grande incidence de l’effet-frontière. Par ailleurs, nous constaterons que le changement linguistique qui touche le catalan nord-occidental est un phénomène complexe dans lequel le processus séculaire d’orientalisation semble céder le pas à un processus plus récent et plus puissant de standardisation. Enfin, nous analyserons les modèles de diffusion des innovations ayant le plus de poids sur le changement linguistique et nous indiquerons la complémentarité des modèles de diffusion hiérarchiques et par propagation.

This doc contains the first pages of the book. If you want to read the entire book, you could order it in hardback or kindle from the publisher or amazon (but amazon currently charges more than Routledge). Since the hardback is very expensive, I am also offering paperback copies (currently not available on Routledge or Amazon) for €35 (incl. postage). Please e-mail me at manuel.aalbers@kuleuven.be if you are interested. If so, I can send you my payment details.

Due to the financialization of housing in today’s market, housing risks are increas ingly becoming financial risks. Financialization refers to the increasing dominance of financial actors, markets, practices, measurements and narratives.
It also refers to the resulting structural transformation of economies, firms, states and households. This book asserts the centrality of housing to the contemporary capitalist political economy and places housing at the centre of the financialization debate.
A global wall of money is looking for High-Quality Collateral (HQC) investments, and housing is one of the few asset classes considered HQC. This explains why housing is increasingly becoming financialized, but it does not explain its timing, politics and geography. Presenting a diverse range of case studies from the US, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Spain, the chapters in this book include coverage of the role of the state as the driver of financialization processes, and the part played by local and national histories and institutions. This cutting edge volume will pave the way for future research in the area.
Where housing used to be something “local” or “national”, the wo-way coupling of housing to finance has been one crucial element in the recent crisis. It is time to reconsider the financialization of both homeownership and social housing. This book will be of interest to those who study international economics, housing systems, economic geography and financialization.

The world is in the age of dramatic social change due to the rapid transformation of capital, finance, technologies, ideas, and information through cross-national boundaries (Holton, 2000). The international trade and commerce, human migration, technological exchange, expansion of religion, and military hegemony are massively integrated and interdependent across the globe now. Whereas, the cultural consequences of globalization are interlinked with a varied and intricate culture around the world. Therefore, this study will explore the cultural perspectives of globalization, find out the cultural consequences of globalization, and evaluate the illusion of cultural globalization critically.

Keywords: Globalization, Culture, Consequences, Standardization, Polarization, Hybridization

Values-pragmatics theory (Hodges & Geyer, 2006) predicts that people will sometimes disagree with others they believe are correct, for reasons similar to those explaining agreement with incorrect answers in an Asch (1956) situation. In 3 experiments, we found evidence that people in a position of ignorance sometimes do not agree with the correct answers of others in positions of knowledge. Experiments 1a and 1b found this speaking-from-ignorance (SFI) effect occurred 27% of the time. Experiment 2 introduced experimental controls and self-report data indicating that the SFI effect (30%) was generated by realizing values (e.g., truth, social solidarity) and pragmatic constraints to act cooperatively, rather than by a wide array of alternatives (e.g., normative pressure, reactance). Experiment 3 experimentally manipulated concern for truthfulness, yielding 49% nonagreeing answers, even though there were monetary incentives to give correct, agreeing answers. The overall pattern suggests...

The role of human resource management function is at the crossroad, and on the one hand it is facing the crisis whereas there also exists an unprecedented opportunity to redefine and refocus the HRM function to leverage its credibility in organization. In Oman, HRM is in its infancy and there is a need to strengthen its discourse and learning. The present paper attempts to understand the dynamics of HRM in Oman and evaluates various HRM models which have evolved over a period of time. It is difficult to prescribe a HRM model without analyzing the regional and socio-contextual factors inherent in Oman and neither convergence nor pure divergence provides a solution to this end.

Proceeding from a critical assessment of two recent books, Prasannan Parthasarathi’s Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did  ot, and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal and R. Bin Wong’s Before and Beyond Divergence, this paper takes stock of the present state of the “Great Divergence” debate. It is argued that the discussion needs to be refined to distinguish between levels of economic development, and paths or trends, in the eighteenth century as well as between causes of sustained growth, and of stagnation or decline in the nineteenth century. It is further suggested that the debate needs to be connected to an understanding of the causes of a “Great Convergence” in the early modern world, and how different regions might have reached similar levels of economic complexity, but might nevertheless have been on different paths for future growth. Finally, this paper suggests that the divergence debate also needs to be connected to the debate on the transition to capitalism.

ABSTRACT
Most people in Zambia expect a lot of quality content from the public media which is funded from taxpayers’ money. The sole objective of this research is to examine the public interest vis-a-vis public expectation of best public media practice in Zambia in the light of the many obstacles they face such as the state ownership and control of the major newspapers and broadcasting stations. The air waves and media space are controlled by a state monopoly outfit which sells the broadband to other private users such as the cell phone and internet service providers. The state monopoly itself competes with the private providers, such that there is little space for the private providers to operate freely as there is conflict of interest. There is a public perception of public media capture, bias, abuse, misinformation, and perceived state censorship and manipulation of news items. This paper examines the role of the public media in Zambia and tries to unearth some of the challenges facing public media practitioners, and proffers some solutions. This paper uses the methodology of primary and secondary research to examine how social media is filling the information gap in terms of content and variety and in the process creating some positive and negative externalities of entertainment and education on the one hand, and misinformation and political instability on the other hand. The paper further examines the decomposition of public media content in the various news coverage items, and explains why the pattern is the way it is. Finally, the research ends with some recommendations on the way forward towards the creation of a more vibrant, creative, and independent public media which is efficient, effective, user-friendly, responsible and responsive to public expectations, in line with modern trends in western countries.
Keywords: radio, print media, TV, electronic media, social media, information gap, content gap, press freedom, censorship, freedom of information, parallel media, gullibility, credulity, convergence

Aquest article és una primera aproximació al procés de canvi lingüístic que ha afectat sis poblacions de parla catalana nord-occidental en els darrers 80 anys. L'estudi segueix el mètode dialectomètric desenvolupat arran de l'explotació del "Corpus Oral Dialectal" de la Universitat de Barcelona, consistent a calcular la distància lingüística entre les varietats estudiades a partir de la discriminació dels elements impredictibles i predictibles de la llengua des d'una perspectiva generativa clàssica. Els resultats permeten detectar un procés divergent en el si d’aquestes varietats: d’anivellament dialectal entre els parlars del Principat i de divergència entre aquests parlars i els dialectes nord-occidentals de l’Aragó. L’efecte-frontera entre Catalunya i l’Aragó està contribuint, doncs, a crear una falla dialectal en el tradicional contínuum del català nord-occidental.

L’objectiu d’aquesta tesi és analitzar la direccionalitat, el ritme, l’abast i la naturalesa del canvi lingüístic que, al llarg del segle XX i fins al dia d’avui, ha afectat i segueix afectant els parlars nord-occidentals d’Andorra, Catalunya i la Franja, i determinar els factors comuns i particulars, tant externs com interns, que han propiciat les diferents evolucions d’aquests parlars en aquests tres àmbits administratius. Per fer-ho, es parteix d’un corpus del català nord-occidental contemporani dissenyat i recollit específicament per a aquesta finalitat, que permet captar el dinamisme del canvi lingüístic en temps aparent a partir de les dades de 320 informants —dividits en quatre franges d’edat— dels 20 caps de comarca i 20 poblacions petites de les 20 comarques de parla nord-occidental. En total, el corpus utilitzat consta de 113.739 ítems, i s’analitza mitjançant una combinació de mètodes quantitatius de tipus dialectomètric —la distància de Levenshtein i el mètode COD— i qualitatius. Més enllà de l’estudi de cas sobre el català nord-occidental, però, aquest treball vol aportar llum sobre determinats aspectes avui encara controvertits de la teoria general sobre el canvi lingüístic. Cal aclarir, per exemple, si les fronteres polítiques internes dels estats també poden desencadenar —talment com fan les fronteres interestatals— processos de convergència i divergència lingüístiques entre parlars tradicionalment similars. Com es veurà, aquesta tesi conté la primera descripció sistemàtica d’un cas d’efecte-frontera intraestatal. Un segon aspecte que ha generat controvèrsia és la possibilitat que determinades categories lingüístiques es vegin afectades pels processos de canvi lingüístic per raons de prestigi abans que unes altres. Al llarg d’aquest treball es revisen les jerarquies universals d’estabilitat de les categories lingüístiques postulades fins ara i se’n proposa una de nova en base als resultats obtinguts. En tercer lloc, alguns autors han lamentat que hi ha pocs casos documentats de difusió de les innovacions per contagi i han criticat que la majoria d’estudis dialectals recents encara parteixin de corpus relativament antics. Aquesta tesi conté un exemple empíricament contrastat d’aquest patró de difusió de les innovacions i ho fa en base a dades d’un corpus actual elaborat ad hoc. En quart lloc, també s’ha considerat que les situacions en què diverses varietats similars es troben sota la influència d’estàndards de llengües diferents són poc freqüents; l’anàlisi de la situació a la Franja, on la varietat-sostre —això és, de prestigi— és l’estàndard espanyol —en contraposició a la resta de comarques nord-occidentals— proporcionarà un nou exemple contrastat de l’impacte que aquesta situació produeix en les tendències evolutives de parlars tradicionalment contigus en el contínuum dialectal. Analitzats tots aquests aspectes s’ha optat, finalment, per defugir el positivisme mitjançant la inclusió d’un darrer apartat on es proposa una interpretació del canvi en termes sociolingüístics. Es tracta, al capdavall, no només de determinar els factors que donen compte de les diferents evolucions detectades, sinó també d’avaluar fins a quin punt poden haver influït en aquestes evolucions les discontinuïtats socioculturals i ideològiques fruit de l’escapçament polític de l’àmbit lingüístic català. Des del nostre punt de vista, la reducció de la variació interna i l’augment de l’efecte-frontera no es poden desvincular de la compartimentació autonòmica de les polítiques lingüístiques, d’una banda, i de la poca atenció envers la diversitat que s’ha donat en els plans de normalització lingüística, de l’altra. A la fi, doncs, es planteja la conveniència de reorientar les polítiques lingüístiques vigents perquè, desregularitzant la llengua en determinats àmbits i incidint especialment en les ideologies dels parlants, aquestes apostin per afavorir la consolidació d’un estat d’opinió favorable al manteniment a llarg termini de la diversitat dialectal de la llengua catalana.

This thesis investigates several linguistic changes which have been ongoing in the north-western Catalan dialects of Andorra, Catalonia and the Franja (Aragon) during the XXth century, and tries to determine the internal and external factors which account for the different evolutions of these dialects in these three territories. To do so, we take advantage of a range of qualitative and dialectometric methods —namely the Levenshtein Distance and the COD method— that allow us to calculate and analyze the linguistic distance between varieties in apparent time from an aggregate perspective. The dataset used in this thesis has been conceived as a corpus of contemporary north-western Catalan and covers the whole area where this dialect is spoken. It contains 113.749 items both from rural and urban areas. Specifically, we pay attention to the process of structural dialect loss due to linguistic advergence to standard and eastern Catalan in many north-western Catalan dialects located in Catalonia and Andorra. We also provide evidence that the dialect leveling taking place in these two areas strongly contrasts with the relative stability of the Catalan dialects on the other side of the Catalan-Aragonese border in Spain, where Catalan is not an official language. These opposite sociolinguistic situations (Catalonia and Andorra have strong language policies to support Catalan, whereas Aragon does not) have triggered a twofold process of vertical advergence between the Catalan spoken in Catalonia and Andorra towards the prestigious varieties, on the one hand; and of horizontal divergence between these dialects and those located in Aragon, on the other hand. This situation has notably strengthened the border differences between Aragon and Catalonia during the last 80 years. Beyond this case study, this thesis also wants to shed light on some controversial aspects of the language change theory. First, it is one of the first attempts to study the border effects not only between regions belonging to different countries, but also between different administrative regions within the same country. Second, we investigate the different roles of urban versus rural areas, providing support for the view that the spatial and hierarchical diffusion patterns are complementary. Third, we attempt to shed light on the debate of which language components are more susceptible to the influence exerted by standard languages. Therefore, we analyze the different evolutions of the morphological and the phonological components of these varieties throughout four generations —the discrimination between them being achieved by means of a generative analysis of the corpus— and we conclude that, at least in north-western Catalan, the hierarchy of instability of linguistic elements is clear: morphology has leveled faster than phonology. As a result, most of these varieties have undergone a process of accentualization. Finally, we try to explain the reasons for these changes, paying attention to the different language policies in Andorra, Catalonia and Aragon, on the one hand; and to the ideological and attitudinal factors that have strengthened the processes of linguistic advergence and divergence and the border effect between traditionally close varieties, on the other hand. As one of these factors might be the spreading of the standard language ideology in Catalonia and Andorra, we suggest some changes in the current language policies of these two territories that might help preserve the internal variation of the Catalan language.

Cet article presente une vue generale sur la situation de l'occitan dans le Val d'Aran, la seule vallee de l'Etat espagnol se trouvant sur le cote septentrional de la chaine des Pyrenees qui possede l'occitan comme langue officielle en plus de l'espagnol et du catalan. Dans cet article, nous en presentons en premier lieu la situation generale en termes sociolinguistiques: entree d'une forte immigration castillanophone depuis les annees 60 avec le boom du tourisme; developpement des institutions autochtones de gestion politique au long des annees 70-80; mise en pratique de l'enseignement en occitan et de la codification de la langue autochtone suivant les criteres etablis par l'Institut d'Etudes Occitanes. En second lieu, nous posons le probleme des criteres d'elaboration linguistique qui apparaissent avec l'exploitation des nouveaux contextes d'utilisation de la langue. Nous prenons parti pour un modele unitaire d'occitan ecrit, au...

A novel color image histogram equalization approach is proposed that exploits the correlation between color components and it is enhanced by a multi-level smoothing technique borrowed from statistical language engineering. Multi-level smoothing aims at dealing efficiently with the problem of unseen color values, either considered independently or in combination with others. It is applied here to the HSI color space for the probability of intensity and the probability of saturation given the intensity, while the hue is left unchanged. Moreover, the proposed approach is extended by an empirical technique, which is based on a hue preserving non-linear transformation, in order to eliminate the gamut problem. This is the second method proposed in the paper. The equalized images by the two methods are compared to those produced by other well-known methods. The better quality of the images equalized by the proposed methods is judged in terms of their visual appeal and objective figures of merit, such as the entropy and the Kullback–Leibler divergence estimates between the resulting color histogram and the multivariate uniform probability density function.

Recent decades have seen a growing ‘pluralisation’ of policing providers and authorisers in liberal democracies (Crawford 2003, Johnston and Shearing 2003). Some have interpreted this as part of a major transformation of policing in western liberal democracies that reflects fundamental shifts in the nature of governance (Bayley and Shearing 1996, 2001). Others have stressed continuities with the recent history of policing and the persistence of significant national and local differences in policing structures (Jones and Newburn 2002, Ferret 2004). These discussions have some parallels with wider debates about convergence and divergence in penality and the ways in which structural and cultural shifts influence policy developments across different societies (Garland 2001). We here examine recent changes in policing within two EU countries – Britain and the Netherlands. This paper discusses areas of similarity and difference in plural policing developments, and speculates about what factors might explain these. There is evidence of structural and cultural shifts working to shape policing in similar ways, but also of the mediating influence of distinctive national and local political institutions and cultures. These particular contexts provide possibilities for the resistance and re-shaping of global forces, as well as provide a framework for the emergence of distinct policy innovations.

Hydrobiologia 471: 149–155, 2002. L. Watling & M. Risk (eds), Biology of Cold Water Corals. © 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. ... DNA sequences of the mitochondrial COI gene have low levels of divergence among deep-sea octocorals ( ...

The present research aims to develop a cross-cultural understanding of impression management (IM) behavior at workplace. A new measure of IM, using elements of jobfocused, initiative-focused and relationship-focused strategies, is developed for the study.
Analysis of 535 employees from India, Israel and Pakistan demonstrates both differences
and similarities in the use of various IM strategies. Although a majority of the significant
differences contradict current evidence of IM, our findings do highlight the cross-cultural
significance of IM behavior, and demonstrate emergence of crossvergence of values among Israeli, Indian and Pakistani employees. New studies are needed to further evaluate the
cross-cultural validity of the IM scale developed for this study, at the same time fresh scholarly inquiry in international management should take a closer and more in-depth look at the complexity of transition of values in order to contribute to a better understanding of IM in international settings.

Following the realization that the northwestern dialect continuum of Catalan is splitting along the political border between Catalonia and Aragon, in Spain, this article upholds the view that internal borders should be incorporated into border studies, since they often trigger processes of linguistic convergence and divergence which alter the most common patterns of linguistic diffusion. The language change is analysed in apparent time using a combination of dialectometric techniques that constitute an innovation within the field of border effects, and which, in the specific case of Catalan in Aragon, illustrates the usefulness of dialectometry in detecting processes of structural hybridization in areas where the vitality of the language is most seriously undermined. Lastly, this article evinces the need to further develop a form of social dialectometry that not only answers sociolinguistic questions, but also makes it possible to objectively evaluate the social motivations fuelling the ongoing changes.

Resum. En aquest treball s'analitzen una vintena de trets propis de la fonètica i la fonologia del lleidatà per delimitar, des d'una perspectiva qualitativa -tret per tret-, l'abast del procés d'accentualització a què s'han vist abocades en els darrers anys les varietats nord-occidentals de Lleida i la seva àrea d'influència. L'anàlisi permet diferenciar entre aquells trets que es mantenen, aquells que retrocedeixen per convergir amb l' estàndard de la llengua catalana i aquells que ho fan per convergir amb l' estàndard de la llengua castellana. Finalment, es constata de nou que l'impacte de la frontera autonòmica en l' evolució divergent de les varietats del Segrià i el Baix Cinca ha contribuït a afeblir el contínuum nord-occidental.

Abstract. In this paper we pay attention to twenty-one phonetic and phonological features of lleidatà to delimit, from a qualitative perspective -feature by feature-, how far the accentualization of these northwestern varieties of Catalan has reached. The analysis allows us to distinguish among features that are still commonly used, features that are converging towards standard Catalan and features that are converging towards standard Spanish. Finally, we provide new evidence that the Catalan-Aragonese border has an impact on the divergent evolution of the Segrià and Baix Cinca varieties, which is clearly weakening the traditional northwestern continuum.

Urban water consumption in Israel is on the rise. However, the direction of change differs by consumption sector. In the domestic sector, per capita water use tends to grow faster in “thinly” consuming places than in localities with high per capita rates of water consumption, indicating that water consumption rates tend to converge over time. Concurrently, in the non-residential sector (municipal consumption), water consumption tends to diverge, with heavily water-consuming places raising their per capita water consumption rates more rapidly. According to the explanation proposed, the observed convergence trend in the domestic sector is likely to stem from two major factors – the saturation of water consumption in affluent places, and the rising standards of living in poor localities, enabling them to consume more water for household use. Recent improvements in the level of infrastructure development in the peripheral areas of the country may have also contributed to the convergence of water consumption rates for domestic use.

In this study, we investigate which factors influence the linguistic dis-tance of Catalan dialectal pronunciations from standard Catalan. We use pronun-ciations from three regions where the northwestern variety of the Catalan language is spoken (Catalonia, Aragon and Andorra). In contrast to Aragon, Catalan has an official status in both Catalonia and Andorra, which likely influences standardiza-tion. Because we are interested in the potentially large range of differences that standardization might promote, we examine 357 words in Catalan varieties and in particular their pronunciation distances with respect to the standard. In order to be sensitive to differences among the words, we fit a generalized additive mixed-effects regression model to this data. This allows us to examine simultaneously the general (i.e. aggregate) patterns in pronunciation distance and to detect those words that diverge substantially from the general pattern. The results reveal higher pronunciation distance...

Aquest treball ressegueix, mitjançant una combinació de mètodes quantitatius i qualitatius, el canvi lingüístic experimentat pel català nord-occidental, en general, i pel lleidatà, en particular, al llarg de quatre generacions de parlants. Els resultats mostren que les varietats lleidatanes —juntament amb les pallareses— segueixen les tendències evolutives generals del nordoccidental —pèrdua de trets propis per anivellament amb l’estàndard i distanciament de les varietats de la Franja— a un ritme més accelerat, especialment en el cas de la ciutat de Lleida.


This paper uses a range of both quantitative and qualitative methods to approach linguistic change in north-western Catalan —in general— and lleidatà —in particular— across four generations of speakers. The results show that lleidatà —as well as pallarès— has undergone the same processes of change —i.e. loss of dialect features due to convergence with the standard and increase of distance with respect to the Catalan varieties spoken in Aragon— undergone by the rest of north-western Catalan varieties, but at a faster rate —especially in the city of Lleida.

Resum. Aquest treball constata que el procés d’advergència del lleidatà del Segrià amb l’estàndard sociològic de la llengua catalana que anteriorment s’ha descrit per als àmbits de la fonètica, la fonologia i, molt especialment, la morfologia, es produeix també en el nivell lèxic. Aquesta tendència contribueix a eixamplar la fractura geolectal entre els parlars del Segrià i les varietats lleidatanes del Baix Cinca, que al seu torn estan convergint amb la varietat de prestigi del conjunt de la Franja, l’espanyol, mitjançant l’adopció d’una gran quantitat d’interferències que estan desplaçant bona part del lèxic nuclear autòcton entre les generacions de parlants més joves. Aquesta recerca situa la volatilitat del lèxic i el desprestigi secular de les varietats nord-occidentals lleidatanes com a causes principals del procés de desdialectalització, i proposa diverses iniciatives polítiques que podrien ajudar a revertir la situació descrita.

Abstract. This investigation confirms that the advergence process towards standard Catalan undergone by lleidatà in Segrià (Catalonia), which has been previously described at the phonetic, phonological and morphological levels, is also taking place at the lexical level. This tendency contributes to broaden the linguistic distance between the North-western Catalan varieties spoken in Catalonia and those spoken in Baix Cinca (Aragon), which in turn are converging lexically with the prestigious variety of the whole region, standard Spanish. In this research we argue that the higher volatility of lexicon and the traditional lack of prestige of lleidatà in both sides of the border are the two main reasons that explain these two dedialectalization processes. Finally, we also outline some political initiatives that might be applied to revert this situation.

Aquest treball vol constituir una baula més en l’anàlisi del procés de desdialectalització del català nord-occidental. El nostre propòsit és demostrar com, utilitzant tècniques dialectomètriques, no només és possible resseguir la direccionalitat del canvi lingüístic (CL) a partir de dades fonètiques –com hem fet en treballs anteriors– sinó que es pot arribar a discriminar entre la naturalesa morfològica o fonològica d’aquest canvi . Es tracta, en altres paraules, de resseguir no només la direccionalitat i l’abast, sinó molt especialment la naturalesa del CL a partir d'una anàlisi generativista de les dades que discrimini allò que és predictible –o fonològic– d'allò que és impredictible –o morfològic. Aquest tipus d’anàlisi hauria d’aportar llum a un debat que a partir de les dades fonètiques –si més no des d’un punt de vista quantitatiu– no sembla que es pugui abordar: la constatació, o no, que el desgast de les varietats dialectals és més important en els aspectes morfològics que no en els fonològics i que, per tant, i des d’un punt de vista respectuós amb la diversitat, potser caldria reformular l’assumpció de procedència anglosaxona que un dialecte només ho és si manté una certa idiosincràsia morfològica . Altrament, la devaluació de parlars que, segons aquest criteri, passen a esdevenir “meres varietats accentuals” –en paraules de Viaplana (1999: 115-116)– podria no ser cap bon estímul a favor del manteniment de la dialectalitat d’alguns parlars nord-occidentals.