... been able to show that lexical diffusion is gradual, just as phonetic progress is gradual. In particular, words of higher frequency of use undergo some changes before words that are used less often. Examples of studies that have identified this trend are American English t/d deletion ( Bybee 2000...

...We present data from 17 languages on the frequency with which a common set of words is used in everyday language. The languages are drawn from six language families representing 65 per cent of the world’s 7000 languages. Our data were collected from linguistic corpora that record frequencies of use...

... evidence that the affix and the words that contain it have a memory representation that can be affected by frequency of use. bound morphemes change exemplar model lexical diffusion Schuchardt Hugo frequency Labov William Neogrammarians Phillips Betty S Wang William S Y analogical leveling...

... language (LX) users meaning emotional force offensiveness frequency of use affective processing language embodiment Keith Allan (Chapter 1 of this volume) defines as taboo the use of taboo words and language ‘in certain contexts; in short, the taboo applies to instances of language...