Different models, different assumptions, different findings.
Abstract
We are the authors of Shcherbakova et al. (2022). We welcome Becker and Guzmán Naranjo (2025) (henceforth B&GN)’s initiative to re-visit our findings. However, we find the framing of their paper misleading. While replication has been defined in many different ways (Clemens 2017: 333), the most common interpretation is that it involves reassessing a specific hypothesis with new data and the same methods (e.g. Minocher et al. 2021; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2019). Using the same data and different methods is commonly referred to as ‘robustness analysis’ (see Gollwitzer 2020). This distinction is important: differences in methods carry with them differences in the assumptions and hypotheses that are being tested. In this case, B&GN’s addition of a spatial term brings a different theoretical understanding of the processes involved, and switches from co-evolutionary analysis to correlational analysis. This has implications for our understanding of the causation. We argue that the differences in methods between our study and that of B&GN are significant and that these differences are not adequately addressed in their paper.
Authors
Citation
Shcherbakova O, Gast V, Greenhill SJ, Blasi DE, Gray RD, & Skirgård H. 2025. Different models, different assumptions, different findings: commentary on 'Replication and methodological robustness in quantitative typology' by Becker and Guzmán Naranjo. Linguistic Typology, 29, 587-590.
Published 28 July 2025
@article{Shcherbakova2025,
title = {Different models, different assumptions, different findings.},
author = {Shcherbakova, Olena and Gast, Volker and Greenhill, Simon J. and Blasi, Damián E. and Gray, Russell D. and Skirgård, Hedvig},
journal = {Linguistic Typology},
volume = {29},
number = {3},
pages = {587--590},
publisher = {Walter de Gruyter GmbH},
year = {2025},
doi = {10.1515/lingty-2025-0022},
url = {https://simon.net.nz/articles/different-models-assumptions-findings/},
}