Recurrence plots in linguistics

Abstract This paper illustrates the use of recurrence plots as tools for linguistic analysis. We emphasize their potential to kickstart research into un(der)studied languages or linguistic data, focussing on ways of using them that require little linguistic preprocessing, needing only an audio recording of speech or a transcription with or without gloss (the first level of linguistic annotation that field linguists create). Recurrence plots can offer insight into the repetition, and repetition-with-variation, structures of these (relatively) raw linguistic materials, thus offering first inroads into the internal composition of even little- or un-annotated data. As an example, we work with audio and transcriptions from Igu, a language used solely for ritual purposes in the Kera’a-speaking community of Arunachal Pradesh (India). We show that recurrence plots are useful in highlighting specific aspects of repetition in the materials analysed.