Lexical replacement in real time: survival of the dated Old Khmer and Old Mon lexica to the present, measured against the basic-vocabulary stability lists

A real-time measurement of lexical replacement in the two longest-recorded Austroasiatic languages. Every native word in the dated Old Khmer lexicon (Jenner 2009a, 2009b; 7th to 15th century) and the Old Mon lexicon (Shorto 1971; 6th to 16th century) is followed to its modern reflex, as cited by the editors, and the modern basic vocabulary of Khmer and Mon (Sidwell 2015 lists) is traced back to the Old words for the same meanings. The study calibrates the replacement rate for a family that has never served as a real-time case, tests whether the published basic-vocabulary stability lists predict which words survived, and sets the survival of basic vocabulary against the survival of the rest of the same recorded lexicon. It tests three conjectures made by Jenner (1992) before his dictionaries existed. Note on file contents: "Ship 31" and "Ship 32" are the author’s internal project labels. Ship 31 is the companion monosyllabicisation study (registration 10.17605/OSF.IO/5R823); Ship 32 is this study.