SIG Language Dynamics

Description

The themes for this SIG include historical and typological linguistics, including relation to population genetics; area formation and contact; universal and local constraints on language change and typological distributions; linguistic diversity, etc.

We will meet approximately once a month and on call to discuss work in progress, problems, relevant papers and methods, etc.

The meetings can also be used as a place for dry-runs for conference presentations.

Details on dates and subjects of the meetings are announced on the department mailing list.

If you have questions/suggestions/comments please contact Nicole Tamer or Natalia Chousou-Polydouri.

 

Themes for 2020-2021

We will focus on Phylogenetic Comparative Methods and their applications in linguistics. Some more specific subjects include: stochastic character mapping, measures of phylogenetic signal, Phylogenetic generalized least squares (PGLS).

 

Themes for 2019-2020

Here are the suggested themes that we came up with during the first meeting: 

  • Syntactic reconstruction/ historical syntax

  • Methodologies and Concepts on the interface between biology and linguistics

  • Cultural Evolution vs Biological Evolution