The reading group covers all topics of comparative language science in a broad sense, including both within-species comparison of languages, their diachrony, their variation, their acquisition and their processing as well as comparisons  of human linguistic communication with animal communication. We pick up topics in a rotating schema:

• Diachrony/Typology: spatio-temporal processes, local and universal trends in language change, typological diversity etc.
• Processing/Learning: processing and acquisition across languages
• Cross-species comparisons: the origins of language and other communication systems, comparative cognition etc.

Everybody is invited to participate. If you'd like to join, please register in OLAT so you get access to the schedule, papers we read etc.

In Spring Semesters, MA and PhD students can have reading group participation count as the "Current Advances in Evolutionary Language Science" module. To earn credit, a paper presentation and discussion needs to be followed up by a short written review of the paper (contextualization in the overall literature and research tradition, critical discussion, outlook, usually about 5 pages, but quality matters more than quantity.) Reviews need to be handed in at least a week before the grad submission deadline (check with the program coordinator for current dates).

Link to OLAT