Workshop: Trees, Waves and Friends

Models of Language Diversification

Languages can be related, everyone knows this. Usually linguists use a tree to display relationships between languages. But trees are not the only model for language diversification. This workshop is aimed at non-historical linguists who would like to know more about such models and broaden their understanding of the underlying theoretical considations, advantages and disadvantages.

Genealogical trees belong to the best-known models in linguistics. Linguist of all fields and backgrounds (and most non-linguists too) know that languages can be related and that these relations can be represented in a tree. However, trees are not the only model of language diversification that linguists have come up with during the past 150 years.
The aim of this workshop is to give an introduction to different models of language diversification and discuss their strengths and weaknesses. During the workshop you will develop a "passive knowledge" of these models in order to evaluate the models you incounter in the literature.
Models discussed will include:
* phylogenetic trees
* things that look like traditional trees but aren't
* wave theory
* glottometry
* lexicostatistics

References
Campbell, Lyle. 2013. Historical linguistics: an introduction. 3. ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press.
Evans, Cara L., Simon J. Greenhill, Joseph Watts, Johann-Mattis List, Carlos A. Botero, Russell D. Gray & Kathryn R. Kirby. 2021. The uses and abuses of tree thinking in cultural evolution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 376(1828). 20200056
http://doi.org.vu-nl.idm.oclc.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0056
François, Alexandre. 2014. Trees, waves and linkages: Models of Language Diversification. In Claire Bowern & Bethany Evans (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics (Routledge Handbooks in Linguistics), 161–189. London; New York: Routledge.
Jacques, Guillaume & Johann-Mattis List (2019): Save the trees: Why we need tree models in linguistic reconstruction (and when we should apply them). Journal of Historical Linguistics 9(1). 128–167.
Swadesh, Morris. 1955. Towards Greater Accuracy in Lexicostatistic Dating. International Journal of American Linguistics. University of Chicago Press. 21(2). 121–137.

Info

Tag: 28.05.2023
Anfangszeit: 13:35
Dauer: 01:20
Raum: IG 0.254
Track: Historical Linguistics

Links:

Dateien

Feedback

Uns interessiert Ihre Meinung! Wie fanden Sie diese Veranstaltung?

Gleichzeitige Events