Accelerating our discovery of the linguistic past

Project Overview

Project

Accelerating our discovery of the linguistic past

Project members:

Prof Erich Round

Dr Steven Kaye

Dr Cormac Anderson

Dr Emily Lindsay-Smith 

Dr Steven Mann

John Hutchinson

Alexandra Young

Madeleine Orr

Period of award

January 2021 - July 2024

Funder:

British Academy

Even closely related languages can exhibit a stunning diversity of morphological complexity, which raises the question: how does this complexity evolve over time, and can we design computational models that would allow us to turn the clock backwards?  This project elaborates an evolutionary theory of inflectional systems, such as verb conjugations and noun declensions. It emphasises interdisciplinary parallels between linguistics and fields such as cultural evolution and seeks to demystify the potential of mathematical modelling for inquiry into the linguistic past.

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