Gerhard Jäger (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen)

Tracking the change that leads to typological variation

It is known at least since Greenberg's seminal work in the 1960s that typological characteristics are not randomly distributed across the languages of the world but follow universal tendencies and sometimes even strict laws. Time and again it has been pointed out that such universals must be the result of equally universal tendencies in diachronic change.

The insight that synchronic variation results, and can be explained by, diachronic change, has independently been arrived at in evolutionary biology. It led to the statistical framework of the phylogenetic comparative methods, which hold great potential for cross-linguistic research. The increased availability of typological online databases, such as WALS, AUTOTYP and Grambank, make this approach more and more feasible.

In the talk I will present an overview of these methods and some pertinent applications in typology.