Cambridge Historical Linguistics Reading Group

Venue: Lecture Room 1.11 in the Classics faculty (First floor, access via entrance 2 or 3)

We are delighted to host Prof George Walkden (University of Konstanz) during our session, to give an invited lecture. George Walkden is Professor of English Linguistics and General Linguistics at the University of Konstanz.  He is principal investigator of the ERC-funded project STARFISH. His research focuses on syntactic change, language variation, and the interface between theoretical linguistics and quantitative corpus methods. He will come to Cambridge to talk about:

"Hierarchical universals, probabilities and linearization change"

Abstract: Hierarchical universals such as FOFC and Caha’s (2009) case hierarchy make strong predictions for diachrony: no language should pass through a synchronic state in which the universal is violated. This talk presents new evidence from diachronic corpora for probabilistic effects corresponding to these two hierarchical universals, in the histories of English and Balkan Slavic respectively, and a theory of grammar competition that derives these effects.

You can find the slides here.

This will be a hybrid event (in person and on Zoom). Please contact the organisers if you would like to join online!