Research

I am an experimental morphologist and evolutionary linguist. I am an Assistant  Professor at the University of Barcelona, where I research the cognitive constraints that shape language structure using experimental methods and quantitative typology.  In particular, I investigate the impact of human cognition on cross-linguistic regularities in  morphology and their evolution over time.

Previously I was a  Beatriu de Pinós postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Translation and Language Science at Pompeu Fabra University and a member of the Computational Linguistics and Linguistics Theory research unit. Previously I have been a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer at the University of Zurich (2019-2024), within the Distributional Lingusitics Lab (PI:  Balthasar Bickel), and I have collaborated in two ERC projects at the University of Edinburgh (2018-2019), The Evolution of Linguistic Complexity (PI: Kenny Smith) and SYNCOG (PI: Jennifer Culbertson). I hold a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Edinburgh (2018).

General research interests: Morphology; Morphosyntax; Morphosemantics; Experimental linguistics; Evolutionary linguistics; Quantitative typology; Linguistic universals; Linguistic diversity; Comparative cognition; Computational cognitive modelling; Bayesian statistics; Open Science.

Publications

2025

• Saldana, C., Cathcart C., Ivani, J., Bickel B., & Maldonado, M. (under review) Cross-linguistic regularities in pronominal number neutralisation are not driven by learning biases: Limits of the Typological Prevalence Hypothesis for morphosyntactic categories. [preprint]  [OSF project]

• Brochhagen, T., Liao X., Wright J., & Saldana, C. (under review) The interaction of meanings’ similarity and confusability explains regularity in form-meaning mappings at and below the word level.  [OSF project]

• Li, Ch., Saldana, C.,  & Culbertson, J., (2025) Can input statistics over-ride a prior bias in morpheme ordering? A test case with gender and number. Proceedings of the 47th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.  [article]

• Saldana, C., Kanampiu, P., & Culbertson, J. (2025)  Gender comes first: Experimental evidence for the representation of gender closer to the noun stem than number across linguistic populations. Linguistic Inquiry. [article] [preprint] [OSF project]

2024

• Saldana, C. & Herce, B. (2024) Morpheme. Reference Module in Social Sciences. To appear in Nesi, H. & Milin, P. (Eds.) International Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 3rd Edition. [chapter] [preprint]

• Saldana, C. & Maldonado, M. (2024) Exploring horizontal homophony in pronominal paradigms: A case study where cross-linguistic regularities defy individual learning biases.  Proceedings of the 46th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.  [OSF project] [article]

2023

• Saldana, C.*, Herce, B.*,  Mansfield, J. & Bickel, B. (2023) Naturalness is gradient in morphological paradigms: Evidence from positional splits. Glossa. [OSF project] [article]

• Saldana, C., & Culbertson, J. (2023) Speakers’ cognitive representations of gender and number morphology shape cross-linguistic tendencies in morpheme order. In Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. [OSF project][article]

2022

• Saldana, C.*,  Herce, B.* & Bickel, B. (2022) More or less unnatural: Semantic similarity shapes the learnability and cross-linguistic distribution of syncretism in morphological paradigms. Open Mind. (Finalist for the Early Career Award prize by the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences ) [OSF project] [article] 

• Maldonado, M., & Saldana, C. (2022) Interpretations of plurality in personal pronouns differ across person categories: An experimental study.  Proceedings of the 23rd  Amsterdam Colloquium.  [OSF project] [article]

• Saldana, C., Claidière, N., Fagot, J. & Smith, K. (2022) Probability Matching is Not the Default Decision Making Strategy in Human and Non-Human Primates. Scientific Reports. [OSF project] [article]

• Saldana, C., Herce, B., & Bickel, B. (2022). A Naturalness Gradient Shapes the Learnability and Cross-Linguistic Distribution of Morphological Paradigms. In Proceedings of the 44th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. [OSF project 1] [OSF project 2][article]

• Schick, J., Saldana, C.,  Zuberbühler, K., & Stoll, Sabine (2022).Declarative and imperative pointing acts by infants can be distinguished by accompanying preverbal vocalisations. In Proceedings of the 44th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Cognitive Science Society. [OSF project] [article][abstract]

• Mansfield, J., Saldana, C.,  Hurst, P.,  Nordlinger, R.,  Stoll, S., Bickel, B. & Perfors, A. (2022) Category clustering and morphological learning. Cognitive Science. [OSF project] [article]

2021

• Saldana, C.,  Smith K., Kirby S. and Culbertson J. (2021) Is the strength of regularisation behaviour uniform across linguistic levels? A comparison between morphology and word order.  Language Learning and Development.  (Peter Jusczyk Best Paper Award )[OSF project] [article] 

• Saldana, C., Oseki, Y. & Culbertson, J. (2021) Cross-linguistic patterns of morpheme order reflect cognitive biases: An experimental study of case and number morphology.  Journal of Memory and Language. [OSF project] [article]

2020

• Maldonado, M., Saldana, C. and Culbertson, J. (2020) Learning biases in person-number linearization. In M. Asatryan, Y. Song  & A. Whitmal (Eds.), Proceedings of the 50th Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society (Vol 2, pp. 163-176).  Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts GLSA. [OSF project] [pdf]

• Saldana, C., Claidière, N., Fagot, J. & Smith, K. (2020). Rational After All: Changes in Probability Matching Behaviour Across Time in Humans and Monkeys.  In S. Denison., M. Mack, Y. Xu, & B.C. Armstrong (Eds.), Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 752-758).  [OSF project] [pdf] 

2019

• Saldana C., Fagot, J., Kirby S., Smith K. and Claidière, N. (2019) High-fidelity copying is not necessarily the key to cumulative cultural evolution:  a study with monkeys and children. Proceedings of the Royal Society B  [article] [pdf] [data] [OSF project]

• Saldana, C., Kirby S., Truswell R. and Smith K. (2019) Compositional hierarchical structure evolves through cultural transmission: an experimental study. Journal of Language Evolution. [article] [data] [OSF project]

• Saldana, C., Smith, K., Kirby, S., Fagot, J. & Claidière, N. (2019) Cumulative cultural evolution in a non-copying task in children and Guinea baboons.  Proceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. [OSF project] [pdf]

• Saldana, C., Oseki, Y. & Culbertson, J. (2019) Do cross-linguistic patterns of morpheme order reflect a cognitive bias? Proceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. [OSF project] [pdf]

Up to 2018

• Saldana, C., Kirby, S., Smith K. and Culbertson, J. (2017) Is the strength of regularisation behaviour uniform across linguistic levels? In G. Gunzelmann, A. Howes, T. Tenbrink  & E. Davelaar (Eds.) Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. [pdf]

• Saldaña Gascón, C. (2012) Estudio paremiológico intergeneracional. Paremia, 21 (2012), 187-196. Madrid: Centro Virtual Cervantes.

Teaching

I have taught a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the University of Edinburgh (UoE, 2014-2018) , the University of Zurich (UZH, 2019-2023), and at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF, from 2024): Introduction to Natural Language Processing with Python (UPF),  General Linguistics (UPF), Linguistic Theory from an Evolutionary Perspective (UZH), Current Advances in Evolutionary Linguistics (UZH), Morphology (UZH), Conditions of Language Dynamics (UZH), Introduction to Linguistics and English Language (UoE), Foundations of Language (UoE), Phonetic Analysis and Empirical Methods (UoE), Cross-linguistic variation (UoE), First Language Acquisition (UoE),  Second Language Acquisition (UoE), Child Bilingualism (UoE), and  Origins and Evolution of Language (UoE).