(Online)
When
Where
Speaker: Hedvig Skirgard
Linguistics - comparing classic approaches and new methods with Oceanic grammar and introducing Grambank, a new database for typological research
Abstract:
Ancestral State Reconstruction (ASR) is an essential part of historical linguistics. Conventional ASR relies on three core principles: fewest changes on the tree, plausibility of changes and plausibility of the resulting combinations of features in proto-languages. This approach has some problems, in particular the definition of what is plausible and the disregard of branch lengths. This study compares the classic approach of ASR to computational tools (Maximum Parsimony and Maximum Likelihood), conceptually and practically. Computational models have the advantage of being more transparent, consistent and replicable, and the disadvantage of lacking nuanced knowledge and context. Using data from the new structural database Grambank, I compare reconstructions of the grammar of ancestral Oceanic languages from the historical linguistics literature to those achieved by computational means. The results show that there is a high degree of agreement between manual and computational approaches, with a tendency for classical historical linguistics to agree more with the approaches that ignore branch lengths. Taking into account branch lengths explicitly is more conceptually sound, as such the field of historical linguistics should engage in improving methods in this direction. A combination of computational methods and qualitative knowledge is possible in future and would be of great benefit.