David Goldstein

David Goldstein

Professor of Linguistics, Indo-European Studies, and Classics

University of California, Los Angeles

Biography

I hold a joint position in the Department of Linguistics and the Program in Indo-European Studies at UCLA, along with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Classics. My research centers on two main areas. One line of work applies computational phylogenetics and statistical modeling to the study of language change and sociocultural evolution. The other explores how language change informs linguistic theory, with a focus on syntactic and semantic change in Indo-European.

From December 2022 through July 2023, I was a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge and during Easter Term 2023, I served as a Lewis-Gibson Fellow at the Cambridge Centre for Greek Studies. For 2025-26, I will be a Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS).

I am honored to be a member of the 2021 cohort of Guggenheim Fellows.

Download my CV.

Interests

  • Computational phylogenetics
  • Syntactic, morphosyntactic, and semantic change
  • Indo-European
  • Quantitative methods
  • Corpus linguistics

Education

  • Ph.D., 2010

    University of California, Berkeley

  • M.A., 2004

    University of California, Berkeley

  • M.Phil., 2002

    University of Oxford, Corpus Christi College

  • B.A., 2000

    Amherst College

Recent & Upcoming Talks

From phonology to phylogeny
A new approach to the diversification of ancient Greek

Recent Publications

(2025). Bayesian phylogenetic methods overcome limitations of traditional subgrouping. Gary Holland memorial volume, ed. Marina Zorman and Alfredo Rizza. Wiesbaden: Reichert..

PDF

(2024). Diachronica at 40. Diachronica.

PDF DOI

(2022). Toward a non-teleological account of demonstrative reinforcement. Life cycle of language: Past, present, and future, ed. Alan C. L. Yu and Darya Kavitskaya. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

PDF DOI

(2022). The Old Irish article. Journal of Celtic Linguistics 23:1–34.

PDF DOI

(2022). There’s no escaping phylogenetics. Ha! Linguistic studies in honor of Mark R. Hale, ed. Laura Grestenberger, Charles Reiss, Hannes A. Fellner and Gabriel Z. Pantillon, 71-91. Wiesbaden: Reichert.

PDF Code Dataset

Teaching

Courses 2021-2022

Indo-European Syntax

Spring 2024

Linguistic phylogenetics

Spring 2024

Indo-European Morphology

Winter 2022

Contact

  • (310) 825-0634
  • 3125 Campbell Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095
  • My office is on the third floor of Campbell Hall, 3122B.
  • Office hours Fall 2021: Friday 2:00 to 4:00