Language Evolution

Correlated grammaticalization

One of the central goals of historical linguistics is to distinguish probable from improbable linguistic changes. This includes not only individual changes, but also interactions among changes (i.e., whether one change makes another more or less …

Indo-European phylogenetics with R

The last twenty or so years have witnessed a dramatic increase in the use of computational methods for inferring linguistic phylogenies. Although the results of this research have been controversial, the methods themselves are an undeniable boon for …

Homeric -phi(n) is an oblique case marker

The synchronic distribution and diachronic trajectory of Homeric -phi(n) have been the source of long-standing debate, with the result that scholarly opinion has yet to settle on a consensus regarding the morphosyntax of forms realized by this …

Statistical phylogenetics

Spring 2020

Ancestral state estimation in Indo-European and beyond

Winter 2020

The synchrony and diachrony of the Greek dative of agent

Language change and linguistic theory

Many archaic Indo‐European languages exhibit a system of dual conjunction in which they possess both a head‐initial exponent (e.g., Latin et) and an enclitic exponent (e.g., Latin ⸗que). Mitrović (2014) and Mitrović & Sauerland (2016) argue that …

Ennius Annales 550 Sk (= 537 V2) and the history of Lat. atque

Ennius 550 Sk (atque atque accedit muros Romana iuventus, ‘The Roman youth atque atque advanced against the walls’) has long puzzled scholars on account of what appear to be side-by-side tokens of the conjunction atque ‘and’. …

Indo-European phylogenetics

Fall 2018

nebulosus