Ancestral state estimation in Indo-European and beyond

Indo-European Studies (IES) 280

Course description

This seminar is an introduction to ancestral state estimation (ASE) and stochastic character mapping (SCM). The first portion of the course will be devoted to continuous-time Markov models and maximum likelihood inference. The second portion will focus more on estimation of ancestral states using Bayesian methods. In addition to exploring how these methods work, we will also look at some recent applications of the methods in historical linguistics.

Winter 2020

Time: M 2:30–5

Location: PIES Seminar room