This project is concerned with methods that allow comparative (typological, historical) research to take diversity between and within language more seriously than has been common in the past. The key idea is to use methods that build directly on the rich diversity found in languages and do not in a first step artificially reduce diversity before actually measuring it (e.g. by picking “basic” structures in survey work or by "explaining away" apparent exceptions to universal). I call this approach "Multivariate Typology" (see especially my papers on “Capturing particulars and universals” and “Typology in the 21st century” below). In a second part, the project is dedicated to statistical modeling of the range of factors that affects the distribution of linguistic structures, as conditioned by patterns of human migration and population contact and also by patterns of preferred ways of communicating and processing language (see especially my papers on “a new method" and “distributional biases” below.
This project is currently funded by the Volkswagen Foundation (Opus Magnum programme)
For a recent synopsis of results, see the slides from a course on quantitative methods in typology that I taught at the Summer School on Linguistic Typology in Leipzig 2010. A book manuscript is in preparation.
Bickel, B. In press. Absolute and statistical universals. In Hogan, P. C. (ed.) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Language Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [PRE-PRINT]
Bickel, B. 2010. Distributional biases in language families Ms. University of Leipzig. [PDF]
Bickel, B. 2010. Capturing particulars and universals in clause linkage: a multivariate analysis. In Bril, I. (ed.) Clause-hierarchy and clause-linking: the syntax and pragmatics interface, pp. 51 - 101. Amsterdam: Benjamins. [PRE-PRINT]
Bickel, B. & J. Nichols. 2009. The geography of case. In Malchukov, A. & A. Spencer (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Case, 479 – 493. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bickel, B. 2008. A general method for the statistical evaluation of typological distributions. Ms. University of Leipzig. [PDF]
Bickel, B. 2008. A refined sampling procedure for genealogical control. Language Typology and Universals 61, 221–233.
Bickel, B. 2007. Typology in the 21st century: major current developments. Linguistic Typology 11, 239 – 251. [PDF]
Janssen, D., B. Bickel, & F. Zúñiga. 2006. Randomization tests in language typology. Linguistic Typology 10, 419 – 440.
Bickel, B. & J. Nichols. 2006. Oceania, the Pacific Rim, and the theory of linguistic areas. Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society [PDF]
Last modified: , by Balthasar Bickel