Research
My interest in using computational methods in linguistics increased with my
study of computational linguistics. Since then I'm also interested in combining
my interests in historical linguistics and computational linguistics.
Therefore, my research focuses on the application and adaption of bioinformatic,
especially phylogenetic, methods into the field of historical linguistics. My
main research interests include language contact, the resulting language change,
borrowing, and their corresponding parallel in phylogenetics.
I'm
exploring the adaption of computational methods from phylogenetics into
linguistics for an automatic detection of loanwords and language contact.
PhyloLinguistics:
The most fascinating thing about language is that it is one of the biggest and
fastest changing systems in humanity. Due to the contact of languages, the
languages change rapidly and develop further over years. In historical
linguistics, the process of borrowing words due to language contact is a
well-known evolutionary process.
Speaking about evolution, linguistic and
biological evolution show certain parallels. Especially the parallels between
phylogenetics and linguistics arouse the interest of combining both fields.
Based on these parallels, the methods from phylogenetics can be adapted into
historical linguistics. This is what I call, PhyloLinguistics.
Borrowing also has its corresponding parallel within phylogenetics, namely
horizontal gene transfer. The similarity between borrowing and horizontal gene
transfer is the transfer of genes or words whereas the organism or languages are
not related.
Therefore, my main interest is to combine the methods from
phylogenetics and linguistics and adapt methods for an automatic detection of
language contact, language change and of course borrowing.
Projects
Current projects:
- Words, Bones, Genes, Tools: DFG Center for Advanced Studies "Words, Bones, Genes, Tools: Tracking Linguistic, Cultural and Biological Trajectories of the Human Past".
Former projects:
- CrossLingference: Cross-linguistic statistical inference using hierarchical Bayesian models.
- EVOLAEMP: Language Evolution: the Empirical Turn. The project draws ideas and methods from historical linguistics and typology, natural language processing, biology, bioinformatics, computer science, and statistics.
- TüBa-D/Z: The treebank is a syntactically annotated German newspaper corpus.
Professional Activities
- Chair of the Student Session at the ESSLLI 2016.
- Member of the organizing and program committee of the 7. StaPS 2015
- Member of the organizing committee of the QITL-6 2015.
- Language and Logic co-chair of the Student Session at the ESSLLI 2015.
- Member of the organizing committee of the ESSLLI 2014.
- Member of the organizing committee of the WHEEL-Workshop 2014.