Conferences 2025
Artificial Languages in the Linguist’s Toolbox
Artificial language learning experiments test how far language users can extract rule-like generalizations from structured input (Culbertson, 2023). Since Reber’s (1967) seminal artificial grammar (AG) study, which aimed at investigating implicit learning mechanisms, artificial language (AL) paradigms have become more diverse in their implementation and have been proposed as a versatile tool for addressing an increasingly broad range of research topics within areas as varied as second language acquisition, language typology, and language change. Despite this extensive body of research, the nature of the knowledge acquired in AL experiments as well as the effects of different training methods implemented in these studies still need to be debated, given their crucial implications for the linguistic research questions that can sensibly be addressed through these studies.
Location: J 32/102 (Sep 25, 2025) / J 27/14 (Sep 26, 2025) Freie Universität Berlin Habelschwerdter Allee 45 (Rostlaube)
Dynamics of Functional Change
In the talk will be presented the planning for a project that develops methods to track linguistic changes’ spread within language and withing speech community in historical corpora using large language models and statistical methods from ecology.
Location: Raum JK 31/124 Freie Universität Berlin Habelschwerdter Allee 45 (Rostlaube)