Some of the main goals of the ERC-funded project Linguistic Adaptation (GramAdapt) are to develop methodologies for comparing sociolinguistic environments and linguistic structures to one another, and to produce new analyses that will enable researching linguistic adaptation in principled ways. To discuss and co-develop these themes we are organizing a series of three seminars in November-December 2020. The invited speakers represent a wide range of fields working on language typology, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, and language learning.
The first session of the series, titled “Mechanisms of language change under different sociolinguistic conditions”, discussed the topic from three perspectives followed by a general panel discussion. The talks were recorded, and all of the videos and slides from the presentations will be available below in the end of the article.
Prof. Vera Kempe (Abertay University), a psychologist specializing in language learning, gave a talk on “Morphological complexity in comprehension and production”.
Prof. Walter Bisang (Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz), a typologist and an expert on grammaticalization and Southeast Asian languages, gave a talk on “Radical analyticity and radical pro-drop scenarios of diachronic change in East and mainland Southeast Asia, West Africa and Pidgins & Creoles”.
The final presentation was from Dr. Ricardo Napoleão de Souza of GramAdapt, who talked about our effort to build a model of language contact and language change in his talk “Mechanisms of language change under different contact situations”.
Slides and video recordings from the other two seminar sessions will be posted on the GramAdapt webpages in late November and in mid-December.
Videos and slides of the presentations:
Prof. Vera Kempe: Morphological complexity in comprehension and production
Prof. Walter Bisang: Radical analyticity and radical pro-drop scenarios of diachronic change in East and mainland Southeast Asia, West Africa and Pidgins & Creoles
Dr. Ricardo Napoleão de Souza: “Mechanisms of language change under different contact situations”.