Figure: A succesful simulation of the distribution of speaker populations (filled circles) compared with the empirical distribution (open circles) and a simulation with different parameter settings (line)
IN applying computational and statistical methods to large lexical and typological dataset and supplementing empirical data with computer simulations, (comma needed) we try to address questions SUCH AS: How fast do different elements of language change? How can we classify all of the world's languages consistently? How did the present distribution of languages come about?
The Automated Similarity Judgment Program is a large part of this
endeavour.
Publications
Stauffer, Dietrich, Christian Schulze, and Søren Wichmann. In press. Birth, survival and death of languages by Monte Carlo simulation. Communications in Computational Physics.
Wichmann, Søren and Arpiar Saunders. In press. How to use typological databases in historical linguistic research. Diachronica.
Holman, Eric W., Christian Schulze, Dietrich Stauffer, and Søren Wichmann. 2007. On the relation between structural diversity and geographical distance among languages:observations and computer simulations. Linguistic Typology 11.2: 395-423
Wichmann, Søren, Dietrich Stauffer, F. Welington S. Lima, and Christian Schulze. 2007. Modelling linguistic taxonomic dynamics. Transactions of the Philological Society 105.2: 126-147.
Wichmann, Søren. 2005. On the power-law distribution of language family sizes. Journal of Linguistics 41: 117-131.
Project Members
Søren Wichmann
André Müller
Cecil H. Brown (Northern Illinois University)
Eric W. Holman ( University of California, Los Angeles)
Dietrich Stauffer ( University of Cologne)
Paulo Murilo Castro de Oliveira (Universidade Federal Fluminense)
F. Welington S. Lima ( Universidade Federal do Piauí )
Suzana Moss de Oliveira (Universidade Federal Fluminense)
Arpiar Saunders ( University of Montana)
Sorin Solomon (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Viveka Velupillai ( Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen)
Dik Bakker (University of Amsterdam & University of Lancaster)
Top |
