LSA Satellite Workshop: Foundations of Historical Linguistics

Yale University, New Haven CT

Investigators

Abstract

While historical linguistics is a well-established discipline (indeed, one of the oldest specializations within linguistics), the importance of diachrony as a key to understanding human language has been reinforced by the rise in availability of large-scale datasets and high-performance computational resources. Foundations of Historical Linguistics is a workshop that will be held in conjunction with the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA). It will bring together an international group of scholars with expertise in a range of fields that relate to the study of language change, and will do so in a setting that allows for presentation and discussion of cutting-edge research. Presentations at the workshop, which form the basis of the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics, will encompass the state of the field of historical linguistics, the methods which underpin current work, models of language change, and the importance of historical linguistics for other subfields of linguistics and other disciplines. The workshop focuses on the synthesis of work on synchrony and diachrony and brings together diverse aspects of work that relate to language change. Recent technological advances (such as wide-scale information on phonetics of previously undescribed languages) along with greater availability in basic language materials, has led to an explosion in recent work in historical linguistics. However, with this proliferation in work has come fragmentation in approaches. The workshop therefore aims to allow specialists in diverse areas of historical linguistics to report on state of the art research. Their findings will be therefore more easily available to the linguistic community, both through the publication of the Handbook and by the opportunities afforded by participation in the LSA's Annual Meeting.