Upcoming events
Event Information:
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Mon05Sep2022Fri09Sep2022Gent
14th International Colloquium on Late and Vulgar Latin (Latin vulgaire – latin tardif XIV)
Show contentPlease note: the conference has been postponed again due to the continuing uncertainties related to the covid-19 pandemic and will take place from Monday, September 5th to Friday, September 9th, 2022.
The 14th International Colloquium on Late and Vulgar Latin (Latin vulgaire – latin tardif XIV) will be held at the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of Ghent University (Belgium) from Monday, September 5th to Friday, September 9th, 2022. It will be organized by the Latin section and the research group DiaLing at the Department of Linguistics, under the auspices of the Comité international pour l'étude du latin vulgaire et tardif (www.unibg.it/lvlt).
The colloquium will be held in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Latin. As per tradition, it will be devoted to all linguistic aspects of late, informal, non-standard and colloquial Latin (including the transition from Latin to Romance).
For all further information, please visit the website of the colloquium at https://www.lvlt14.ugent.be. For any additional questions you may have, please contact the organisers at lvlt14@ugent.be.
Past events
Event Information:
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Thu27Apr20173:00 pmGrote Vergaderzaal (Blandijn, 3de verdieping)
The reconstruction of proto-Burmish: a case study in the computational implementation of the comparative method
Show contentProf. dr. Nathan Hill & Johann-Mattis List (School of Oriental and African Studies/CNRS):
The reconstruction of proto-Burmish: a case study in the computational implementation of the comparative method
The use of computational methods in comparative linguistics increases ever in popularity. Nonetheless, the fruits of such methods have so far been meagre when compared to the results the traditional comparative method. This paper explores a dataset of Burmish languages as a case study in improving the methodology of computational reconstruction. In particular are aim is not replace or modify the comparative method, but rather to implement the traditional method using computational tools.Our database comprises 400 concepts and their translational counterparts in a dozen Burmish langauges. Concepts are linked to the Concepticon (List et al. 2016), languages are linked to Glottolog. The primary data comes from Huáng et al. (1992.), as digitized by STEDT (Matisoff 2011), but we supplement this with other sources. We employ an iterative workflow combining the absolute rigor of a computer with the insightful intuitions of trained historical linguists. After providing all of the data with unambiguous phonetic interpretations, including the explicit encoding of underdetermined segments, the computer provides a preliminary alignment and reconstruction. These reconstructions are then adjusted with an eye to the relevant literature on proto-Burmish. The adjustments are made inside of the workflow system so that the algorithm and general methodology will be enhanced and made more robust.
References
Hammarström, Harald & Forkel, Robert & Haspelmath, Martin & Bank, Sebastian (2015): Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology (Available onlie at http://glottolog.org. Accessed on 2016-03-15).
Huáng Bùfán 黄 布 凡 et al. eds. (1992). Zàng-Miǎn yǔzú yǔyán cíhuì 藏缅语族语言词汇. Běijīng: Zhōngyāng mínzú xuéyuàn chūbǎnshè 中央民族学院出版社.
List, Johann-Mattis & Cysouw, Michael & Forkel, Robert (eds.) 2015. Concepticon. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (Available online at http://concepticon.clld.org, Accessed on 2016-03-15.)
Matisoff, James (2011): STEDT. The Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus. University of California at Berkeley (available online at: http://stedt.berkeley.edu).