Objective "This proposal describes a highly interdisciplinary approach to the empirical study of cultural language evolution. It draws on ideas and methods from *historical linguistics and typology*, *natural language processing*, *biology*, *bioinformatics*, *computer science*, and *statistics*.The computer aided study of cultural language evolution has seen a tremendous upturn over the past fifteen years. This comprises both model-driven approaches - studying the consequences of design assumptions regarding language production, comprehension, and learning for their long-term population-wide consequences - and data-driven approaches that employ algorithmic techniques from bioinformatics to recover otherwise inaccessible information about language history. At the current junction, the field faces two challenges:- The specifics of language evolution - which includes parallels with but also key differences to biological evolution - require central attention.- Model-driven and data-driven approaches need to inform each other to achieve explanatory power and to assess the statistical significance of the findings.The project will establish a radically data-oriented framework for the study of language evolution. This includes three aspects:- replacing the off-the-shelf tools from bioinformatics that are currently in use in computational language classification by linguistically informed algorithms, esp.\ *multiple sequence alignment techniques*,- identifying characteristic traits of language evolution via *exploratory data analysis*, guided by the theory of *complex systems* and employing cutting-edge methods from *machine learning* such as *kernel methods* and *causal inference*, and- developing, implementing and testing models of language evolution that correctly predict the *statistical fingerprints of language evolution*, i.e. pay sufficient attention to the domain specific features of language evolution that have no counterpart in biological evolution." Fields of science humanitieslanguages and literaturelinguisticshumanitieshistory and archaeologyhistorynatural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdata sciencenatural language processingnatural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencemachine learningsocial sciencespsychologypsycholinguistics Programme(s) FP7-IDEAS-ERC - Specific programme: "Ideas" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013) Topic(s) ERC-AG-SH4 - ERC Advanced Grant - The Human Mind and its complexity Call for proposal ERC-2012-ADG_20120411 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC-AG - ERC Advanced Grant Host institution EBERHARD KARLS UNIVERSITAET TUEBINGEN EU contribution € 2 003 580,00 Address GESCHWISTER-SCHOLL-PLATZ 72074 Tuebingen Germany See on map Region Baden-Württemberg Tübingen Tübingen, Landkreis Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Principal investigator Gerhard Jäger (Prof.) Administrative Contact Friedrich Hamm (Prof.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Total cost No data Beneficiaries (1) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all EBERHARD KARLS UNIVERSITAET TUEBINGEN Germany EU contribution € 2 003 580,00 Address GESCHWISTER-SCHOLL-PLATZ 72074 Tuebingen See on map Region Baden-Württemberg Tübingen Tübingen, Landkreis Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Principal investigator Gerhard Jäger (Prof.) Administrative Contact Friedrich Hamm (Prof.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Total cost No data
