Unraveling linguistic diversity through the lens of natural experiments │ Lecture II │ D. E. Blasi

In this course we will approach the study of worldwide linguistic diversity under the point of view of observational statistical inference. The guiding question of the course will be: what can be learned about the nature of language given the limited and contingent sample of languages that we got to observe and document? We will investigate what can be inferred from the aggregation of comparative linguistic data (including large-scale typological datasets,

→Strands 1+2+3), and what models of human cognition, behavior, and history are implied by those inferences. The course will be interdisciplinary but tailored for non specialists, combining comparative linguistics, biological anthropology, statistical inference, cultural evolution, as well as an array of observations from other disciplines.

II. Probing cognition and behavior with the world’s languages

Starting from traditional linguistic typology approaches, we explore claims about language and its relation to cognition, behavior and development based on arguments depending on cross-linguistic frequency (→Strands 2+4), the role of rara and rarissima, the role of vertical and horizontal transmission in shaping typological distributions (→Strand 3), and the underlying assumptions about possible and probable languages that come with cross-linguistic generalizations (→Strands 2+4).