Historical and Areal Linguistics

*dhworom Reading List and Past Talks

Below you will find a list of our past readings and talks for the *dhworom Discussion Group.

Reading lists Spring 2017: Phylogenetics 2017.01.26 - Gray, Russell D., and Fiona M. Jordan. "Language trees support the express-train sequence of Austronesian expansion." Nature 405.6790 (2000): 1052-1055. 2017.02.02 - No meeting 2017.02.09 - (no reading: Talk by Lev Michael "Different choices, different trees: Comparing approaches to lexical...

Bekowies and McLaughlin publish on clitic climbing in French

June 1, 2020

Congratulations to our colleagues Zack Bekowies and Mairi McLaughlin on the publication of their chapter in a new edited volume available from Oxford University Press:

Bekowies, Zack, and Mairi McLaughlin. 2020. "The Loss of Clitic Climbing in French: A Gallo-Romance Perspective," in Variation and Change in Gallo-Romance Grammar, ed. by Sam Wolfe and Martin Maiden. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rhodes co-edited volume, The Language of Hunter-Gatherers

May 14, 2020

Congratulations to Richard A. Rhodes, Tom Güldemann (Humboldt–Universität zu Berlin), and Patrick McConvell (Australian National University, Canberra) on the publication of their edited volume The Language of Hunter-Gatherers (Cambridge University Press, 2020)! Click here for the table of contents.

Rybka and Michael paper in Journal of Historical Linguistics

March 19, 2020

A paper by recent Berkeley Linguistics post-doc Konrad Rybka and Lev Michael, entitled A privative derivational source for standard negation in Lokono (Arawakan), has appeared in the pages of the Journal of Historical Linguistics. Congrats!

Michael publishes in Language & Linguistics Compass

January 21, 2020

A new article by Lev Michael and Natalia Chousou‐Polydouri on Computational phylogenetics and the classification of South American languages has just appeared in the journal Language and Linguistics Compass. Congrats Lev and Natalia!

Elias publications

January 16, 2020

Congrats to first-year student Alexander Elias, whose paper "Are the Central Flores languages really typologically unusual?" is to appear in a book called Austronesian Undressed: How and Why Languages Become Isolating (eds David Gil and Antoinette Schapper), and whose paper "Kabyle Double Consonants: Long or Strong?" will appear in McGill Working Papers in Linguistics!

Alexander has also recently learned that his MA thesis Lio and the Central Flores languages has been nominated for two prizes, the Leiden University Thesis Prize and the Jan Brouwers Thesis Prize!

O'Hagan and Michael publish in LIAMES

November 7, 2019

Congrats to Zach O'Hagan and Lev Michael, whose paper (with Natalia Chousou-Polydouri) entitled Phylogenetic classification supports a Northeastern Amazonian Proto-Tupí-Guaraní homeland has been published in the open-access journal LIAMES: Línguas Indígenas Americanas.

In memoriam Gary Holland

September 26, 2019

We are sad to report that emeritus professor Gary Holland passed away earlier this week. Gary earned his PhD in Linguistics from Berkeley in 1980 and spent the rest of his career here. He became an Emeritus Professor just last year. One of the world’s foremost experts on the Rig Veda, he was a remarkably interdisciplinary scholar, with connections (teaching or research) in Scandinavian Studies, Near Eastern Studies, Celtic Studies, and Classics, among others. He was also a remarkable servant of the Department of Linguistics and of the University of California. He served as the Head Graduate Advisor in Linguistics, and in many campus-wide positions in the Academic Senate. In fact, just this semester he was recalled to work in the Division of Undergraduate Studies. He won the College of Letters and Sciences “Distinguished Service Award” in 2014. He shared his love of music and good cheer with many friends in the department and the wider Berkeley community, and will be missed by all.

Research group meetings & talk series this semester

September 5, 2019
Calques has been made aware of the following research groups and talk series meeting this semester: Experimental Phonology Working Group -- meeting on Mondays, 10:30-11:30am, in Dwinelle 1226. The first meeting will be Monday, September 9. Contact Jesse Zymet for more information. Fieldwork Forum -- meeting on Thursdays, 3:40-5:00pm, in Dwinelle 1303. Organized by Edwin Ko, Emily Drummond and Wesley dos Santos. More info on the website: Fieldwork Forum Gesture and Multimodality Group -- meeting certain Fridays, 9-11am. Contact Eve Sweetser for more information. Group in American Indian Languages -- meeting dates and times TBD; contact Zach O'Hagan for more information. Language Revitalization Working Group -- meeting Thursdays 1-2pm, in Dwinelle 3401. More info on the website: Language Revitalization Working Group Metaphor Group -- meeting times TBD; contact Eve Sweetser for more information. Phorum -- meeting Mondays 12-1pm, in 1229 Dwinelle. Organized by Emily Grabowski and Yevgeniy Melguy. More info on the website: Phorum Society of Linguistics Undergraduates Students (SLUgS) -- meeting certain Thursdays 5pm Sociolinguistics lab -- meeting on certain Tuesdays, 3:30-5pm, in Dwinelle 1229. The first meeting will be Tuesday, September 10. Contact Isaac Bleaman for more information. Syntax & Semantics Circle -- meeting on Fridays, 3-4:30pm, in Dwinelle 1303. Organized by Tessa Scott & Schuyler Laparle. More info on the website: Syntax and Semantics Circle