Colloquia Recording: Dr Hannah Haynie

Title: Re-evaluating the universality of so-called ‘implicational universals’ in grammar
 

Presenter: Dr. Hannah Haynie, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Colorado Boulder

Abstract: Linguistic universals (tendencies for certain grammatical traits to co-occur) have been used for over half a century to understand trends in global grammatical diversity and inform theories about cognitive and communicative constraints that may influence grammar. However, our understanding of linguistic universals to date has been limited by small, sparse, or unbalanced language samples and inadequate controls for non-independence of related or neighboring languages in prior research. Recent methodological advances and data availability make possible more robust testing of whether grammatical traits co-evolve and co-occur in the ways that hypothesized universals would predict. This talk presents recent collaborative research on universals using global morphosyntactic information from the Grambank database, re-evaluating the universality of these associations while controlling for genealogy and geography. Findings suggest that not all so-called universals are truly universal, and that some theoretical explanations for universals are better supported than others. 

Bio: Hannah Haynie is a linguist whose research focuses on patterns of linguistic diversity. This includes historical processes that shape diversity within language families and across geographic regions, as well as the interplay of cognitive, linguistic, cultural, and biogeographic factors that impact language evolution and linguistic diversity. This work has been carried out with both a regional focus on linguistic history and diversity in North America and an interest in global patterns of morphosyntactic diversity and language geography.