Søren Wichmann

List of John Benjamins publications in which Søren Wichmann is involved.

Titles

The Diachrony of Classification Systems

Edited by William B. McGregor and Søren Wichmann

Classification is a popular topic in typological, descriptive and theoretical linguistics. This volume is the first to deal specifically with the diachrony of linguistic systems of classification. It comprises original papers that examine the ways in which linguistic classification systems arise,… read more

[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 342] 2018. xi, 362 pp.

Quantitative Approaches to Linguistic Diversity: Commemorating the centenary of the birth of Morris Swadesh

Edited by Søren Wichmann and Anthony P. Grant

Quantitative methods in linguistics, which the protean American structuralist linguist Morris Swadesh introduced in the 1950s, have become increasingly popular and have opened the world of languages to interdisciplinary approaches. The papers collected here are the work not only of descriptive and… read more

[Benjamins Current Topics, 46] 2012. x, 182 pp.

Quantitative Approaches to Linguistic Diversity: Commemorating the centenary of the birth of Morris Swadesh

Edited by Søren Wichmann and Anthony P. Grant

Special issue of Diachronica 27:2 (2010) v, 168 pp.

Articles (9) | Order by:

Wichmann, Søren 2018 Introduction The Diachrony of Classification Systems, McGregor, William B. and Søren Wichmann (eds.), pp. 1–8 | Chapter

Wichmann, Søren 2017 Modeling language family expansions Diachronica 34:1, pp. 79–101 | Article

This paper presents properties of a computer simulation of language migration. It takes as input a simulated phylogeny and a database of today’s populated places. At each time step, a language moves within a geographical quadrilateral defined by the minimal number, ch, of choices of populated… read more

Pache, Matthias, Søren Wichmann and Mikhail Zhivlov 2016 Words for ‘dog’ as a diagnostic of language contact in the Americas Language Contact and Change in the Americas: Studies in honor of Marianne Mithun, Berez-Kroeker, Andrea L., Diane M. Hintz and Carmen Dagostino (eds.), pp. 385–410 | Article

Words for ‘dog’ are frequently borrowed in several parts of the world, including the Americas. Often words for ‘dog’ are borrowed along with other lexical material. The study of the distribution of these borrowed words can serve as a first step towards the identification of evidence for linguistic… read more

Wichmann, Søren, André Müller and Viveka Velupillai 2012 Homelands of the world’s language families: A quantitative approach Quantitative Approaches to Linguistic Diversity: Commemorating the centenary of the birth of Morris Swadesh, Wichmann, Søren and Anthony P. Grant (eds.), pp. 57–86 | Article

A systematic, computer-automated tool for narrowing down the homelands of linguistic families is presented and applied to 82 of the world’s larger families. The approach is inspired by the well-known idea that the geographical area of maximal diversity within a language family corresponds to the… read more

Wichmann, Søren 2010 Review of Newman (2009): The Linguistics of Eating and Drinking Studies in Language 34:2, pp. 487–491 | Review

Wichmann, Søren, André Müller and Viveka Velupillai 2010 Homelands of the world’s language families: A quantitative approach Quantitative Approaches to Linguistic Diversity: Commemorating the centenary of the birth of Morris Swadesh, Wichmann, Søren and Anthony P. Grant (eds.), pp. 247–276 | Article

Wichmann, Søren 2007 The reference-tracking system of Tlapanec: Between obviation and switch-reference Studies in Language 31:4, pp. 801–827 | Article

This paper presents data on the Azoyú Tlapanec reference tracking system. The system is analyzed according to a procedure where default rules for how the system works are formulated and deviations are interpreted as being licensed by different levels of grammar organization along the lines of the… read more

Wichmann, Søren and Arpiar Saunders 2007 How to use typological databases in historical linguistic research Diachronica 24:2, pp. 373–404 | Article

Several databases have been compiled with the aim of documenting the distribution of typological features across the world’s languages. This paper looks at ways of utilizing this type of data for making inferences concerning genealogical relationships by using phylogenetic algorithms originally… read more

Wichmann, Søren 1996 The degrammaticalization of agentivity in Tlapanec Content, Expression and Structure: Studies in Danish functional grammar, Engberg-Pedersen, Elisabeth, Michael Fortescue, Peter Harder, Lars Heltoft and Lisbeth Falster Jakobsen (eds.), pp. 343–360 | Article