Confirmation Milestone Seminar.pdf (1.5 MB)
Confirmation Milestone Seminar.pdf
presentation
posted on 2017-01-12, 01:46 authored by Jayden L. Macklin-CordesJayden L. Macklin-CordesUQ PhD confirmation milestone seminar. Presented at the University of Queensland, Australia, on 25 November 2016.
Abstract:
Within language lies a trace of the history of human society; the challenge is extracting it. The continent of Sahul—encompassing Australia and New Guinea—poses unique challenges for historical linguistics. Although Australia and New Guinea remained a single landmass until relatively late in the span of human occupation (around 10,000 years B.P.), any linguistic connection between the two goes beyond the bounds of linguistics’ traditional comparative method (Nichols, 1997). However, statistical advances in fields such as evolutionary biology, with corresponding theoretical development in the linguistic context, may offer one avenue towards deep-time historical inferences—and, perhaps, a window into the linguistic prehistory of Sahul. This study takes such an approach and tests whether evidence for an historical relationship between the languages of Australia and New Guinea can be extracted from phonotactic data using quantitative, phylogenetic methods.
