Research
My main scientific goal is to understand how and to what extent languages are shaped by collective human behaviour, from the beginning of the Holocene to today. Through empirical means I attempt to differentiate, in the structure of languages, the effect of contingent historical processes from consistent human biases towards or against learning, using or transmitting specific linguistic behaviours.
In my work I combine data science with linguistic typology, evolutionary anthropology, ethnography and the cognitive sciences. Across these domains I collaborate with specialists, often in multidisciplinary teams. In order to maximize the ecological validity of my investigations I draw mainly on observational data from as many languages as possible. As a drawback, and reflecting the convoluted processes that gave rise to the documented linguistic diversity, I regularly wrangle with small, sparse, noisy and non-independent data (or s2n2 for short), which has become a signature of my work.
My most recent research ranges from the emergence of creole languages, the nature word order patterns, pervasive sound-meaning associations, the adaptability of speech sound systems and the prehistory of worldwide linguistic diversity.
