122049 PS Proseminar Linguistics 2 (2020W)

In this course, we will discuss how we can use text corpora to learn something about linguistic cognition. In particular, we will have a closer look at the role that utterance frequency plays in linguistic processing. We will use several quantitative methods to assess interactions between frequency and e.g. first-language acquisition and semantics, respectively, and we will investigate frequency distributions of words and in which way they relate to quantitative laws in linguistics (such as Zipf's law).

After a couple of sessions on the theoretical background and basic concepts, students will start working on empirical projects in smaller groups. There will be separate sessions for each group in which we discuss literature, data and methods relevant to the respective projects. In the middle of the semester, students will learn how to write papers with a quantitative focus. The results of the projects will be presented in the end of the semester. By default, all sessions are online. Depending on the COVID-19 situation, group sessions can, if all members agree (and if there is a room available at the department), take place in the classroom (4-5 people per group).

Methods will involve online tools for visualizing semantic relationships, online language databases, and using prewritten scripts to analyze data. No previous knowledge of any of these methods is required apart from some basic familiarity with spreadsheets.