2024
Trading off informativeness and length in lexicon and grammar (April 11, UAM Poznań) [zenodo]
Causative and anticausative verb formation (February 1st, Nagoya University) [abstract]
Clitics and grammaticalization (January 17th, Fudan University, Shanghai)
2023
Are clitics an intermediate stage in grammaticalization? (December 14th, University of Marburg) [zenodo]
Criteria for words and inverses (December 2nd, presented at the workshop in honour of Fernando Zúñiga, University of Bern) [zenodo]
How V.P. Nedjalkov inspired our typology: Some personal reminiscences (22 November 2023, online conference St. Petersburg) [YouTube link]
Linguistic typology and usage frequency (September 21, at the Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute for the Polish Language, Kraków, 50th Anniversary Colloquium) [zenodo]
Introducing CrossGram (September 14, at the Grambank Workshop, MPI-EVA Leipzig) [zenodo] [YouTube]
Ambiguity avoidance vs. expectation sensitivity as functional factors in language change and language structures: Beyond argument marking (September 5, talk at ICHL 26 in Heidelberg [zenodo]
On existential and predlocative construction-functions and construction-strategies (August 31, talk at SLE 2023 in Athens [zenodo]
Coexpression and synexpression patterns in lexical and grammatical typology (August 8, talk at the ICLC 16 conference in Düsseldorf) [zenodo]
Language structures are unique but comparative grammar is nevertheless useful (July 19, plenary talk at the ICLC 10 conference in Mannheim) [zenodo]
Language universals in the light of cultural evolution and cognition (eight lectures, June 20 – July 14, part of the LSA Linguistic Institute, UMass, Amherst) [9 lecture handouts at OSF]
Compound words, incorporation, and serialization (April 24, guest talk at JGU Mainz, linguistics colloquium) [zenodo]
Does informativeness trade off with coding length or with system complexity? (April 18, presented at a workshop on communicative efficiency organized by Olivier Morin, Leipzig) [zenodo]
Differential argument marking: Why is indexing different? (March 22, presented at the conference “Explaining the distribution of argument-coding patterns”, University of Potsdam) [zenodo]
Does economy (or efficiency) explain grammatical change? (March 9, presented at the Annual Meeting of the DGfS, Cologne, Workshop on syntactic change) [zenodo]
Moving beyond the stereotypes of grammaticalization: How to replace coalescence, cliticization, and lexicalization (January 13, presentation at the SHESL conference 2023 “New historical and diachronic perspectives on grammaticalization“) [zenodo]
2022
Comparing languages and comparing typological databases (December 10, remote presentation for the 2022 winter meeting of the Linguistic Society of Korea) [zenodo]
Biverbal constructions and related comparative concepts: (Retro-)definitions and analyses (November 16, presented at the workshop of the ANR-DFG ComPLETE project, JGU Mainz) [zenodo]
Architectural constraints vs. efficiency constraints: Argument coding and verbal voice coding (November 8, remote presentation for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) [zenodo]
Forward-formation and back-formation in a Relational Morphology perspective (Sept 1, Budapest, presented at the International Morphology Meeting) [zenodo]
Revisiting negindefinite pronouns (August 26, University of Bucharest, presented at a workshop on negative concord as part of Societas Linguistica Europaea) [zenodo]
Is cliticization an intermediate stage between free lexeme and affix status? (June 28, invited presentation at the University of Potsdam) [zenodo] (Similar presentation at ICHL in Oxford: [zenodo])
Passive constructions: Universals and language description (June 17, presentation at the ETPOLL workshop in Frankfurt am Main) [zenodo]
Veröffentlichen in der Linguistik heute (und morgen) (11. Mai, Vortrag an der Universität Bern) [zenodo]
Class lectures: Syntactic Universals (May 9-13, University of Zurich) [zenodo]
Against “lexicalization” (and what to replace it with) (May 2nd, invited presentation at the University of Mainz) [zenodo]
A comparison of differential adpossessor flagging and differential argument flagging (April 20th, presented at the Mini-Workshop on Differential Argument Marking, Leiden University) [zenodo]
Against “lexicalization” (and what to replace it with) (April 1st, invited presentation at the conference “Choosing your Words: Lexicalisation and Grammaticalisation in Greek and Latin”, University College London) [zenodo]
Complexity of word meanings: Diversity and unity in the world’s languages (March 18, invited presentation at the Université de Liège, Belgium) [zenodo] [video]
Colexification, syllexification, and related things: Comparative concepts and possible explanations (March 1st, invited in-person talk at Uppsala University) [zenodo]
Classificatory concepts for typology and the Grammaticon vision (January 20; online presentation for the Prague workshop on “The Central European languages in the World Atlas of Language Structures”) [OSF]
2021
Method and theory in comparative grammar: Measurement uniformity vs. building block uniformity (December; colloquium presentation at the University of Manchester) [zenodo]
Language description and language universals (December; invited keynote talk at ICOLSI-43, the International Conference of the Linguistic Society of India) [zenodo]
Framework-free grammatical theorizing (December; seminar presentation at the University of Zurich) [zenodo]
Symmetrical voice languages: Rigorous terminology and language universals (September; conference handout, International Seminar on Austronesian Languages and Literature, Denpasar, Indonesia) [zenodo]
From community competition to complementarity in general linguistics: The eight complementary why questions (June; conference handout, Congreso Internacional de Lingüística General, Seville) [zenodo] [talk on YouTube]
Structural, evolutionary and biocognitive explanations are mutually compatible (April; talk handout, Center for Linguistic Sciences of Beijing Normal University) [zenodo] [online talk on Bilibili] (blog version)
Efficiency explanations of grammatical patterns (April; online talk at Arizona State University) [online talk on YouTube]
Explaining diverse language structures from convergent evolution of linguistic conventions (March; talk handout, Birmingham lectures) [zenodo] [online talk on YouTube]
Variable argument marking and the difference between general and particular linguistics (January; handout of online talk at colloquium, UC Berkeley) [zenodo]
2020
Ambiguity avoidance vs. expectation sensitivity in ditransitive differential argument marking (colloquium handout, Harvard) [zenodo]
Toward a standard list of grammatical comparative concepts: The Grammaticon (SLE conference handout) [OSF]
How evolutionary adaptation explains language structures (Abralin ao Vivo talk handout) [zenodo] [talk on YouTube]
Testable universals, the natural-kinds programme, and presupposed universals in grammatical theorizing (conference handout, DGfS Hamburg) [zenodo]
Grammaticalization and the efficiency theory of asymmetric coding (Copenhagen talk handout) [zenodo]
The polycategoriality parameter: Noun-verb similarities in some languages of the Americas (conference handout, SSILA New Orleans) [zenodo]
Some universals of reflexive construction markers and a possible efficiency-based explanation (conference handout, LSA annual meeting New Orleans) [zenodo]
2019
What is easier to understand, mechanisms or results of linguistic changes? (conference handout, HU Berlin workshop on reanalysis, 2019 March 1-2) [zenodo]
2018
Toward a new conceptual framework for comparing gender systems and some so-called classifier systems (Stockholm talk handout) [zenodo]
2017
Do aliens have UG? On efficiency of grammatical coding as an explanation for grammatical universals (Leipzig University conference talk handout) [zenodo]
2016
Coptic: A language without words (Presentation at the symposium “Ancient Egyptian-Coptic in Typological Perspective: Commemorating Hans Jakob Polotsky” (February 2016), organized by The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Jerusalem) [zenodo] [YouTube]
2013
The typology of comparative constructions revisited (conference handout, ALT biennial meeting Leipzig) [zenodo]
2007
Four kinds of technical concepts in comparative grammatical research (presentation at MPI-EVA Leipzig) [zenodo]
Are categories universal? (presentation at MPI-EVA Leipzig) [zenodo]
2006
2003
Against iconicity and markedness (Stanford colloquium handout) [zenodo]
1999
The Agglutination Hypothesis: A belated empirical investigation (Amsterdam ALT conference handout) [zenodo]
1998
Suppletive periphrasis, symphrasis, and morphological theory (conference handout, International Morphology Meeting Budapest, June 1998) [zenodo]