Activity: Talk or presentation types › Oral presentation
Description
This paper introduces a novel sampling technique for studies of contact-induced change from a typological perspective. It uses external criteria to establish the location, contact scenario, and genealogy of the languages included. Employing three-language sets (i.e. target, contact language, and a benchmark language for control) as the sampling unit, we show that it is possible to draw a worldwide sample of 150 languages representing 50 different contact scenarios between pairs of unrelated languages. We argue that the sampling design presented here constitutes a promising step towards understanding the influence of language ecology on the worldwide distribution of linguistic diversity.