About me

I am a linguist with a focus on language typology and a usage-based approach to language. I am also interested in corpus linguistics, quantitative approaches, and, more generally, in how different methods can be combined to find out more about how grammar works.

I received my PhD thesis (revised version) in 2018 from the University of Leipzig. My dissertation was a typological overview of articles and article systems. Currently, I am working at the University of Freiburg at the Department of Linguistics.

You can find my CV here .

Current projects

  • What role does efficiency play in shaping language structure? I am currently looking more closely at what the distribution of zero marking in morphology can tell us about this question.
  • the influence of extra-linguistic factors on realis and irrealis conditional marking,
  • computational methods for language typology that do not rely on strict a priori sampling but integrate the different relations between languages into the modelling part (with Matías Guzmán Naranjo)
  • the association and structure between various parameters of grammaticalization (with Andrej Malchukov and Walter Bisang)
  • the distribution of silent pauses in natural speech data (with Naomi Peck)
  • I am building an R package called lingtypR to make the manipulation and visualization of crosslinguistic datasets easier. You can dowload the package from gitlab and find an overview of its current functions here.

Laura Becker

Contact


University of Freiburg
Department of Linguistics
Belfortstr. 18
D-79098 Freiburg


laura[dot]becker[at]linguistik[dot]uni-freiburg[dot]de

Publications

Books

  • Becker, Laura. 2021. Articles in the world’s languages. Berlin: De Gruyter.         prefinal version

Work in progress

  • Guzmán Naranjo, Matías, Becker, Laura, Schiele, Miriam & I-Ying Lin . Submitted. Why modeling space is hard: Polynesian phoneme inventories as a test case   
  • Becker, Laura & Matías Guzmán Naranjo. Under review. Replication & methodological robustness in typology       appendix (guidelines)
  • Becker, Laura. In revision. Zero marking in inflection: A token-based approach.   
  • Bisang, Walter, Becker, Laura, Malchukov, Andrej & Marvin Martiny. Under Review. Grammaticalization scenarios: constraining typological variation.
  • Peck, Naomi & Laura Becker. In revision. Syntactic pausing? Re-examining the associations.   
  • Laura Becker. Accepted. Review of: Natalia Levshina. 2022. Communicative Efficiency: Language Structure and Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press   

2023

  • Becker, Laura, Guzmán Naranjo, Matías & Samira Ochs. 2023. Socio-linguistic effects on conditional constructions: A quantitative typological study. In Silvia Ballarè & Guglielmo Inglese (eds.), Sociolinguistic and Typological Perspectives on Language Variation, 121-154. Berlin: De Gruyter.      

2022

  • Laura Becker & Malchukov, Andrej. 2022. Semantic maps and typological hierarchies: Evidence for the Actionality Hierarchy. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 41(1). 31-66.      
  • Norder, Sietze, Laura Becker, Hedvig Skirgård, Leonardo Arias, Alena Witzlack-Makarevich & Rik van Gijn. 2022. glottospace: R package for language mapping and geospatial analysis of linguistic and cultural data. Journal of Open Source Software 7(77). 4303.   
  • Guzmán Naranjo, Matías & Laura Becker. 2022. Statistical bias control in typology. Linguistic Typology 26(3). 605-670.      

2021

  • Guzmán Naranjo, Matías & Laura Becker. 2021. Coding efficiency in nominal inflection: expectedness and type frequency effects. Linguistics Vanguard 7(s3).       

2020

  • Becker, Laura & Gertrud Schneider-Blum. 2020. Morphological marking of contrast in Tima. Glossa 5(1). 1–35.   
  • Becker, Laura & Matías Guzmán Naranjo. 2020. Psych predicates in European languages: A parallel corpus study. Language Typology and Universals 73(4). 483–523.     
  • Dąbrowska, Ewa, Laura Becker & Luca Miorelli. 2020. Is adult second language acquisition defective? Frontiers in Psychology 11. 1–14.  

2019

  • Becker, Laura, Imke Driemel & Jude Nformi. 2019. Focus in Limbum. In Samson Lotven et al. (eds.), African linguistics across the disciplines: Selected papers from the 48th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (Contemporary African Linguistics), 219–237. Berlin: Language Science Press.   

2018

  • Guzmán Naranjo, Matías & Laura Becker. 2018. Quantitative word order typology with UD. In Proceedings of the 17th International Workshop on Treebanks and Linguistic Theories (TLT 2018), December 13–14, 2018, Oslo University, Norway, 91–104. Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press.   
  • Becker, Laura. 2018. Aspectuality in Hungarian, German, and Slavic. A parallel corpus study. In Beata Trawinski et al. (eds.), Grammar and Corpora 2016, 183–207. Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing.   

Manuscripts & workins papers

  • Becker, Laura. 2017. Vowel-consonant harmony in Uyghur. Leipzig.   
  • Becker, Laura & Jude Nformi. 2016. Focus and verb doubling in Limbum. In Replicative Processes in Grammar, vol. 93 (LAB), 57–84. Leipzig: Institut für Linguistik der Universität Leipzig.   

Invited talks

  • Zero argument indexing on verbs. University of Mainz, 8 May 2023   
    • Zero argument indexing on verbs: Patterns and explanations. University of Potsdam, 18 January 2023   
    • Zero marking in inflectional morphology: Patterns and explanations. Vielfaltslinguistik IV, University of Bremen, 5 June 2021   
    • The crosslinguistics distribution and development of articles. University of Bamberg, 20 November 2019   
    • The crosslinguistics distribution and development of articles. University of Mainz, 3 November 2019
    • Articles in the world's languages. Nordic Night Seminar for linguistics, Helsinki, 15 December 2018   
    • Articles in the world's languages. University of Cologne, 29 November 2018   
    • A typology of articles. University of Jena, 25 January 2018   

    Conference talks

    2022

    • Towards typologising silent pauses. [with Naomi Peck] 14th Conference of the Association of Linguistic Typology, University of Austin, TX, 16 December 2022   
    • Zero argument indexing on verbs: Patterns and explanations. 14th Conference of the Association of Linguistic Typology, University of Austin, TX, 17 December 2022   
    • The distribution of zero marking in inflectional morphology. International Morphology Meeting, Budapest, 2 September 2022   
    • Phoneme inventory size in Polynesian language. [with Matías Guzmán Naranjo and Miriam Schiele] 55th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europea, University of Bucharest, 25 August 2022   
    • How many types of definites? Evidence from typology. 1st meeting of the Network "Definiteness across domains", Berlin, 30 June 2022   

    2021

    • Syntactic Pausing? Re-examining the associations. [with Naomi Peck] Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory 6, SOAS, 16 December 2021   
    • Areal, family, and sociolinguistic effects on conditional constructions [with Matías Guzmán Naranjo & Samira Ochs] 54th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 1 September 2021   
    • Controlling for geographical, areal, and family biases in typology [with Matías Guzmán Naranjo] 43th DGfS meeting, Freiburg, 25 February 2021

    2020

    • Can experience with written language change mental grammar? [with Ewa Dąbrowska] UK Cognitive Linguistics Conference 2020, University of Birmingham, 29 July 2020   

    2019

    • The development of nonspecific articles. 13th Conference of the Association for Linguistic Typology, University of Pavia, 4 September 2019   
    • What do grammaticality judgements tell us about grammar? [with Ewa Dąbrowska and Luca Miorelli] Conference: What is grammaticality?, University of Bamberg, 29 June 2019
    • The contrast marker =i/=ɪ in Tima (Niger-Congo). [with Gertrud Schneider-Blum] 41st Annual Meeting of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS), University of Bremen, 6 March 2019   

    2018

    • Quantitative word order typology with UD. [with Matías Guzmán Naranjo] 17th International Workshop on Treebanks and Linguistic Theory, Oslo, 14 December 2018
    • Expressing referentiality in languages with and without articles. Grammar and Corpora, Paris, 16 November 2018   
    • Word order correlations from a quantitative perspective. [with Matías Guzmán Naranjo] Grammar and Corpora, Paris, 15 November 2018   
    • A typology of articles. Syntax of the world' languages 8, Paris, 5 September 2018
    • The typology of article inflection. 18th International Morphology Meeting, Budapest, 13 May 2018   

    2017

    • Definiteness in languages with and without articles., 12th Conference of the Association for Linguistic Typology, Canberra, 15 December 2017
    • The Form-frequency hypothesis and case systems., 50th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, Zurich, 10 September 2017
    • Limbum focus strategies. [with Imke Driemel and Jude Nformi]. TripleA 4, University of Gothenburg, 10 June 2017.
    • Two types of focus in Limbum. [with Imke Driemel and Jude Nformi]. Annual Conference on African Linguistics 48, Bloomington, 30 March 2017.   
    • Testing the Form-Frequency Hypothesis. [with Matías Guzmán Naranjo]. 39. Jahrestagung der DGfS, Saarbrücken, 8 March 2017.   

    2016

    • Discourse reference in languages with and witout articles. [with Jingting Ye]. Conference on Typology and Grammar for Young Scholars, St Petersburg, 24 November 2016.   
    • Does Hungarian have grammatical aspect? A parallel corpus study. Grammar and Corpora, Mannheim, 11 November 2016.   
    • Psych predicates from a cross-linguistic perspective. [with Matías Guzmán Naranjo]. Syntax of the World's Languages VII, Mexico City, 17 August 2016.   
    • Focus constructions in Limbum (Grassfields Bantu). [with Jude Nformi]. Syntax of the World's Languages VII, Mexico City, 19 August 2016.   
    • Aspect in Hungarian and Slavic. 2nd Usage-based Linguistics Conference, Tel Aviv, 16 June 2016.
    • A typology of psych-verbs. A parallel corpus study. Olomouc Linguistics Colloquium, Olomouc, 10 June 2106.

    2015

    • The existential-construction in Hungarian. Budapest Linguistics Conference, Budapest, 20 June 2015.   

    2014

    • The pragmatic functions of Hungarian preverbs. Syntax of the World's Languages VI, Pavia, 8 September 2014.

    Conference posters

    • MultiSub: a multi-parallel corpus of movie subtitles. [with Fahime Same and Alessia Cassarà] 41st Annual Meeting of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS), University of Bremen, 6 March 2019   
    • Quantitative methods in African linguistics - Predicting plurals in Hausa. [with Matías Guzmán Naranjo]. Annual Conference on African Linguistics 48, Bloomington, 29 March 2017.   
    • Vowel-consonant harmony in Uyghur. Workshop on Altaic Formal Linguistics 13, International Christian University, Tokyo, 27 May 2017.   

    Teaching

    • Diversity in the world's languages (2023/24)
    • Efficiency in language and communication (2023/24)
    • Linguistics: Current research (2023/24)
    • Sign languages (2022)
    • Linguistics: Current research (2022)
    • English-lexifier creoles (2021/22)
    • Artificial grammar learning (2021/22)
      Statistical analysis of the results   
    • Linguistics: Current research (2021/22)
    • The structure of Australian languages (2020/21)
    • Extra-linguistic factors shaping grammar (2020)
    • Ultimate attainment in SLA. Introduction to R for psycholinguistics (2020)
      Basic concepts in statistics I   
      Basic concepts in statistics II   
    • Introduction to English linguistics II (2019/20)
    • Functional and diachronic explanations in language typology (2019/20)
    • Language and literacy (Übung) (2019/20)
      R code   
    • Introduction to English linguistics I (2019)
    • Automatic and controlled processes in language use. Designing a psycholinguistic experiment (Übung) (2019)
      artificial grammar learning toy experiment   
    • Creoles & pidgins (2019)