Open Problems in Computational Historical Linguistics

Johann-Mattis List

doi:10.12688/openreseurope.16804.1

Open Problems in Computational Historical Linguistics

Open Res Eur. 2023 Nov 20:3:201. doi: 10.12688/openreseurope.16804.1. eCollection 2023.

Author

Johann-Mattis List^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Chair of Multilingual Computational Linguistics, University of Passau, Passau, Bavaria, 94032, Germany.
² Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, 04103, Germany.

Abstract

Problems constitute the starting point of all scientific research. The essay reflects on the different kinds of problems that scientists address in their research and discusses a list of 10 problems for the field of computational historical linguistics, that was proposed throughout 2019 in a series of blog posts. In contrast to problems identified in different contexts, these problems were considered to be solvable, but no solution could be proposed back then. By discussing the problems in the light of developments that have been made in the field during the past five years, a modified list is proposed that takes new insights into account but also finds that the majority of the problems has not yet been solved.

Keywords: computational linguistics; historical linguistics; open problems; scientific problem solving.

Plain language summary

This essay elaborates on ten problems for the field of historical linguistics, dealing with the evolution of languages, which have so far not been solved. It is argued that the solution of these problems is possible, but that additional work is needed before breakthroughs can be made.

Grants and funding

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the [European Unions Horizon Europe research and innovation programme] (Grant agreement No. 101044282).