Diachronic Linguistics in the 21st Century (2027 Version)

Language evolution at the crossroads of AI, computation, and theory: an interdisciplinary programme which combines theoretical historical linguistics with AI, computational modelling, and digital methods. It treats them as complementary (not alternative) approaches to the study of language change.

Where computation meets language history: participants work with machine learning algorithms, statistical models, and digital tools that are reshaping what we can do in historical linguistics. The programme goes beyond traditional approaches and uses large historical datasets and contemporary AI in linguistic research.

Where theory meets empirical practice: alongside the computational training, the programme offers in-depth engagement with theoretical historical linguistics. Participants follow lectures and seminars on the major frameworks of contemporary diachronic linguistics, including:

• Comparative and historical syntax across Indo-European and other language families
• Grammaticalization and constructional change
• Contact-induced change and theories of language contact
• Diachronic phonology, morphology, semantics, and pragmatics
• Reconstruction methods and the philological tradition behind the data

At the centre of the programme: hands-on AI and digital projects: participants work on small-scale linguistic and computational historical linguistic projects that bring them into current digital humanities research. Tools and methods covered include:

• Natural language processing tools for historical texts
• Statistical modelling of language change patterns
• AI-assisted analysis of linguistic evolution, including large language models for low-resource and historical varieties
• Digital corpus creation and annotation

Methodological focus: through intensive project work, participants build expertise in the methodology of describing, analysing, and explaining grammar and language development using:

• Computational parsing techniques
• Machine learning for pattern recognition in historical data
• Network analysis for tracking linguistic diffusion
• Quantitative methods for modelling language change

Digital tools, concrete results: the programme covers the intersection of digital heritage databases, computational linguistics, and AI technologies. Participants learn to turn historical texts into structured data, and to study linguistic change at scale.

The Programme prepares participants to contribute to current research in historical linguistics, where contemporary theoretical frameworks meet computational and AI tools, where algorithms work alongside philological evidence, and where long-standing questions about language change are addressed with new methods and new evidence.

The course is designed for students interested in language change and in current methods used to study it. Participants come from a range of backgrounds across the humanities, social sciences, and computer science, and no prior computational experience is assumed.

Before the start of the virtual component, registered participants receive a short reading list and a guide to the digital tools used during the programme. Access to a shared workspace and to the materials is provided through the CIVIS Moodle and a dedicated repository for each working group.

Working language across all sessions is English. The level of language required is B2.

Group work is at the heart of the programme. Students are assigned to small cross-institutional teams shortly after the start of the virtual component. The teams remain stable across both components and are the basis for all joint deliverables.

Participants who require academic recognition of 6 ECTS at their home university are advised to confirm the recognition procedure with their local academic and Erasmus+ offices well before the start of the BIP.

For questions about content, the coordinator can be reached at nlavidas@enl.uoa.gr. For administrative and mobility questions, please contact the local CIVIS office and the Erasmus+ office at your home university.

Contemporary theoretical frameworks for diachronic linguistics. Comparative and historical syntax across Indo-European and other language families, grammaticalization, constructional change, contact-induced change, formal models of reanalysis, and the dialogue between theory-driven and data-driven approaches.

Historical phonology, morphology, semantics, and pragmatics. The traditional core of historical linguistics, approached through both the philological tradition and current quantitative tools.

Computational historical linguistics: from texts to grammars. Working with historical corpora (annotation, parsing, alignment), processing pre-modern and non-standard writing systems, and extracting linguistic structure with NLP tools and current language models.

Large language models and historical text analysis: opportunities and limits. Critical use of large language models for working with low-resource and historical varieties, what they can and cannot reveal, data curation, and benchmarking.

Quantitative and probabilistic methods for language change. Statistical modelling of change-in-progress, network analyses of contact and diffusion, agent-based simulations, computational phylogenetics, and quantitative typology applied diachronically.

Joint, cross-institutional research practice. Designing reproducible analyses, working with shared infrastructure, and producing collaborative outputs across the CIVIS network.

By the end of the programme, students will be able to:

• discuss current theoretical frameworks for describing and explaining language change, including comparative and historical work across major language families, theories of grammaticalization, and accounts of contact-induced change;
• describe and apply contemporary quantitative and computational methods used in diachronic linguistics, including corpus annotation, parsing of historical texts, and the use of large language models for low-resource and historical varieties;
• read and critically discuss recent research in diachronic linguistics, including work that combines formal, functional, and computational perspectives;
• design a small empirical study on a question of language change, in collaboration with peers from at least two different partner universities;
• document and share their work in a reproducible form, using shared infrastructure and accepted conventions for data and code;
• discuss the limits as well as the strengths of contemporary computational tools applied to historical material, and the continuing role of the philological tradition.

You won't just study language change, you'll master the digital and methodologies that are revolutionizing how we decode linguistic development.

The physical mobility component takes place from 19 to 23 July 2027 at the venue of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens summer programme in Naxos, Cyclades. The five-day intensive event follows the format of the Naxos summer school on diachronic linguistics, which has been hosted annually since 2016.

General structure of each teaching day (Monday to Friday)

• 09:00 onwards: light refreshments at the venue
• 09:00 - 10:10: specialised lecture (multi-part series across the week)
• 10:15 - 11:05: intensive course session
• 11:10 - 12:00: intensive course session
• 12:05 - 13:15: specialised lecture
• 13:15 - 14:15: light lunch on-site, with an optional voluntary poster session
• 14:20 - 15:10: intensive course session
• 15:15 - 16:05: intensive course session
• 16:10 - 17:00: intensive course session
• 17:05 - 18:15: specialised lecture
• 18:20 - 19:30: specialised lecture
• 19:35 - 20:45: specialised lecture or open discussion
• evening: cultural programme (heritage tour, traditional dinner, regional produce tasting, farewell reception).

Thematic strands

Five-session intensive tracks running across the week. Participants compose their own selection:

• Comparative and diachronic syntax of major language families
• Formal modelling of the dynamics of language change
• Phylogenetic and quantitative methods in historical linguistics
• The rise of pragmatic markers and theories of pragmaticalization
• Computational modelling of semantic change, with embedding-based and large-corpus approaches
• Large language models and current NLP methods for historical and low-resource varieties
• Treebanks, parsed corpora, and reproducible analysis of pre-modern texts
• Diachronic typology and quantitative cross-linguistic comparison
• Historical sociolinguistics, variation, and change in past speech communities

Specialised lecture series

Multi-part lectures distributed across the week. Participants choose freely:

• Diachrony of indefiniteness, quantification, and free-choice expressions
• Diachrony of negation and the negative cycle across families
• Digital humanities, digital philology, and future directions in linguistic research
• Diachronic pragmatics and the emergence of discourse markers
• Cyclical processes in language change
• Comparative Germanic and the place of English in diachronic perspective
• Case syncretism in classical and post-classical Greek
• Modality through diachronic and computational lenses
• Forecasting and modelling the propagation of change in speech communities
• Locative, motion, and posture verbs from Latin to the Romance languages
• Transitivity, voice, and argument structure in the history of Greek
• Diachronic phonology and the modelling of sound change
• Grammaticalization and constructional change
• Reconstruction methods and computational phylogenetics
• AI-assisted restoration, dating, and attribution of historical and damaged texts
• Stylometry and authorship attribution across historical corpora
• Manuscript studies, digital palaeography, and OCR for non-standard scripts
• Word embeddings, vector semantics, and diachronic word-sense disambiguation
• Bayesian inference and probabilistic models in historical linguistics
• Pre-modern multilingualism and contact-induced change
• Ancient writing systems and what they can and cannot tell us
• Information structure and word order through time
• Closing reflection: diachronic linguistics today and tomorrow

Opening and closing

• Sunday 18 July - evening (optional): Welcome reception and an invited talk on open science, open-access infrastructure, and diamond open access for linguistics.
• Friday 23 July - late afternoon: Closing roundtable and farewell reception.

Attendance and workload

Participants compose their own programme from the offered tracks and lectures. There is no fixed itinerary. The minimum attendance required for ECTS credit is 50% of the offered sessions. Total physical contact time is approximately 40 hours over five days, complementing the virtual component for a full course load of 165 hours and 6 ECTS.

Mobility support

Selected mobile students from CIVIS partner universities are supported by an Erasmus+ grant that covers travel and accommodation.

Selected students will be supported by a grant for physical mobility to Greece.

Why Naxos, Cyclades? Experience the perfect fusion of historical depth and technological innovation, where the island's rich linguistic heritage enhances your understanding of language evolution through the ages.

The virtual part of the BIP will take place between 19 April - 30 May 2027 and consists of two phases: 

Phase 1: Intensive Digital Foundations (19-23 April 2027) Immerse yourself in a week of cutting-edge instruction combining:

• Computational Historical Linguistics Intensive - master AI-powered tools for linguistic analysis
• Expert-Led Lectures - learn from pioneers in digital humanities and language evolution
• Interactive Masterclasses - develop advanced methodological skills for describing, analyzing, and explaining language change through computational approaches

Phase 2: Applied Project Work (May 2027) Put theory into practice through hands-on digital workshops featuring:

• Collaborative Online Workshops (dates TBA) – work directly with instructors and peers;
• 'From Texts to Grammar' Mini-Projects - apply computational tools to real historical texts;
• Build custom NLP pipelines for historical language processing;
• Create digital grammatical models from raw textual data;
• Use machine learning to track linguistic patterns across centuries;
• Develop your own computational analysis of language development.

Flexible Learning Format: All virtual sessions are designed for interactive engagement, combining synchronous workshops with asynchronous project development, ensuring deep learning regardless of your time zone.

Assessment is collaborative and project-based. No presentations are required. No individual papers and no examinations. All deliverables are joint and practical. Two completion tracks are offered, depending on attendance.

Minimum attendance for ECTS credit: 50% across virtual and physical components combined.

Track A (full attendance - at least 75%) deliverables:

• Joint group project. A small collaborative output produced with peers from at least two different partner universities. The form is flexible and is chosen by the group. It may take the shape of a short co-authored note, a shared dataset, a reproducible notebook, an annotated corpus sample, or a methodological infographic.
• Joint quizzes. Short collaborative quizzes during selected sessions, answered as a team. They are formative and are not graded individually.

Track B (reduced attendance - between 50% and 75%) deliverables:

• Joint group project (identical to Track A) - the core deliverable for everyone and is the same for both tracks.
• Joint quizzes - same format as Track A, with a slightly higher number of quizzes covering the sessions that were missed.
• One joint practical task - a small hands-on exercise completed in pairs. The output is shared, not individual.

Common to both tracks:

• everything is joint. Cross-institutional collaboration is required for the project. Quizzes and the practical task are answered or completed in teams;
• no presentations are required;
• no individual papers, no individual exercises, no individual examinations;
• a voluntary, ungraded poster session takes place during the lunch hour. It is open to anyone who wishes to share work informally;
• pass or fail per the coordinating institution's rules, with qualitative feedback.

6 ECTS are awarded upon successful completion of either track.

Motivation Letter

CV

Required Documents: 

• Curriculum Vitae (CV) 
• Letter of Motivation (500-750 words) 

Student applications will be evaluated based on:

• clear articulation of interest in language change and digital humanities
• alignment with applicant's academic trajectory and career aspirations

• relevant academic preparation from any humanities or social sciences field
• demonstrated capacity for critical thinking and research

• openness to cross-disciplinary learning
• appreciation for collaborative, international learning environments

• unique perspectives that enrich collective learning
• communication skills adequate for international collaboration

• Nikolaos Lavidas is Professor of Diachronic Linguistics at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Department of Language-Linguistics, Faculty of English, School of Philosophy). His research covers a range of topics associated with Indo-European historical linguistics and the directions of language change (in particular the development of transitivity and voice in Indo-European languages), syntax-semantics interface, (historical) language contact and historical corpora.
  
• Antonio R. Revuelta Puigdollers is Associate Professor of Ancient and Modern Greek at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and a sworn translator of Modern Greek. His main research areas are the semantics, syntax and pragmatics of Greek; his work also includes incursions into other languages such as Latin. He is the co-author of a new syntax of Ancient Greek and has authored several entries in Brill’s Encyclopaedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics.
• Katrin Axel-Tober is Professor of German Linguistics at the University of Tübingen, Germany. Her research focuses on the synchronic and diachronic syntax of German. She has published the books Studies on Old High German Syntax: Left Sentence Periphery, Verb Placement and Verb-Second (Benjamins, 2007) and (Nicht-)kanonische Nebensätze im Deutschen: Synchrone und diachrone Aspekte (Walter de Gruyter, 2012) as well as several articles on sentence structure, complementizers, null subjects, and modal verbs.
• Artemij Keidan is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the Italian Institute of Oriental Studies, Sapienza Università di Roma. His main areas of expertise include the history of grammatical thought, Indo-European morphology, philosophy of language, and issues in syntax and phonology, both general and applied to ancient (such as Sanskrit, Latin, Gothic, Slavic languages) and modern languages.
• Flavia Pompeo is Associate Professor of Historical and General Linguistics at the Department of Letters and modern Cultures (Dipartimento di Lettere e Culture moderne), Sapienza Università di Roma. Her research interests focus on historical linguistics, historical sociolinguistics and cognitive linguistics, and, in particular, on topics regarding the morphosyntax and semantics of Ancient Greek and Old Iranian.
• Joanna Kopaczyk is Professor in Scots and English (English Language & Linguistics) at the University of Glasgow. She is a historical linguist with a special interest in the medieval and early modern history of the Scots language. She uses corpus-driven methods to uncover textual standardisation and she is also interested in formulaicity in language, as revealed through all kinds of repetitive patterns. She has recently co-edited books on Applications of Pattern-Driven Methods in Corpus Linguistics (John Benjamins, 2018) and on Binomials in the History of English (Cambridge University Press, 2017).
• Adina Dragomirescu is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Bucharest (Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Letters) and Senior Researcher at (as well as and head of) the “Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” Institute of Linguistics (Romanian Academy). Her main research areas are Romanian and Romance Syntax, historical syntax, and language contact. She wrote two single-authored books (on unaccusative verbs in Romanian, and on the Romanian supine), and she contributed to collective works such as: The Oxford History of Romanian Morphology (2021), The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages (2016), The Cambridge Handbook of Romance Linguistics (2022), The [Oxford] Grammar of Romanian (2013), The [Oxford] Syntax of old Romanian (2016).
• Alexandru Nicolae is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Bucharest (Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Letters) and Researcher at the “Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” Institute of Linguistics (Romanian Academy). His research focuses on comparative and diachronic linguistics, and covers a range of topics associated with Romanian, the Romance languages and the Balkan Sprachbund (e.g., grammaticalization, language contact, word order, definiteness, cliticization, genitives, etc.). Nicolae contributed to reference works like The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages (2016), The Cambridge Handbook of Romance Linguistics (2022), The [Oxford] Grammar of Romanian (2013), The [Oxford] Syntax of old Romanian (2016), and published three single-authored monographs, two of which are devoted to word order change and other diachronic phenomena in Romanian.
• Ljuba Veselinova is a Professor of Linguistics at Stockholm University, Sweden. Her main interests lie in linguistic typology, the shaping of grammar and lexicon via processes of grammaticalization and lexicalization, numerical concepts and their linguistic expressions, and cyclical processes in language change. She has done extensive work on exceptions to morphological patterns, e.g. suppletion, on negation, specifically, its lexical encoding and independence as a functional domain and also on the evolution of negation and lexical restructuring as a cyclical process. Another prominent direction in her research is language as a geographical phenomenon and the use of Geographical Information Systems for language studies and linguistic cartography. She is also interested in language documentation and description and the use of technology in these domains. She has contributed to projects such as the World Atlas of Language Structures (2005), ed, M. Haspelmath, M. Dryer, D. Gil, B. Comrie, Oxford University Press, and likewise the online edition, https://wals.info (2013), EMELD and LL-Map. As an MA student in the US, she was the first student editor of the LINGUIST List.
• Matthias Heinz: Dean - Kulturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät - Paris Lodron University of Salzburg. Scholar in Romance philology and linguistics, research experience in the fields of lexicology and lexicography, language contact, phonological/prosodic and grammatical typology of the Romance languages, historical linguistics; research, publications and teaching encompassing Italian, French and Spanish linguistics.
• Linda Pillière is Professor of English Language and Linguistics at Aix-Marseille Université. Her main fields of research are in language diversity and change and especially intralingual translation, prescriptivism and stylistics. She is co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Intralingual Translation (2023) and Standardising English: Norms and Margins in the History of the English Language (Cambridge University Press, 2018) has publised a single-authored monograph Intralingual Translation of British Novels: A Multimodal Stylistic Perspective (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021). She has also contributed to various volumes such as Language in Place: Stylistic Perspectives on Landscape, Place and Environment (John Benjamins, 2021), Language Prescription: Values, Ideologies and Identity (Multilingual ,2020) and The Bloomsbury Companion to Stylistics (Bloomsbury Press, 2016).

Blended Intensive Programme

This CIVIS course is a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP): a new format of Erasmus+ mobility which combines online teaching with a short trip to another campus to learn alongside students and professors across Europe.

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*cover image: Sunset at the Portara of Naxos. Photo by Manfred Werner (Tsui), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.