This week I’m in Lyon at the Association for Linguistic Typology conference! I’m presenting two papers that both revolve around a question that has fascinated me for a long time: how much languages leave unsaid—and why.
The first paper is the result of a wonderful collaboration with colleagues from around the world. Together, we’ve annotated texts in nine languages for the implicit and explicit expression of Agents and Time. One of the things I find most exciting is that the patterns we uncover don’t fit neatly into familiar ideas about “high-context” versus “low-context” cultures. Languages differ in ways that are more nuanced, inviting us to rethink how culture and grammar interact.
In my second paper, I explore how listeners and readers work out “who did what to whom”. Using corpora from 56 languages and varieties, I look at the correlations and causal relationships between subject omission, high- and low-context culture, case marking, word order flexibility and verb-final order. The analysis points towards an important conclusion: if we want to understand implicitness, culture belongs in the model alongside grammar.
Both talks are part of a broader research direction I’ve been working on for a long time and am very excited about: a usage-based, gradient approach to typology, where language structure, discourse, and culture are seen as shaping one another.
Conference website: https://alt-2026.sciencesconf.org/