Balthasar Bickel is a linguist studying the diversification of languages and the mechanisms that constrain it. His research combines comparisons of grammars, lexicons and text corpus resources with experimental methods including electroencephalography and eye tracking. He describes these as complementary approaches to language change and its biological foundations.[ref]
Research profile by Balthasar Bickel. research statement, comparative models and experimental methods
The combination illustrates two different sources of evidence. Comparing documented syntactic dependencies across languages can reveal recurring patterns; an experiment can instead hold an input contrast fixed and measure processing in participants. These are examples of the questions those methods can address, rather than findings inferred from a biography.
Balthasar Bickel also co-developed the Leipzig Glossing Rules by Bernard Comrie and others with Bernard Comrie and Martin Haspelmath. Their shared conventions make linguistic annotation easier to compare while leaving grammatical analysis open to argument.[ref]
Leipzig Glossing Rules by Bernard Comrie and others. About the rules, developer credit and distinction between convention and analysis
Portrait of Balthasar Bickel
. Photograph linked from his official institutional profile. New to topics? Read the docs here!