iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Enjoying "Grammaticalization" in Montpellier: grmzion-dc-xg26.sciencesconf.org My presentation handout is here: zenodo.org/records/2309...

061

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Good to see that the GOLD Ontology is online again – but how stable are the URLs? Does it make sense to link from the Grammaticon to the GOLD Ontology? static.vocabs.clariah.nl/docs/gold/20...

020

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Can typological grammar-surveying be automatized? Four years ago, I was at a workshop in Uppsala, where a "grammar-reading machine" was discussed (spraakbanken.gu.se/en/projects/...). Now it seems that LLMs can do the job (arxiv.org/abs/2609.07791), so what is left for human typologists?

152

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Version 1.1. of the Grammaticon is now online. I keep working on it, but finding good definitions is often hard. For 138 of the 516 concepts, the definition is still preliminary (indicated by [[...]]). Suggestions are welcome! grammaticon.clld.org/concepts

0149

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

The physical copy of the book has arrived (www.degruyterbrill.com/de/document/... – congratulations to the editors, Piotr Sobotka and Dominika Skrzypek, on a great volume following the wonderful 2024 SLE workshop in Helsinki. (My paper is here: zenodo.org/records/2125...)

050

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

100 years of the "morph(eme)" – Bloomfield's foundational article came out in September 1926. dlc.hypotheses.org/4485

03317

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Looking forward to the LSA Institute at the University of Oregon (Eugene) next summer: center.uoregon.edu/LSA/2027/

050

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

What exactly is "colexification"? This was recently asked by List et al. (calc.hypotheses.org/9547) Here is my blogpost addressing this point: dlc.hypotheses.org/4439

183

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Grammaticalization and DCxG" in Montpellier (October 2026): The conference programme is now available: grmzion-dc-xg26.sciencesconf.org/%22

030

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

"Extravagance" in language change has made it into the New York Times, and John McWhorter even includes a link to my 1999 article on the irreversibility of grammaticalization (www.nytimes.com/.../gen-z-sp...). The basic idea ("Talk in such a way that you are noticed") comes from Keller's 1994 book.

071

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Maybe I have misunderstood the role of functional heads in mainstream generative syntax, but if they are intended as hypotheses, or together as a theory, then this theory should be empirically verifiable – as I discuss in this forthcoming paper: ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010....

0101

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

In September 2024, Gilles Authier organized a great workshop on the diachrony of flagging at the Collège de France in Paris. My contribution is now available on Lingbuzz: ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010...

030

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

"Reconciling the Saussure brothers" – plenary talk at IMM 22 in Budapest (nytud.hu/esemeny/22nd...). The presentation is here: zenodo.org/records/2076...

092

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

"CLDF Meta" (meta.clld.org) links to data from over 800 CLDF datasets that have been released on Zenodo (e.g. WALS, APiCS and Grambank). There are links to data on over 9000 languoids, e.g. 98 entries on Ambulas (to take a random language). Great work by my colleague Johannes Englisch!

02811

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Thanks to Ryan Nefdt for inviting me to contribute to this work on "philosophy of linguistics"! global.oup.com/academic/pro... In this paper, I note that in generative as well as in other work, most of the progress seems to have been made by adding breadth, not depth: ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/008...

072

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

This is a clear tendency: While the 1990s saw the peak of generative comparative syntax (or g-syntax), the last two decades have been dominated by analyses of particular phenomena in individual languages (p-syntax) – with limited repercussions on general theories. sites.google.com/view/salzbur...

162

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

I'm not sure if I like this militaristic design, but the OLH's cause is a just one, I think. There's no reason why academic publishing should work like commercial publishing. www.openlibhums.org/news/932/

061

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Languagehat.com is an interesting blog with much discussion worth looking at. They recently discussed my "Grammaticon", and Eddyshaw's question is a good one: languagehat.com/the-grammati... The answer is that comparative-concept definitions must be sharp, but descriptive categories are different.

030

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Diana Forker talks about linguistic diversity in the Caucasus www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3Qo...

082

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Podcast interview with Anna Wierzbicka (*1938), where she talks about her view of semantics, and how it all began: In Moscow in 1964, where she met Igor Mel'čuk and Yuri Apresjan. hiphilangsci.net/2026/04/15/p...

0175

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

A new version (2.0) of Frank Seifart's Affix Borrowing database, now co-authored with Francesco Gardani: afbo.info

01916

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Version 1.0 of the Grammaticon is now online! This has been in the making for over eight years. Quite a few of the entries are still preliminary, but I hope to expand and improve it over the coming months and years. Comments are welcome! An intro text is here: dlc.hypotheses.org/4316

16321

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Scientists are respected for their rigorous thinking and consistency. Four years ago, the Max Planck Society issued a statement against an illegal war (www.mpg.de/18354975/sta...). For consistency, I would now like to see an updated statement, because we want to be widely respected.

081

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

Bernd Kortmann's adverbial-subordinator data from his 1997 book are now part of the CrossGram database: all 2063 adverbial subordinators from 52 European languages (crossgram.clld.org/contribution...) plus 32 core meanings treated as language parameters + maps (crossgram.clld.org/contribution...)

071

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Bonmann, Riesberg and Himmelmann (2025) on DOM in Western Malayo-Polynesian (www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/lingty-2024-0002/html) – the dataset is now available in CrossGram: crossgram.clld.org/contribution...

042

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

A wonderful new resource: "The Balkan Linguistic Area" (ed. by E. Adamou & A. Sobolev: www.degruyterbrill.com/.../10.../97...) – dozens of linguistic features with areal maps. Inspired by our APiCS database (balcanica.rs/index.php/jo...), and also available as an online database: abla.cnrs.fr

2218

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

My indefinite-pronoun data from 1997 are now part of the CrossGram database – not the well-known "implicational maps" (as CrossGram does not store images), but all 140 indefinite pronoun markers from the core set of 40 languages (crossgram.clld.org/contribution...), plus all 433 glossed examples.

051

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

Edward Gibson's new book has arrived on my desk – 350 pages on cognitively-oriented dependency syntax from MIT Press! mitpress.mit.edu/978026255357... For me, this is an exciting development, as I came to love dependency syntax in the 1980s, through European authors such as Tesnière and Mel'čuk.

3154

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 17/01/2026

New paper (open access): revistes.uab.cat/isogloss/art...

0103

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Biases are everywhere. We really need to work hard to avoid them – not only our political biases, but also our biases toward a particular favoured theory. www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....

092

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

New CrossGram contribution by Kumari Mamta: Special numerals in South Asian languages. crossgram.clld.org/contribution...

142

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

The replication/reproducibility crisis is hitting biologists... www.science.org/content/arti...

140

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Congratulations to my Leipzig colleague Lars Meyer on being awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant ("Language in Balance: an Imprint of Brain Electrophysiology? (BALANG)”) cbs.mpg.de/2425446/2025...

150

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

Conference (Valenciennes) "La possession et ses expressions" (possession.sciencesconf.org/resource/pag...). My handout (invited talk) is here: zenodo.org/records/1779...

030

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

A brief summary of Verkerk et al. (2025) (the Grambank universals paper): www.nature.com/articles/s41...

041

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Morphology conference rescheduled (because the original date collided with the Champions League final): nytud.hu/esemeny/22nd...

042

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

New paper on back-formation and "forward-formation": If one takes the right view of the inventorium (or "extended lexicon"), there is no distinction between "potential words" and "existing words", and the problems with "back-formation" disappear. www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/...

0153

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

It's striking how good AI assistants are at reading linguistics texts. I couldn't have explained the neologism "synexpression" better. In fact, saying that synexpression is about bundling, while coexpression is about sharing is perhaps better than anything I have said. (ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/007...)

050

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

What is a “copula”, and what is “predicative inflection”? This new blogpost continues the comparison between the comparative concepts of Creissels et al. (2026) (in Bertinetto et al. 2026) and those of Haspelmath (2025): dlc.hypotheses.org/3865

031

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

Many thanks to Lilián Guerrero for inviting me to give lectures at UNAM in Mexico City! (The lecture materials are here: zenodo.org/records/1743...)

1133

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

Bertinetto, Ciucci and Creissels just published a fantastic new cross-linguistic handbook. But I have some critical comments on their introductory chapter. It turns out that it's not so easy to say what exactly is "nonverbal predication". dlc.hypotheses.org/3832

173

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

My paper on two types of comparative concepts (construction-functions and construction-strategies) is now published: langsci-press.org/catalog/book...

071

Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

RIP Peter Eisenberg (1940-2025), syntactician of German, phonologist, orthography specialist, and very public linguist (who was not afraid of controversies). He was my second PhD advisor in 1990-93, and an important person in my life during those years at FU Berlin. de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_E...

0239