Frederic Blum

Lehrstuhl für Multilinguale Computerlinguistik

Curriculum vitae

seit 2022	Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am MPI-EVA in Leipzig
seit 2022	Doktorand an der Universität Passau
2019-2022	Master of Arts in Linguistik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Masterarbeit: "Initial lengthening of consonants in 25 typologically diverse languages"
2017-2018	Austauschstudent (DAAD Stipendium) an der Pontificia Universidad Católica del Peru
2015-2019	Bachelor of Arts an der Freien Universität Berlin in Sprache und Gesellschaft (Hauptfach) und Spanische Philologie (Nebenfach)

Publications

Blum, F., Barrientos, C., Zariquiey, R. & List, J-M. (2024). A comparative wordlist for investigating distant relations among languages in Lowland South America. Scientific Data, 11(92). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-02928-7

Blum, F., Barrientos, C., Ingunza, A., & Poirier, Z. (2023). A phylolinguistic classification of the Quechua language family. Indiana, 40(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.18441/ind.v40i1.29-54

Blum, F., & List, J.-M. (2023). Trimming phonetic alignments improves the inference of sound correspondence patterns from multilingual wordlists. In L. Beinborn, K. Goswami, S. Muradoğlu, A. Sorokin, R. Kumar, A. Scherbakov, E. M. Ponti, R. Cotterell, & E. Vylomova (Eds.), The 5th workshop on research in computational linguistic typology and multilingual NLP: proceedings of the workshop (pp. 52-64). Stroudsburg: Association for Computational Linguistics. https://aclanthology.org/2023.sigtyp-1.6/

Özsoy, O., & Blum, F. (2023). Exploring individual variation in Turkish heritage speakers’ complex linguistic productions: evidence from discourse markers (pp. 534-564). Applied Psycholinguistics, 44(4) . http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0142716423000267

Blum, F. (2022). Evaluating zero-shot transfers and multilingual models for dependency parsing and POS tagging within the low-resource language family Tupían. In Proceedings of the 60th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Student Research Workshop (pp. 1-9). Dublin: Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL). http://dx.doi.org/10.18653/v1/2022.acl-srw.1

Focus areas

Ich bin Doktorand in der Arbeitsgruppe “Computer-Assisted Language Comparison" (Universität Passau & MPI-EVA in Leipzig), wo ich die Geschichte und Diversität südamerikanisches Sprachen erforsche. Meine Doktorarbeit dreht sich vor allem um die Geschichte der Pano-Takana Sprachfamilie und ihr Verhältnis zu anderen Sprachen der Region. Methodologisch entwickel ich neue computationelle Methoden um die Regularität von Lautkorrespondenzen zu evaluieren und zu verbessern. Diese Techniken sollen die Analyse von Kognaten verbessern und so zu einer verbesserten Methodologie in der historischen Linguistik beitragen. Andere Forschungsschwerpunkte sind Bayesianische Statistik und Typologie.

I am a PhD student at the group for "Computer-Assisted Language Comparison", where I conduct research on the history and diversity of South American Languages. My main research topic is the history of the South American Pano-Takana language family and its relation with other language families of the area. Methodologically, I am developing computational methods to measure the regularity in linguistic reconstruction and cognate judgements. These methods are designed to improve cognate judgements and the methodological scrutiny which with we conduct historical language comparison. Other areas of interests are Bayesian statistics and linguistic typology.

Courses

Winter semester 2024/25

41623 Computergestützter Sprachvergleich

Publications from 2020

Miller, J., T. Tresoldi, R. Zariquiey, C. Beltrán Castañón, N. Morozova, and J.-M. List (2020): Using lexical language models to detect borrowings in monolingual wordlists. PLOS One 15.12. e0242709. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242709
Schweikhard, N. and J.-M. List (2020): Developing an annotation framework for word formation processes in comparative linguistics. SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics 17.1. 2-26. http://www.skase.sk/Volumes/JTL43/index.html
List, J.-M. (2020): Improving data handling and analysis in the study of rhyme patterns. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 49.1. 43-57. https://doi.org/10.1163/19606028-bja10004
Bodt, T. and J.-M. List (2020): The multiple benefits of making predictions in linguistics. Babel: The Language Magazine 31.2. 8-12. https://cloud.3dissue.com/18743/41457/106040/issue31may/
Wu, M.-S., N. Schweikhard, T. Bodt, N. Hill, and J.-M. List (2020): Computer-Assisted Language Comparison. State of the Art. Journal of Open Humanities Data 6.2. 1-14. https://doi.org/10.5334/johd.12
Forkel, R. and J.-M. List (2020): CLDFBench. Give your Cross-Linguistic data a lift. In: Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation. 6997-7004. http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2020/pdf/2020.lrec-1.864.pdf
Power, J., G. Grimm, and J.-M. List (2020): Evolutionary dynamics in the dispersal of sign languages. Royal Society Open Science 7.1. 1-30. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191100
Rzymski, C., T. Tresoldi, S. Greenhill, M. Wu, N. Schweikhard, M. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, V. Gast, T. Bodt, A. Hantgan, G. Kaiping, S. Chang, Y. Lai, N. Morozova, H. Arjava, N. Hübler, E. Koile, S. Pepper, M. Proos, B. Epps, I. Blanco, C. Hundt, S. Monakhov, K. Pianykh, S. Ramesh, R. Gray, R. Forkel, and J.-M. List (2020): The Database of Cross-Linguistic Colexifications, reproducible analysis of cross- linguistic polysemies. Scientific Data 7.13. 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-019-0341-x

Publications from 2019

Hill, N. and J.-M. List (2019): Using Chinese character formation graphs to test proposals in Chinese historical phonology. Bulletin of Chinese Linguistics 12.2. 186-200. https://doi.org/10.1163/2405478X-01202008
Jackson, J., J. Watts, T. Henry, J.-M. List, P. Mucha, R. Forkel, S. Greenhill, R. Gray, and K. Lindquist (2019): Emotion semantics show both cultural variation and universal structure. Science 366.6472. 1517-1522. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaw8160
List, J.-M. (2019): Beyond Edit Distances: Comparing linguistic reconstruction systems. Theoretical Linguistics 45.3-4. 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2019-0016
List, J.-M. (2019): Automated methods for the investigation of language contact situations, with a focus on lexical borrowing. Language and Linguistics Compass 13.e12355. 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1111/lnc3.12355
List, J.-M., N. Hill, and C. Foster (2019): Towards a standardized annotation of rhyme judgments in Chinese historical phonology (and beyond). Journal of Language Relationship 17.1. 26-43. https://doi.org/10.31826/jlr-2019-171-207
List, J.-M., Y. Lai, and G. Starostin (2019): Old Chinese and Friends: new approaches to historical linguistics of the Sino-Tibetan area. Journal of Language Relationship 17.1. 1-6. https://doi.org/10.31826/jlr-2019-171-204
Rama, T. and J.-M. List (2019): An automated framework for fast cognate detection and Bayesian phylogenetic inference in computational historical linguistics. In: 57th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics. Association for Computational Linguistics 6225–6235. https://doi.org/10.17617/2.3149452
Jacques, G. and J.-M. List (2019): Save the trees: Why we need tree models in linguistic reconstruction (and when we should apply them). Journal of Historical Linguistics 9.1. 128-166. https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.17008.mat
Bodt, T. and J.-M. List (2019): Testing the predictive strength of the comparative method: An ongoing experiment on unattested words in Western Kho-Bwa languages. Papers in Historical Phonology 4.1. 22-44. https://doi.org/10.2218/pihph.4.2019.3037
Sagart, L., G. Jacques, Y. Lai, R. Ryder, V. Thouzeau, S. Greenhill, and J.-M. List (2019): Dated language phylogenies shed light on the ancestry of Sino-Tibetan. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America 116. 10317-10322. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1817972116
List, J.-M. (2019): Automatic inference of sound correspondence patterns across multiple languages. Computational Linguistics 45.1. 137-161. http://doi.org/10.1162/coli_a_00344

Publications from 2018

Anderson, C., T. Tresoldi, T. Chacon, A.-M. Fehn, M. Walworth, R. Forkel, and J.-M. List (2018): A Cross-Linguistic Database of Phonetic Transcription Systems. Yearbook of the Poznań Linguistic Meeting 4.1. 21-53. https://doi.org/10.2478/yplm-2018-0002
List, J.-M. (2018): Towards a history of concept list compilation in historical linguistics. History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences 5.10. 1-14. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1474750
Forkel, R., J.-M. List, S. Greenhill, C. Rzymski, S. Bank, M. Cysouw, H. Hammarström, M. Haspelmath, G. Kaiping, and R. Gray (2018): Cross-Linguistic Data Formats, advancing data sharing and re-use in comparative linguistics. Scientific Data 5.180205. 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2018.205
List, J.-M., S. Greenhill, C. Anderson, T. Mayer, T. Tresoldi, and R. Forkel (2018): CLICS². An improved database of cross-linguistic colexifications assembling lexical data with help of cross-linguistic data formats. Linguistic Typology 22.2. 277-306. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2018-0010
List, J.-M., M. Walworth, S. Greenhill, T. Tresoldi, and R. Forkel (2018): Sequence comparison in computational historical linguistics. Journal of Language Evolution 3.2. 130–144. https://doi.org/10.1093/jole/lzy006
Jäger, G. and J.-M. List (2018): Using ancestral state reconstruction methods for onomasiological reconstruction in multilingual word lists. Language Dynamics and Change 8.1. 22-54. https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00801002
Rama, T., J.-M. List, J. Wahle, and G. Jäger (2018): Are automatic methods for cognate detection good enough for phylogenetic reconstruction in historical linguistics?. In: Proceedings of the North American Chapter of the Association of Computational Linguistics. 393-400. http://aclweb.org/anthology/N18-2063
List, J.-M. (2018): Ho well do automatic methods for language comparison work?. Latest Thinking 4.3. LTPUB10576. https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB10576
List, J.-M. (2018): More on Network Approaches in Historical Chinese Phonology (音韵学). In: The 2nd Li Fang-Kuei Society Young Scholars Symposium. 157-174. https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01706927v2/document

Chair for Multilingual Computational Linguistics