Martin Haspelmath
@haspelmath.bsky.social
comparative linguist, MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig); https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath
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...)
February 7, 2026 at 11:43 AM
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...)
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...
January 30, 2026 at 12:02 PM
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...
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
January 28, 2026 at 7:12 PM
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
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.
January 23, 2026 at 2:49 PM
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.
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.
January 22, 2026 at 5:27 PM
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.
New paper (open access): revistes.uab.cat/isogloss/art...
January 17, 2026 at 5:03 PM
New paper (open access): revistes.uab.cat/isogloss/art...
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....
January 7, 2026 at 8:37 PM
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....
New CrossGram contribution by Kumari Mamta: Special numerals in South Asian languages. crossgram.clld.org/contribution...
December 22, 2025 at 2:32 PM
New CrossGram contribution by Kumari Mamta: Special numerals in South Asian languages. crossgram.clld.org/contribution...
The replication/reproducibility crisis is hitting biologists... www.science.org/content/arti...
December 9, 2025 at 4:37 PM
The replication/reproducibility crisis is hitting biologists... www.science.org/content/arti...
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...
December 9, 2025 at 3:33 PM
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...
Conference (Valenciennes) "La possession et ses expressions" (possession.sciencesconf.org/resource/pag...). My handout (invited talk) is here: zenodo.org/records/1779...
December 4, 2025 at 10:42 AM
Conference (Valenciennes) "La possession et ses expressions" (possession.sciencesconf.org/resource/pag...). My handout (invited talk) is here: zenodo.org/records/1779...
November 27, 2025 at 2:57 PM
A brief summary of Verkerk et al. (2025) (the Grambank universals paper): www.nature.com/articles/s41...
November 27, 2025 at 2:32 PM
A brief summary of Verkerk et al. (2025) (the Grambank universals paper): www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Morphology conference rescheduled (because the original date collided with the Champions League final):
nytud.hu/esemeny/22nd...
nytud.hu/esemeny/22nd...
November 26, 2025 at 8:56 AM
Morphology conference rescheduled (because the original date collided with the Champions League final):
nytud.hu/esemeny/22nd...
nytud.hu/esemeny/22nd...
November 20, 2025 at 11:07 AM
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/...
November 11, 2025 at 9:08 PM
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/...
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...)
November 4, 2025 at 11:36 AM
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...)
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
October 28, 2025 at 11:26 AM
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
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...)
October 25, 2025 at 9:58 PM
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...)
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
October 15, 2025 at 4:38 AM
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
My paper on two types of comparative concepts (construction-functions and construction-strategies) is now published: langsci-press.org/catalog/book...
October 1, 2025 at 1:48 PM
My paper on two types of comparative concepts (construction-functions and construction-strategies) is now published: langsci-press.org/catalog/book...
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...
September 28, 2025 at 2:26 PM
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...
September 23, 2025 at 3:47 PM
September 13, 2025 at 3:10 PM
September 12, 2025 at 1:13 PM