Open Problems in Computational Historical Linguistics

Abstract

Problems constitute the starting point of all scientific research. The essay reflects on the different kinds of problems that scientists address in their research and discusses a list of 10 problems for the field of computational historical linguistics, that was proposed throughout 2019 in a series of blog posts. In contrast to problems identified in different contexts, these problems were considered to be solvable, but no solution could be proposed back then. By discussing the problems in the light of developments that have been made in the field during the past five years, a modified list is proposed that takes new insights into account but also finds that the majority of the problems has not yet been solved.

Plain language summary

This essay elaborates on ten problems for the field of historical linguistics, dealing with the evolution of languages, which have so far not been solved. It is argued that the solution of these problems is possible, but that additional work is needed before breakthroughs can be made.