I am a senior researcher in the Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution at the University of Zurich, where I lead the Quantitative Diachronic Linguistics group and am Principal Investigator of the Swiss National Science Foundation grant “Evolving Paradigms: Quantitative and Computational Approaches to Analogical Change.”
Broadly speaking, my research interests revolve around language change.
I am interested in the pressures that interact to shape the synchronic profiles of languages, and use a wide range of tools in my approach to these issues.
My research program is twofold: on one hand, I ask how we can refine our understanding of relatedness among languages, using tools from computational biology, deep learning, and other probabilistically oriented fields.
Second, with representations of phylogenetic relatedness in hand, I attempt to learn more about the dynamics of language change across linguistic features and across different sociolinguistic, environmental and cultural milieux.
A large part of my work involves developing probabilistic models that flexible enough to address a wide range of questions of interest to diachronic linguists and linguists more generally.
Code related to various projects I am working on can be found at my GitHub page, and I can be reached via email at firstname dot lastname at uzh.ch.
2025. Good enough for Galton, and much more: Commentary on Becker & Guzmán Naranjo. Linguistic Typology 19:559–562.
2025. Christian Ebert, Chundra Cathcart, Balthasar Bickel, and Paul Widmer. Usage-based evolutionary models reveal context-specific word order change in Indo-European. Language Dynamics and Change 15:1–35.
2025. Cormac Anderson, [...], Chundra Cathcart, [...], et al. The Indo-European Cognate Relationships dataset. Scientific Data 12:1541.
2024. Alexandra Bosshard, Judith Burkart, Paola Merlo, Chundra Cathcart, Simon Townsend, and Balthasar Bickel. Beyond bigrams: call sequencing in the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) vocal system. Royal Society Open Science 11:240218.
2024. Review of Frederik Hartmann: Germanic phylogeny. Folia Linguistica 45(1):325–330.
2024. Multiple evolutionary pressures shape identical consonant avoidance in the world's languages. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121(27):e2316677121.
2023. Borja Herce and Chundra Cathcart. Short vs long stem alternations in Romance verbal inflection: the S-morphome. Transactions of the Philological Society 00:1–30.
2022. Dialectal Layers in West Iranian: a Hierarchical Dirichlet Process Approach to Linguistic Relationships. Transactions of the Philological Society 00:1–31.
2021. Gerd Carling and Chundra Cathcart. Reconstructing the evolution of Indo-European grammar. Language 97:1–38.
2021. Gerd Carling and Chundra Cathcart. Evolutionary dynamics of Indo-European alignment patterns. Diachronica 38:358–412.
2020. Chundra Cathcart, Andreas Hölzl, Gerhard Jäger, Paul Widmer and Balthasar Bickel. Numeral classifiers and number marking in Indo-Iranian: a phylogenetic approach. Language Dynamics and Change.
2020. A probabilistic assessment of the Indo-Aryan Inner-Outer Hypothesis. Journal of Historical Linguistics 10:42–86.
2018. Modeling linguistic evolution: a look under the hood. Linguistics Vanguard.
2018. Chundra Cathcart, Gerd Carling, Filip Larsson, Niklas Johansson and Erich Round. Areal pressure in grammatical evolution: An Indo-European case study. Diachronica 35:1–34.
2018. Gerd Carling, Filip Larsson, Chundra Cathcart, Niklas Johansson, Arthur Holmer, Erich Round, and Rob Verhoeven. Diachronic Atlas of Comparative Linguistics (DiACL) — A database for ancient language typology. PLoS ONE 13 10:e0205313.
2015. Degrees of irregular change: phonological reduction and grammatical convergence in West Iranian. Language Dynamics and Change 5.2:282–308.
2015. William Chang, Chundra Cathcart, David Hall and Andrew Garrett. Ancestry-constrained phylogenetic analysis supports the Indo-European steppe hypothesis. Language 91.1:194–244. Reprinted in The Best of Language: Volume III.
2024. Chundra Cathcart and Gerhard Jäger. Exploring the evolutionary dynamics of sound symbolism. In In L. K Samuelson, S. L. Frank, M. Toneva, A. Mackey, and E. Hazeltine (eds.), Proceedings of the 46th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, pp. 1076–1083.
2024. Alexandru Craevschi, Sarah Babinski and Chundra Cathcart. Finding proportionality in computational approaches to morphological change. In Nölle, J et al. (eds.), The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference (Evolang XV).
2023. The evolution of similarity avoidance: a phylogenetic approach to phonotactic change. In Noah Elkins, Bruce Hayes, Jinyoung Jo and Jian-Leat Siah (eds.), Proceedings of the 2022 Annual Meeting on Phonology, pp. 1–12. Linguistic Society of America.
2022. Chundra Cathcart, Borja Herce and Balthasar Bickel. Decoupling speed of change and long-term preference in language evolution: insights from Romance verb stem alternations. In Andrea Ravignani et al. (eds.), The evolution of language: Proceedings of the Joint Conference on Language Evolution (JCoLE), Nijmegen, pp. 101–108. Joint Conference on Language Evolution (JCoLE).
2022. Neige Rochant, Marc Allassonnière-Tang, and Chundra Cathcart. The evolutionary trends of noun class systems in Atlantic languages. Proceedings of the Joint Conference on Language Evolution. In A. Ravignani et al. (eds.), The evolution of language: Proceedings of the Joint Conference on Language Evolution (JCoLE), Nijmegen, pp. 624–631. Joint Conference on Language Evolution (JCoLE).
2020. Chundra Cathcart and Taraka Rama. Disentangling dialects: a neural approach to Indo-Aryan historical phonology and subgrouping. In Proceedings of the 24th Conference on Computational Natural Language Learning, pp. 620–630. Association for Computational Linguistics.
2020. Chundra Cathcart and Joanne Yager. Linguistic stability and change under small-scale egalitarian language contact: a mixture model approach. In Denison., M. Mack, Y. Xu, & B.C. Armstrong (Eds.), Proceedings of the 42th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, pp. 3109–3115. Cognitive Science Society.
2020. Chundra Cathcart and Florian Wandl. In search of isoglosses: continuous and discrete language embeddings in Slavic historical phonology. In Proceedings of the Seventeenth SIGMORPHON Workshop on Computational Research in Phonetics, Phonology, and Morphology, pp. 233–244.
2019. Gaussian Process Models of Sound Change in Indo-Aryan Dialectology. In Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Computational Approaches to Historical Language Change, pp. 254–264.
2019. Toward a deep dialectological representation of Indo-Aryan. In Proceedings of VarDial, pp. 110–119.
2017. Decomposability and Frequency in the Hindi/Urdu Number System. Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. 1733–1738.
2016. Vedic post-lexical retroflexion: opacity and diachrony. In Proceedings of the 50th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, pp. 89–102.
2015. Evolutionary vs. Amphichronic Phonology: toward a probabilistic solution. In T. Bui and D. Özyıldız (eds.) Proceedings of NELS 45. Amherst: GLSA Publications, University of Massachusetts.
2014. Analogical morphophonology and Iranian words with irregular f. In S. Jamison, H.C. Melchert, and B. Vine (eds.), Proceedings of the 25th Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, pp. 21–38. Bremen: Hempen Verlag.
2012. Vedic labial dissimilation revisited. In S. Jamison, H.C. Melchert, and B. Vine (eds.), Proceedings of the 23rd Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, pp. 29–45. Bremen: Hempen Verlag.
2011. RUKI in the Nuristani languages: an assessment. In S. Jamison, H.C. Melchert, and B. Vine (eds.), Proceedings of the 22nd Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, pp. 1–11. Bremen: Hempen Verlag.
2025. Chundra Cathcart and Balthasar Bickel. Linguistic evolution in time and space: Addressing the methodological challenges. In Cedric Boeckx and Limor Raviv (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Approaches to Language Evolution, pp. 391–422. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2025. Outstanding problems in Persian historical phonology: toward a quantitative solution. In Alireza Korangy and Behrooz Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari (eds.), The Handbook of Persian Dialects and Dialectology, pp. 149–175. Singapore: Springer Nature (Springer Handbooks in Linguistics).
2023. Rate variation in language change: toward distributional phylogenetic modeling. In Alexandros Karakostis and Gerhard Jäger (eds.), Biocultural Implications: An Agenda for Integrative Approaches, pp. 179–202. Tübingen: Kerns.
2023. Paradigmatic heterogeneity and homogenization: probing Paul's principle. In Alan C.L. Yu and Darya Kavitskaya (eds.), Life Cycle of Language: Studies in Honor of Andrew Garrett, pp. 371–385. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2022. Gerd Carling, Chundra Cathcart and Erich Round. Reconstructing the origins of language families and variation. In Andrew Lock, Chris Sinha, and Nathalie Gontier (eds.), Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Complexity counts: global and local perspectives on Indo-Aryan numeral systems
.Alexandru Craevschi, Sarah Babinski, and Chundra Cathcart. Semantics drives analogical change in Germanic strong verb paradigms: a phylogenetic study.
Théophane Piette, Chundra Cathcart, Chiara Barbieri, Keesha Martin Ming, Didier Grandjean, Éloïse Déaux, and Anne-Lise Giraud. Animal acoustic communication maintains a universal optimum rhythm.
Carlo Meloni, Chundra Cathcart, Jessica K Ivani, Taras Zakharko, Erik J Ringen, Balthasar Bickel. Linguistic evolution minimizes the amount of syntactic hierarchy in grammar.
Carlo Meloni, Jessica K Ivani, Taras Zakharko, Guanghao You, Chundra Cathcart, Balthasar Bickel (equal contribution). Writing does not impact the evolution of syntax.
Carlo Meloni, Chundra Cathcart, Erik Ringen, Jessica K Ivani, Balthasar Bickel. A phylogenetic perspective on the syntax-semantics interface: A Case Study in Clause Linkage Constructions.
Carmen Saldana, Chundra Cathcart, Jessica Ivani, Balthasar Bickel, and Mora Maldonado. Cross-linguistic regularities in pronominal number neutralisation are not driven by learning biases: Limits of the Typological Prevalence Hypothesis for morphosyntactic categories.
2024. Chundra Cathcart and Gerhard Jäger. Exploring the evolutionary dynamics of sound symbolism. Paper presented at CogSci 2024, Rotterdam, July 26.
2024. Alexandru Craevschi, Sarah Babinski and Chundra Cathcart. Finding proportionality in computational approaches to morphological change. Paper presented at EvoLang, Madison, WI, May 21.
2023. Complexity counts: the unusual case of Indo-Aryan numeral systems. Paper presented in partial fulfillment of habilitation requirements, University of Zurich, December 15.
2023. Borja Herce and Chundra Cathcart. Stem shortening in Romance verbs: the 'S morphome' at the intersection of token frequency and paradigmatic structure. Paper presented at the 26th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, University of Heidelberg, September 8.
2023. Christian Ebert, Chundra Cathcart, Balthasar Bickel and Paul Widmer. Usage-based evolutionary models reveal context-specific word order change in Indo-European. Paper presented at the 26th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, University of Heidelberg, September 7.
2023. Borja Herce and Chundra Cathcart. Irregular stem shortening in Romance verbs: where, when, and why. Paper presented at workshop "Efficiency in Grammar: Patterns and Explanations," University of Freiburg, July 5.
2022. Neige Rochant, Marc Alassonnière-Tang, Chundra Cathcart. The evolutionary trends of noun class systems in Atlantic languages. Paper presented at the Joint Conference on Language Evolution, Kanazawa, September 7.
2022. Chundra Cathcart, Balthasar Bickel, and Borja Herce. Decoupling speed of change and long-term preference in language evolution: insights from Romance verb stem alternations Paper presented at the Joint Conference on Language Evolution, Kanazawa, September 6.
2022. Jessica Ivani, Taras Zakharko, and Chundra Cathcart. Nominal plurality in Sino-Tibetan: a diachronic account. Poster presented at the Joint Conference on Language Evolution, Kanazawa, September 6.
2022. Théophane Piette, Chundra Cathcart, Chiara Barbieri, Didier Grandjean, Éloïse Déaux and Anne-Lise Giraud. Theta rhythm is widespread in vocal production across the animal realm. Poster presented at the Joint Conference on Language Evolution, Kanazawa, September 6.
2021. Phylogenetic comparative methods and linguistics: how expressive should we be? Paper presented at the Annual Symposium (Biocultural Implications: an Agenda for Integrative Approaches), DFG Center for Advanced Studies "Words, Bones, Genes, Tools," University of Tübingen.
2020. Chundra Cathcart and Taraka Rama. Disentangling dialects: a neural approach to Indo-Aryan historical phonology and subgrouping. Paper presented at CoNLL 24, Online, November 19.
2020. Chundra Cathcart and Joanne Yager. Linguistic maintenance and convergence in small-scale egalitarian contact: a mixture model approach. Paper presented at CogSci 2020, Online, July 30.
2020. Chundra Cathcart and Florian Wandl. In search of isoglosses: continuous and discrete language embeddings in Slavic historical phonology. Paper presented at SIGMORPHON 2020, Online, July 10.
2019. Horizontal and vertical pressures in language change: fleshing out admixture models. Research colloquium, University of Tübingen, December 16.
2019. Relaxing the comparative method: probabilistic approaches to sound change and Indo-Iranian dialectology. Paper presented at Protolang 6, Lisbon, September 9.
2019. Chundra Cathcart, Andreas Hölzl, Paul Widmer, and Balthasar Bickel. Numeral classifiers and plural marking in Indo-Iranian: an evolutionary study. Paper presented at the 13th Conference of the Association for Linguistic Typology, Pavia, September 4.
2019. Andreas Hölzl and Chundra Cathcart. Sortal Numeral Classifiers in Central Asia. Paper presented at the 13th Conference of the Association for Linguistic Typology, Pavia, September 4.
2019. Chundra Cathcart and Damián Blasi. How well do Recurrent Neural Networks capture regularities in sound change? Paper presented at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, Leipzig, August 22.
2019. Latent variable models of Indo-Aryan languages. Paper presented at the 24th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Canberra, July 2.
2019. Toward a deep dialectological representation of Indo-Aryan. Poster presented at the Sixth Workshop on NLP for Similar Languages, Varieties and Dialects, Minneapolis, June 7.
2019. Shallow and deep approaches to sound change in Indo-Aryan dialectology. Presented at Seminar in phonetics and phonology, Venice International University, May 16.
2019. Prior thoughts on mixed-membership models in linguistics. Paper presented at Bayes@Lund, Lund University, May 7.
2018. Phylogenetic perspectives on V2 and subject-drop in Indo-European. Paper presented at Perspectives on Word Order Evolution: Reconstruction, Typology, and Processing. University of Zurich, November 8.
2018. The Inner-Outer hypothesis of Indo-Aryan: a computational study. Paper presented at the 34th South Asian Languages Analysis Roundtable (SALA), University of Konstanz, April 13.
2017. Gerd Carling and Chundra Cathcart. Contrasting models of morphosyntactic reconstruction. A comparison of results of comparative-historical and phylogenetic methods for the Indo-European family. Paper presented at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, University of Zurich, September 12.
2017. Decomposability and Frequency in the Hindi/Urdu Number System. Poster presented at the 39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, London, July 29.
2016. Gerd Carling and Chundra Cathcart. Can culture vocabularies replace or supplement basic vocabulary lists for measuring linguistic diversity? A study on the Indo-European and Tupí language families. Poster presented at the 49th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, University of Naples Federico II, September 2.
2015. Ancestry-constrained phylogenetic analysis and the Indo-European Steppe Hypothesis. Presented at the University of Copenhagen, November 6.
2015. The relationship between areality and frequency of usage: drift vs. diffusion. Presented at the 89th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Portland, Oregon, January 10.
2014. A probabilistic model of Evolutionary Phonology. Poster presented at the 45th Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, October 31.
2014. Vedic post-lexical retroflexion: synchronic and diachronic perspectives. Poster presented at the 3rd Biennial Workshop on Sound Change in Interacting Human Systems, University of California, Berkeley, May 29.
2014. The role of diachronic explanation in prosodic phonology: evidence from Vedic Sanskrit. Presented at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, April 10.
2014. Geography and contact-induced variation in West Iranian. Presented at the 88th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Minneapolis, January 3.
2013. The undoing of Bartholomae's Law and similar developments in Avestan and Iranian. Presented at the 25th Annual Indo-European Conference, University of California, Los Angeles, October 25.
2013. William Chang, Chundra Cathcart, David Hall, and Andrew Garrett. Dating Proto-Indo-European: A revised computational phylogenetic analysis supports the steppe hypothesis. Presented at the 21st International Conference on Historical Linguistics, University of Oslo, August 9.
2013. Degrees of irregular change: phonological reduction and grammatical convergence in West Iranian. Presented at the 21st International Conference on Historical Linguistics, University of Oslo, August 7.
2012. Rhotic/palatal variation in Proto-Tibeto-Burman. Presented at the 45th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, October 27.
2012. Is West Iranian a clade? Presented at the 31st East Coast Indo-European Conference, University of California, Berkeley, May 20.
2011. What can Romani tell us about Middle Indic sound change? Presented at the Roundtable Discussion, Inaugural Conference on Romani Studies, University of California, Berkeley, November 11.
2011. Vedic labial dissimilation revisited. Presented at the 23rd Annual Indo-European Conference, University of California, Los Angeles, October 29.
2010. The probable operation of RUKI in the Nuristani languages. Presented at the 22nd Indo-European Conference, University of California, Los Angeles, November 5.