The Spanish Society of Linguistics commends his work on linguistic universals for its interdisciplinary and innovative methodology

Antoni Brosa, professor in the Department of Romance Philology at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), has received the award for the best doctoral thesis in linguistics of the past academic year in Spain, which was awarded by the Spanish Linguistics Society (SEL) during its most recent annual congress on January 22. Brosa’s thesis, entitled A Gradient Model for Language Universals. A Computational Revisitation of Greenberg Universals, focuses on linguistic universals, which are the common traits shared by most known languages. The thesis was submitted in April last year and was supervised by Professor María Dolores Jiménez López from the same department.

Specifically, Brosa proposes a new model for characterising typological universals, allowing them to be classified and better understood through a more natural, objective, and coherent representation whilst accounting for the presence of exceptions. In addition, the thesis presents a computational analysis of the 45 universals proposed by Greenberg in 1963, enabling a more efficient, transparent, and systematic review of the American linguist’s contribution. The proposed methodology also allows for the formulation of new linguistic universals based on Greenberg’s or for the modification of those with room for improvement or correction.

The jury, composed of the SEL’s directors, praised the rigour of the thesis and its interdisciplinary and innovative methodology. According to the jury, successfully integrating disciplines such as linguistic typology, computational linguistics and logic is a challenge, but this thesis proves it can be done and paves the way for future research in the field. They highlighted the replicability and traceability of data, which is often lacking in linguistic research but which this thesis demonstrates to the highest standard. Both the methodology and the data contribute to a better understanding of the behaviour of the world’s languages, including minority and underrepresented languages, and enable this knowledge to be applied to future computational tools, using the 143 languages analysed.

The award is for the best doctoral theses defended between October 1 and September 31 of the previous academic year in any Spanish university on a linguistics-related topic, and, according to the Spanish Linguistics Society, the quantity and quality of the theses in the mix this year make the award particularly significant. For Antoni Brosa, the award represents the culmination of his work with María Dolores Jiménez as part of the Research Group in Mathematical Linguistics. The award also grants Brosa the opportunity to deliver one of the plenary lectures at the next SEL symposium, to be held in Madrid next year.