The aim of the Center for Advanced Study in Theoretical Linguistics is to research the nature of syntactic, morphological and phonological variation, in order to be able to determine precisely along which grammatical parameters any two languages vary. To this end we will combine study of formal properties of individual languages and comparative study of sets of related languages with large scale comparative studies and study of language change. This is basic research about one of the most important properties of the human mind: the language faculty. It has a number of practical applications, though. For example, it can provide a basis for more efficient language learning techniques and for decisions relating to language planning, including standardization and creation of orthography for hitherto unwritten languages.

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