Specialization:
Quantitative typology, digital resources, corpus linguistics, form-meaning interface, data science, statistical modeling, complex system analysis, databases & scientific infrastructure, software & data engineering.
Education:
2015 Ph.D. University of Zurich
2009 MA in Linguistics, Mathematics, and Computer Science University of Leipzig
Bio:
I am a linguist and data scientist passionate about the behavior of complex systems and the development of innovative scientific infrastructure for Digital Humanities research. My work blends linguistics, computer science, and mathematics to support interdisciplinary inquiry into language dynamics and evolution. My areas of expertise include modeling the form–meaning interface in languages and extracting insights from messy, heterogeneous data. I develop digital resources, methods, and tools that empower researchers and open new avenues for scientific exploration. I serve as PI and technical director of the AUTOTYP database, one of the world’s most comprehensive open digital resources on language structures, and I am the creator of the Human Ecology Grid, an interdisciplinary geospatial database platform. In addition to scholarly research and university teaching, I have mentored researchers on workflows, data design, and high-performance computing.
As a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at UCSB, I teach a wide range of courses introducing students to data science, computational methods, the philosophy of meaning in language, fundamental linguistic theory, and academic workflows. I previously coordinated and taught Quantitative and Computational Methods in the Linguistics program at the University of Zurich. I remain affiliated with the Institute of Evolutionary Language Science at the University of Zurich and with the NCCR Evolving Language in Switzerland.
Courses:
LING 62 Academic Writing in Humanities and Social Sciences
LING 110 Foundations of Computational Linguistics
LING 113 Introduction to Semantics
Publications:
Zakharko, Taras; Bickel, Balthasar. (preprint, to appear) .The Human Ecology Grid: A Comprehensive Multi-Domain Global Spatial Dataset for Environmental, Ethnolinguistic, and Socioeconomic Research
Meloni, Carlo Y.; Cathcart, Chundra; Ivani, Jessica K.; Zakharko, Taras; Ringen, Erik J.; Bickel, Balthasar. (preprint, to appear) Linguistic evolution minimizes the amount of syntactic hierarchy in grammar.
Meloni, Carlo Y.; Ivani, Jessica K.; Zakharko, Taras; You, Guanghao; Cathcart, Chundra; Bickel, Balthasar. (preprint, to appear) Writing does not Impact the Evolution of Syntax.
Graff, Anna; Ringen, Erik; Zakharko, Taras; Stoneking, Mark; Shimizu, Kentaro; Bickel Balthasar; Barbieri, Chiara. (preprint, to appear) An inverse correlation between linguistic and genetic diversity.
Graff, Anna; Chousou-Polydouri, Natalia; Inman, David; Skirgård, Hedvig; Lischka, Marc; Zakharko, Taras; Barbieri, Chiara; Bickel Balthasar. 2025. Curating global datasets of structural linguistic features for independence. _Scientific Data_. https://www.nature.com/
Graff, Anna; Lischka, Marc; Zakharko, Taras; Furrer, Reinhard; Bickel, Balthasar. 2024. densify: An R package to prune sparse data frames of typological linguistic data. _Journal of Open Source Software_. https://joss.theoj.org/papers/
Ivani, Jessica K. & Zakharko, Taras. 2024. Phasal polarity in Suansu. _Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area_, 47(2).
Bickel, Balthasar; Nichols, Johanna; Zakharko, Taras; Witzlack-Makarevich, Alena; Hildebrandt, Kristine; Rießler, Michael; Bierkandt, Lennart; Zúñiga, Fernando & Lowe, John B. 2022. The AUTOTYP database. https://doi.org/10.5281/
Witzlack-Makarevich, Alena; Nichols, Johanna; Hildebrandt, Kristine; Zakharko, Taras; Bickel, Balthasar. Managing AUTOTYP Data: Design Principles and Implementation. 2022. In: Berez-Kroeker, Andrea L; McDonnell, Bradley; Koller, Eve; Collister, Lauren B. _The Open Handbook of Linguistic Data Management_. Cambridge: MIT Press, 632-642.
Ivani, Jessica K. & Zakharko, Taras. 2019. Tymber, Database on nominal number marking constructions [Dataset]. Available on GitHub. https://github.com/jkivani/
Witzlack-Makarevich, Alena; Zakharko, Taras; Bierkandt, Lennart; Zúñiga, Fernando; Bickel, Balthasar. 2016. Decomposing hierarchical alignment: Co-arguments as conditions on alignment and the limits of referential hierarchies as explanations in verb agreement. _Linguistics_, 54(3):531-561.
Loporcaro, Michele; Paciaroni, Tania; Pescarini, Diego; Idone, Alice; Romagnoli, Serena; Zanini, Chiara; Zakharko, Taras. 2018. The Zurich Database of Agreement in Italo-Romance (DAI). University of Zurich. https://www.dai.uzh.ch/new/#/
Zakharko, Taras. 2017. Digging deep: mining corpora for typological patterns and beyond. Doctoral Dissertation. University of Zurich, Faculty of Arts.
Bickel, Balthasar; Witzlack-Makarevich, Alena; Zakharko, Taras; Iemmolo, Giorgio. 2015. Exploring diachronic universals of agreement: alignment patterns and zero marking across person categories. In: Fleischer, Jürg; Rieken, Elisabeth; Widmer, Paul. _Agreement from a diachronic perspective_. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 29 - 51.
Stoll, Sabine; Zakharko, Taras; Moran, Steven; Schikowski, Robert; Bickel, Balthasar. 2015. Syntactic mixing across generations in an environment of community-wide bilingualism. _Frontiers in Psychology_, 6:82.
Bickel, Balthasar; Zakharko, Taras; Bierkandt, Lennart; Witzlack-Makarevich, Alena. 2014. Semantic role clustering: an empirical assessment of semantic role types in non-default case assignment. _Studies in Language_, 38(3):485 - 511.
Bickel, Balthasar; Witzlack-Makarevich, Alena; Zakharko, Taras. 2014. Typological evidence against universal effects of referential scales on case alignment. In: Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Ina; Malchukov, Andrej; Richards, Marc. _Scales and Hierarchies: a cross-disciplinary perspective on referential hierarchies_. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 7-44.
Bickel, Balthasar; Iemmolo, Giorgio; Zakharko, Taras; Witzlack-Makarevich, Alena. Patterns of alignment in verb agreement. 2013. In: Bakker, Dik; Haspelmath, Martin. _Languages across boundaries. Studies in memory of Anna Siewierska_. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 15-36.