Summary

I am an evolutionary language scientist investigating how language structures change over deep time, and what their evolution reveals about cultural evolution and human cognition. I employ a primarily Bayesian toolkit: phylogenetic tree inference, phylogenetic comparative methods, ancestral state reconstruction, and phylogeographic regression. My PhD and subsequent published works develop phylogenetic methods for phonology, particularly phonotactics, with a regional focus on languages of Australia. In parallel, I work on the evolution of conceptual categories (nominal classification, case semantics, number), with work extending to broader Sahul (Australia and New Guinea), Tibeto-Burman, and worldwide language samples. Most recently, I have turned attention to the design of agentic LLM pipelines for large-scale extraction of linguistic data from published grammars.

Skills

Portfolio

Work Experience

• Postdoctoral Researcher

  2026–10 -
  University of Zurich

  Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution (ISLE Institute)

  • Conceptual Diversity and the Evolution of Abstract Thought (CONCEVO) (Prof J. Mansfield
• Postdoctoral Research Fellow

  2026-06 - 2026-09
  University of Surrey, UK

  Surrey Morphology Group

  • Revoluphon: Rational Evolutionary Phonology (Prof E. Round)
• Lecturer in Linguistics (tenure equivalent)

  2022-12 - 2025-08
  University of Newcastle, Australia

  School of Creative Industries, Humanities and Social Sciences
• Postdoctoral Researcher

  2021-11 - 2022-11
  CNRS, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Lyon, France

  UMR 5596: Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage (DDL)

  • EVOGRAM: The role of linguistic and non-linguistic factors in the evolution of nominal classification system (Dr M. Allassonnière-Tang)

Education

• Ph.D. (Linguistics)

  Jun 2021
  The University of Queensland, Australia
• Bachelor of Arts (Honours, Class I)

  Jun 2015
  The University of Queensland, Australia

  Courses: Major: Linguistics (extended), Minor: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies

Publications

• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. Revisions pending. Trees beyond words: phonotactics in linguistic phylogenetics. Diachronica.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L., Maria Copot, Mitch Browne & Tom Ennever. Revisions pending. Signal separation: Quantifying inheritance and contact in language evolution. Journal of Language Evolution.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. & Erich R. Round. 2022. Challenges of sampling and how phylogenetic comparative methods help: With a case study of the Pama-Nyungan laminal contrast. Linguistic Typology 26(3). pp. 533–572. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2021-0025.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L., Claire Bowern & Erich R. Round. 2021. Phylogenetic signal in phonotactics. Diachronica 38(2). pp. 210–258. https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.20004.mac.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. & Erich R. Round. 2020. Re-evaluating Phoneme Frequencies. Frontiers in Psychology 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.570895.
• Round, Erich R., T. Mark Ellison, Jayden L. Macklin-Cordes & Sacha Beniamine. 2020. Automated Parsing of Interlinear Glossed Text from Page Images of Grammatical Descriptions. In Proceedings of The 12th Language Resources and Evaluation Conference, 2878–2883. Marseille, France: European Language Resources Association. https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/2020.lrec-1.351.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. & Erich R. Round. 2015. High-definition phonotactics reflect linguistic pasts. In Proceedings of the 6th Quantitative Investigations in Theoretical Linguistics Conference. Tübingen, Germany: University of Tübingen. https://doi.org/10.15496/publikation-8609.

In preparation

• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L., Marc Allassonnière-Tang & One-Soon Her. Ancestral state reconstruction of numeral base and classifier word orders in proto-Tibeto-Burman.
• Copot, Maria & Jayden L. Macklin-Cordes. Neither rules nor exemplars: morphological representation as adaptive clustering.

Conference presentations

• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. & Maria Copot. 2026. Noun classes persist for predictive processing: Evidence from constituent order in 2,500 languages [poster]. Conference of the Association of Linguistic Typology (ALT XVI). Lumière University, Lyon.
• Copot, Maria & Jayden L. Macklin-Cordes. 2026. Optimal Representation Granularity in Morphological Learning [poster]. International Morphology Meeting (IMM22). Budapest, Hungary.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. & Maria Copot. 2026. Noun classes persist for predictive processing: Evidence from constituent order in 2,500 languages. Quantitative Cross-Linguistic Explorations of Space, Time, and Evolution (QC-LESTE). National Museum of Natural History, Paris.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L., Maria Copot, Tom Ennever & Mitch Browne. 2026. Locative polyfunctionality in Pama-Nyungan: Disentangling space, phylogeny and ahistorical factors [poster]. International Conference on the Evolution of Language (EVOLANG XVI). Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L., Mitch Browne, Tom Ennever & Maria Copot. 2024. Locative functions beyond space and time: Pama-Nyungan case semantics reflect ahistorical processes [poster]. Conference of the Association of Linguistic Typology (ALT XV). National University of Singapore, Singapore.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L., Mitch Browne, Tom Ennever & Maria Copot. 2024. Locative polyfunctionality in Australia: Function distribution is not predicted by phylogeny or contact. Australian Linguistics Society Annual Conference (ALS 2024). Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. 2024. Towards a phylogenetic typology of Australian nominal classification. Langues & Langage à la croisée des Disciplines (LLCD 2024). Sorbonne University, Paris, France.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. 2022. Phylogenetic comparative methods in everyday typology. Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE 2022). University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania.
• Jódar-Sánchez, Jose Antonio, Jayden L. Macklin-Cordes & Marc Allassonnière-Tang. 2022. The evolutionary dynamics of noun classes in Torricelli languages. Conference of the Association of Linguistic Typology (ALT XIV). University of Texas, Austin, USA.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L., Her, One-Soon & Marc Allassonnière-Tang. 2022. Correlated evolution of numeral base and classifier word orders in Tibeto-Burman languages [poster]. Conference of the Association of Linguistic Typology (ALT XIV). University of Texas, Austin, USA.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. 2022. Incorporating typological features in tree inference: Lessons from phonotactics. International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL25). Oxford University, Oxford, UK.
• Browne, Mitch & Jayden L. Macklin-Cordes. 2022. A statistical analysis of word-initial apical neutralisation in Warlmanpa. Australian Linguistics Society Annual Conference (ALS 2022). University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
• Browne, Mitch, Jacqueline Cook, Amanda Hamilton-Holloway & Jayden L. Macklin-Cordes. 2022. Constituent order in subordinate clauses: A comparison of Mudburra, Warlmanpa and Warriyangga/Thiinma. Australian Languages Workshop (ALW). University of Queensland Moreton Bay Research Station, North Stradbroke Island, Australia.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. 2021. Trials and tribulations of tree inference: The challenge of phonotactics in phylogenetics and why it matters. Australian Linguistic Society Annual Conference (ALS 2021). La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. 2021. Unstable trees: The challenge of frequency and phonology in phylogenetics. Edinburgh Symposium on Historical Phonology. University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. & Erich R. Round. 2020. Zipf's Law? Re-evaluating phoneme frequencies. Australian Linguistics Society Annual Conference (ALS 2020). Online conference, Australia.
• Round, Erich R. & Jayden L. Macklin-Cordes. 2019. Clouded vision: Why insights improve when uncertainty about data is made explicit. International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL24). Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. https://cloudstor.aarnet.edu.au/plus/s/WOmUM73NVJQFqf6.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. & Erich R. Round. 2019. Historical signal beyond the cognate: Phonotactics in linguistic phylogenetics. International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL24). Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. https://cloudstor.aarnet.edu.au/plus/s/zN5AbJ4fXoVR0ax.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. & Erich R. Round. 2018. Phylogeny in phonotactics: A multivariate approach for stronger historical signal. Australian Linguistics Society Annual Conference (ALS 2018). University of South Australia, Adelaide.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. 2017. High-definition phonotactic typology in Sahul: Choosing the data-rich approach. Conference of the Association of Linguistic Typology (ALT XII). Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5861067.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L., Nathaniel L. Blackbourne, Thomas J. Bott, Jacqueline Cook, T. Mark Ellison, Jordan Hollis, Edith E. Kirlew, Genevieve C. Richards, Sanle Zhao & Erich R. Round. 2017. Robots who read grammars [poster]. CoEDL Fest. Alexandra Park Conference Centre, Alexandra Headlands, QLD, Australia. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4625248.
• Hollis, Jordan, Genevieve C. Richards, Jayden L. Macklin-Cordes & Erich R. Round. 2016. The Cape York lexical records of Bruce Sommer. Australian Linguistics Society Annual Conference (ALS 2016). Monash University, Caulfield, Australia. https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4299377.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L., Steven P. Moran & Erich R. Round. 2016. Evaluating information loss from phonological dimensionality reduction. SST2016 Satellite Symposium: The role of predictability in shaping human language sound patterns. Western Sydney University, Australia. https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4465976.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. & Erich R. Round. 2016a. High-definition phonotactic data contain phylogenetic signal [poster]. Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA 2016). Washington, DC. https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4534238.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. & Erich R. Round. 2016b. Reflections of linguistic history in quantitative phonotactics. Australian Linguistic Society Annual Conference (ALS2016). Monash University, Caulfield, Australia. https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4299365.
• Round, Erich R., Jacqueline Cook, T. Mark Ellison, Jordan Hollis, Jayden L. Macklin-Cordes & Genevieve C. Richards. 2016. The grammar harvester. Australian Linguistic Society Annual Conference (ALS 2016). Monash University, Caulfield, Australia.
• Round, Erich R. & Jayden L. Macklin-Cordes. 2015. On the design, in practice, of typological microvariables. New Developments in the Quantitative Study of Languages. Helsinki, Finland.
• Round, Erich R. & Jayden L. Macklin-Cordes. 2014. Next-generation typological variables: From theory to practice, and back again. Australian Linguistic Society Annual Conference (ALS 2014). University of Newcastle, Australia.

Invited talks

• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. 2026. Bayesian branches: Where do language trees come from? Surrey Morphology Group Expertise Session. University of Surrey, Guildford, UK. https://www.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23284532.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. 2025. Locative polyfunctionality in Australia: Function distribution is not predicted by phylogeny or contact. University of Newcastle Social Science and Linguistics Seminar Series. University of Newcastle, Australia.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. 2024. Towards a phylogenetic typology of Australian nominal classification. University of Newcastle Social Science and Linguistics Seminar Series. University of Newcastle, Australia.
• Copot, Maria & Jayden L. Macklin-Cordes. 2024. Thinking like a quantitative modeller. Invited masterclass for the Laboratory for Applied Language Science (LALS). University of Newcastle, Australia.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. 2024. Phylogenetic comparative methods in everyday typology: With a case study of Pama-Nyungan laminals. Changelings forum for historical sociolinguistics (invited talk). The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. 2023. Reconstructing numeral base and classifier word orders in Tibeto-Burman. University of Newcastle Linguistics Seminar Series. University of Newcastle, Australia.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. 2022. Typological traits in linguistic phylogenetics: (Mis)adventures with phonotactics. UMR7206 Eco-Anthropologie (EA) Seminar Series. Musée de l'Homme, CNRS, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Université de Paris, France.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. 2022. Trees, mountains, numerals and classifiers: Preliminary ancestral state reconstruction in Tibeto-Burman. Surrey Linguistics Circle Lunchtime Seminar. Surrey Morphology Group, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. 2022. Phylogenetic comparative methods for common typological challenges: With a case study of Pama-Nyungan laminals. DiLiS Seminar Series. Laboratoire Dynamique Du Langage, CNRS, Université Lyon 2, Lyon, France.
• Browne, Mitch, Jacqueline Cook, Amanda Hamilton-Holloway & Jayden L. Macklin-Cordes. 2022. Constituent order in subordinate clauses: A comparison of Mudburra, Warlmanpa and Warriyangga/Thiinma. UWA Linguistics Seminar Series. University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia.
• Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. & Erich R. Round. 2021. Phylogenetic comparative methods: What all the fuss is about, and how to use them in everyday research. Language and Data Analysis Laboratory (LADAL) webinar. The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia. https://youtu.be/yJeQ6AGDLK0.

Teaching

• LING3350 Structure of English

  2025
  University of Newcastle, Australia

  Role: Lecturer

  3rd year undergraduate, 112 students
• LING3350 Structure of English

  2024
  University of Newcastle, Australia

  Role: Lecturer

  3rd year undergraduate, 50 students
• LING3350 Structure of English

  2024
  University of Newcastle, Australia

  Role: Lecturer

  3rd year undergraduate, 86 students
• LING6910 Foundation of Linguistics

  2024
  University of Newcastle, Australia

  Role: Lecturer

  1st year masters, 5 students
• LING3350 Structure of English

  2023
  University of Newcastle, Australia

  Role: Lecturer

  3rd year undergraduate, 74 students
• LING3350 Structure of English

  2023
  University of Newcastle, Australia

  Role: Lecturer

  3rd year undergraduate, 78 students
• LING3002 Syntax

  2023
  University of Newcastle, Australia

  Role: Lecturer

  3rd year undergraduate, 8 students
• LING1005 Introduction to linguistics: the sound pattern of language

  2015
  University of Queensland, Australia

  Role: Lecturer

  1st year undergraduate, ~220 students
• LING6105 Introduction to linguistics: phonetics and phonology

  2015
  University of Queensland, Australia

  Role: Lecturer

  1st year masters, ~30 students

Languages

Referees

Referees available on request.