From the 4th of March to the 7th of March, the 47th conference of the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft (DGfS) took place at the Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz. Our Jun.-Prof. Dr. Annemarie Verkerk, delivered one of the plenaries on the topic of "The evolutionary dynamics of language: universals, rates of change, and explanations.".