32.796, Support: Romance; Semantics; Syntax: PhD, Trinity College Dublin

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-32-796. Wed Mar 03 2021. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 32.796, Support: Romance; Semantics; Syntax: PhD, Trinity College Dublin

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Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2021 22:45:26
From: Valentina Colasanti [valentina.colasanti at tcd.ie]
Subject: Romance; Semantics; Syntax: PhD, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

 Institution/Organization: Trinity College Dublin 
Department: School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences 
Web Address: https://www.tcd.ie/slscs/ 

Level: PhD 

Specialty Areas: Semantics; Syntax 
Romance Linguistics; Sign Language Linguistics 

                      Romance 

Description:

Applications are sought for a fully funded 4-year PhD in General Linguistics
for research topics connected to the project 'Gestural Grammar: Investigating
Gestures in Southern Italy' (GestuGram) led by Dr Valentina Colasanti.
Applicants with a background in syntax, semantics, sign language linguistics,
or Romance linguistics (preferably Italo-Romance) are encouraged to apply. A
background in quantitative methods and fieldwork methodologies is a plus, but
not required. The starting date is September 2021.

Project summary:
Gestures are movements of the hands and body often paired with speech, and
emerging research suggests that they are deeply integrated with the grammar of
language, conveying semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic information. 

While gesture is universal, individual gestures vary across languages. For
example, in Neapolitan, a particular manual gesture can distinguish a
declarative clause (e.g. Mario has a car.) from an interrogative clause (e.g.
Does Mario have a car?). Thus, gestures are not simply ‘ornamental’, but can
make grammatical contributions akin to the syntactic strategies of e.g.
English (subject-auxiliary inversion). However, up to now, most work on
gestures from a formal-theoretical perspective has focused on their semantic
contribution; substantially less attention has been paid to their syntactic
properties. However, it has been recently demonstrated, for instance, that
gestures which contribute to the core meaning of an English sentence are
obligatorily recovered as part of the interpretation of the syntactic
phenomenon of ellipsis (Schlenker 2015, Esipova 2019, Sailor & Colasanti
2020).

The overall aim of this project is to situate the gesture-rich languages
spoken in Southern Italy within the nascent field of gestural studies (which
has mostly focused on English to this point: Ebert 2014, Abner et al. 2015,
Schlenker 2015, Esipova 2018, 2019, Leeson et al. 2018, Sailor & Colasanti
2020, i.a.). These languages are of particular theoretical import because of
their rich inventory of gestures capable of making a grammatical contribution,
which has not received sufficient attention to this point. 

The full call can be found at
https://valentinacolasanti.it/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/VColasantiPhD-Award-C
all.pdf

Application:
Interested applicants should first contact the PI, Dr Valentina Colasanti, at
the contact information below. 

To apply, please send:
- A cover letter describing your interest and expertise in the topic of the
project, 
- A full CV (including the names and contact information of at least two
referees),
- A 2-4 page research proposal on a topic related to the project.
 

Contact Information: 
	Valentina Colasanti
	valentina.colasanti at tcd.ie  


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