32.1756, Support: English; Italian; General Linguistics: PhD, KU Leuven

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-32-1756. Wed May 19 2021. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 32.1756, Support: English; Italian; General Linguistics: PhD, KU Leuven

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Date: Wed, 19 May 2021 09:37:20
From: Benedikt Szmrecsanyi [benszm at kuleuven.be]
Subject: English; Italian; General Linguistics: PhD, KU Leuven, Belgium

 Institution/Organization: KU Leuven 
Department: Department of Linguistics 
Web Address: https://www.arts.kuleuven.be/ling 

Level: PhD 

Specialty Areas: General Linguistics 
 
Required Language(s): English (eng)
                      Italian (ita) 

Description:

The research group Quantitative Lexicology and Variational Linguistics (QLVL)
at the Department of Linguistics of the University of Leuven is looking to
hire a PhD student to staff the FWO-funded project "How much does meaning
matter? A fresh look at grammatical alternations" (PIs: Benedikt Szmrecsanyi,
Hubert Cuyckens, Stefania Marzo & Dirk Speelman).
 
This project examines if and how the way people choose between different ways
of saying the same thing depends on the meaning of the words in the utterance.
Take variation between ditransitive dative constructions (as in "Tom sent the
president a letter") and prepositional dative constructions (as in "Tom sent a
letter to the president"): variationist linguists are fairly good at modeling
such variation based typically on formal predictors (length of constituents,
complexity of constituents, and so on). However, analysts have been reluctant
to probe the explanatory power of lexical meaning of slot fillers: does it
matter for variant selection if, say, the recipient is a government official
(e.g. "president") or a family friend? Is, for example, the prepositional
dative more likely if the theme is countable (e.g. "letter") as opposed to
non-countable (e.g. "furniture")? Analysts have been hesitant to tackle
meaning because it is very labor-intensive to annotate data for semantic
factors. We resolve this issue by utilizing computationally advanced
distributional semantics methods (in particular, token-based semantic vector
space modeling). Next to the aforementioned dative alternation, the project
will be concerned with the clausal complementation alternation in English and
the progressive alternation in Italian.

The ideal candidate will combine:
- Training in variationist linguistics
- Proficiency in the analysis of text corpora
- Programming skills and statistical literacy (regression modeling in
particular)
- Good communication skills (oral & written), as well as strong interpersonal
skills
- A background in English linguistics and/or Italian linguistics is a plus.

We offer a fully funded full-time position for 4 years (initially for one
year, to be renewed for another three years after positive evaluation).
Remuneration is in accordance with the official Belgian scales for academic
personnel and bursaries – see the KU Leuven jobsite for more information.
Students in the final year of their MA degree can also apply.

If you are interested in this PhD project, please send your CV, a motivation
letter, and a sample of your writing (paper and/or MA-thesis) to
benszm at kuleuven.be by June 10, 2021. Shortlisted candidates will be invited
for an interview on July 1/2, 2021. The provisional starting date is October
1, 2021.

For more information about this project, please email Benedikt Szmrecsanyi at
the contact information provided below.
 

Application Deadline: 10-Jun-2021 

Contact Information: 
	Benedikt Szmrecsanyi
	benszm at kuleuven.be  


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