[HPSG-L] PhD position at the University of Konstanz

[Tina Bögel]

Dear colleagues,

please feel free to share this announcement with interested students.

*One PhD position (TVL-13, 65%) for work at the interface between 
prosodic structure and formal/computational LFG grammars at the 
University of Konstanz, Germany*

Application Deadline: 31.1.2022
Start of the project: April 2022

We are looking for a PhD student to work with us on the joint 
DFG/AHRC-project "Prosodic structure at the interface between language 
and speech" awarded to Tina Bögel (University of Konstanz) and Alice 
Turk (University of Edinburgh).

Both language redundancy and prosodic structure affect characteristics 
of speech related to acoustic salience and intelligibility. The idea  
that prosodic structure is the interface between grammar and speech led 
to proposals that speakers plan the prosodic structure of an utterance 
in order to make less predictable parts of speech more intelligible via 
its effects on acoustic saliency. The goals of this project are 1) to 
test the hypothesis that prosodic structure is the interface between 
language and speech, and 2) to implement this interface in a 
(computational) LFG-grammar in order to test and evaluate our 
architectural assumptions.

The PhD student's project will relate to the integration of language 
redundancy effects into the LFG modules (e.g., to determine an 
appropriate representation of bigram frequencies and their effects in 
the lexicon, syntactic structure, and prosodic structure, and to 
implement them accordingly into a computational LFG grammar). The PhD 
student will also assist in the design and execution of several speech 
production experiments in close collaboration with all members of the 
project.

Your profile:
- A very good MA-degree in a relevant field
- good English language skills
- basic knowledge in phonetics and statistics
- general knowledge of syntax

It is a plus if you have any of these skills:
- knowledge of Lexical Functional Grammar (or even its computational 
implementation)
- experience with speech production/perception experiments
- rule-based computational or programming skills

We do not expect you to be the perfect match, but we expect you to 
acquire the necessary skills within a year (with support from us and 
classes offered at the Department of Linguistics at the University of 
Konstanz) and to be open towards different subfields within linguistics.

We offer:
- a pleasant and supportive working environment
- support for contributions to conferences and general publications
- an integration into a very research-oriented department with 
colleagues from various subfields of linguistics
- the possibility of obtaining a PhD

Please send your application as one pdf to Tina.Boegel at uni-konstanz.de 
including
- your CV
- your BA/MA certificates
- a motivational letter
- and two referees who we could contact

The University of Konstanz is committed to ensuring an environment that 
provides equal opportunities and promotes diversity as well as a good 
balance between university and family life. As an equal opportunity 
employer, we strive to increase the number of women working in the field 
advertised 
(https://www.uni-konstanz.de/en/equalopportunities/equal-opportunity/). 
Persons with disabilities are explicitly encouraged to apply. They will 
be given preference if appropriately qualified (contact + 49 7531 88–4016).

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Tina Bögel
FB Sprachwissenschaft
Universität Konstanz

https://ling.sprachwiss.uni-konstanz.de/pages/home/boegel/


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