[Lingtyp] jobs: typology postdoc in Zurich

[Balthasar Bickel]

The Department of Comparative Linguistics at the University of Zurich invites applications for a postdoctoral position in typology.

The position is embedded in the reasearch project "The Evolution of Noun Phrases in Indo-Iranian: empirical foundations and theoretical modeling" funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. In this project, we aim at gaining insights into how exactly language contact, universal trends and chance effects play together. We do this by tracking the evolution of NP structures and their properties in a large sample of modern and extinct Indo-Iranian languages and compare them to their respective contact languages. We will use, and further develop, both qualitative comparative methods and quantitative modeling. Apart from the position advertised here, the project will be supported by a postdoc and PhD candidate specialized in Indo-Iranian historical linguistics and by experts in quantitative methods and database technology. The project is embedded in extensive cooperation between typology and Indo-European linguistics at the department.

The succesful candidate has a strong background and substantial experience in diachronically-oriented typology, including quantitative methods and area formation research. S/He is responsible for collecting and analyzing  data on the contact languages as well as on a worldwide control sample. In close cooperation with the entire project team, s/he will work towards comprehensive analyses of the historical dynamics of NP structures. We expect the succesful candidate to have excellent team-work skills and to be eager to look beyond narrow disciplinary boundaries.

The position is offered for a period of three years and will be filled by September 1, 2017 at the latest.

Applications are expected to reach us by March 31, 2017, and should include a letter of motivation, the CV, a copy of the PhD thesis, and the names of two references.

Please send the documents in PDF format to balthasar.bickel at uzh.ch and paul.widmer at uzh.ch, both of which may be contacted for further information.