36.92, Support: New Funding Opportunity for Students, Ghent University

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-92. Mon Jan 13 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.92, Support: New Funding Opportunity for Students, Ghent University

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Date: 13-Jan-2025
From: Alexandra Simonenko [alexandra.simonenko at ugent.be]
Subject: New Funding Opportunity for Students, Ghent University


Institution/Organization: Ghent University

Level: PhD

Duties: Research

Specialty Areas: Computational Linguistics; General Linguistics;
Historical Linguistics; Text/Corpus Linguistics

Description:

Description:

Language evolution consists of sequences of changes. Certain sequences
have been identified as grammaticalization paths, whereby the
distributional span increases and the morphophonological independence
decreases [Lehmann, 2015, Hopper, 1991, Hopper and Traugott, 2003].
Such changes have furthermore been identified with an extension of
scope [Roberts and Roussou, 2003, van Gelderen, 2011, Hengeveld, 2017,
van Gelderen, 2023], which under generative approaches such as Roberts
and Roussou’s and Van Gelderen’s is equated with height in
hierarchical syntactic structure, and may correlate with changes in
the macro-typological character of languages, such as headedness or
syntheticity/analyticity.
Do the grammaticalization paths involve discreet stages, with
reanalysis defined on morphemes which have clearly distinct synchronic
analogues, or a continuous cline, with reanalysis operating on a set
of micro-features, which have to accumulate before the result becomes
comparable to a morpheme synchronically distinct from the initial
morpheme? Are the stages of the same or different temporal
length or, alternatively, is the cline linear or does it accelerate at
certain points? Does the stage duration/cline slope correlate with
typological frequencies of the relevant patterns [Hawkins, 1990]? Can
the grammaticalization stages be related to macro-syntactic phenomena,
such as harmonic or disharmonic headedness, and
analyticity/syntheticity?
The current project envisages a corpus-based approach to these
questions. Using a selection of diachronic treebanks (PROIEL and/or
Penn-style treebanks), adding further annotations, the project will
develop metrics, inspired by, but going beyond, [Szmrecsanyi, 2009,
Szmrecsanyi, 2016, Correia Saavedra, 2019] for quantifying
grammaticity, explicitly taking into account degree of functionality
(measured in terms of number of identified changes from an initial
stage) and uncertainty (compatibility with more than one analysis) in
transitory stages, as well as headedness/directionality (leveraging
UD-annotations) and analyticity/syntheticity (measured in terms of
e.g. number of functional morphemes per number of words in the corpus,
morpheme-to-word ratio, and function-to-morpheme ratio). Using these
metrics and annotations, we hope to pave the way to metrics-based
modeling of the role of grammaticalization with respect to
intra-linguistic phenomena, as well as to cross-linguistic comparisons
of grammaticalization sequences.
We are looking for a Ph.D. candidate to carry out this research on a
four-year bursary grant (1 + 3 years subject to positive evaluation
after the first year) at Ghent University (Department of Linguistics,
research group ∆iaLing). The project will be embedded within the
research group ∆iaLing at Ghent University, and will be carried out in
cooperation with the project “Tracing macro-cyclical change through
micro-cycles in Early Modern Chinese” (PI: A. Breitbarth, CIs: C.
Anderl and L. Badan) and “Modeling causes of language change and
conservatism” (PI: A. Simonenko).
Required qualifications:
• A Master’s degree in Linguistics, Mathematics or Computer Science
with a strong demonstrated interest in Linguistics
• Familiarity with a Generative Grammar framework
• Experience in corpus-based quantitative research
• Familiarity with statistical methods in linguistics and willingness
to learn more
• Training in older IE languages (the eventual choice of treebanks
will depend on the candidate’s
background) is a plus
Candidates are invited to send an application package involving:
• 1) a cover letter
• 2) a CV
• 3) a writing sample
to alexandra.simonenko at ugent.be by March 3, 2025. In addition, please
arrange for two letters of recommendation to be sent directly to
alexandra.simonenko at ugent.be.
References
[Correia Saavedra, 2019] Correia Saavedra, D. (2019). Measurements of
Grammaticalization: Developing a quantitative index for the study of
grammatical change. PhD thesis, Neuchâtel/Antwerp.
[Hawkins, 1990] Hawkins, J. (1990). Seeking motives for change in
typological variation. In William Croft, Keith Denning, S. K., editor,
Studies in typology and diachrony: Papers presented to Joseph H.
Greenberg on his 75th birthday, pages 95–128. John Benjamins,
Amsterdam.
[Hengeveld, 2017] Hengeveld, K. (2017). A hierarchical approach to
grammaticalization. In Hengeveld, K., Narrog, H., and Olbertz, H.,
editors, The Grammaticalization of Tense, Aspect, Modality and
Evidentiality: A Functional Perspective, pages 13–38. De Gruyter
Mouton, Berlin/Boston.
[Hopper, 1991] Hopper, P. J. (1991). On Some Principles of
Grammaticalization. In Traugott, E. C. and Heine, B., editors,
Approaches to Grammaticalization, pages 17–35. Benjamins,
Amsterdam/Philadelphia.
[Hopper and Traugott, 2003] Hopper, P. J. and Traugott, E. C. (2003).
Grammaticalization. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
[Lehmann, 2015] Lehmann, C. ([1982] 2015). Thoughts on
grammaticalization. Language Science Press, Berlin.
[Roberts and Roussou, 2003] Roberts, I. and Roussou, A. (2003).
Syntactic change. A minimalist approach to grammaticalization.
Cambridge University Press.
[Szmrecsanyi, 2009] Szmrecsanyi, B. (2009). Typological parameters of
intralingual variability: Grammatical analyticity versus syntheticity
in varieties of english. Language Variation and Change, 21:319–353.
[Szmrecsanyi, 2016] Szmrecsanyi, B. (2016). An analytic-synthetic
spiral in the history of english. In van Gelderen, E., editor,
Cyclical Change Continued, pages 93–112. Benjamins.
[van Gelderen, 2011] van Gelderen, E. (2011). The Linguistic Cycle.
Oxford University Press.
[van Gelderen, 2023] van Gelderen, E. (2023). The linguistic cycle.
Economy and renewal in historical linguistics. Routledge.

Application Deadline: 03-Mar-2025

Email Address for Applications: alexandra.simonenko at ugent.be

Contact Information:
Prof. Alexandra Simonenko



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