36.3504, Support: Linguistic Theories, Morphology, Semantics, Syntax: PhD Position in the Project "The Derivation of Clause-embedding Predicates", Leipzig University

Tue Nov 18 07:05:02 UTC 2025

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-3504. Tue Nov 18 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.3504, Support: Linguistic Theories, Morphology, Semantics, Syntax: PhD Position in the Project "The Derivation of Clause-embedding Predicates", Leipzig University

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Date: 17-Nov-2025
From: Barbara Stiebels [barbara.stiebels at uni-leipzig.de]
Subject: Linguistic Theories, Morphology, Semantics, Syntax: PhD Position in the Project "The Derivation of Clause-embedding Predicates", Leipzig University

Institution/Organization: Institute of Linguistics

Level: PhD

Duties: Project Work

Specialty Areas: Linguistic Theories; Morphology; Semantics; Syntax

Description:

The two 4-year PhD positions announced here are part of the subproject
'The derivation of clause-embedding predicates' (PI: Barbara Stiebels)
of the Research Unit (RU) 'Cyclic optimization', whose second funding
period will start in March 2026. The starting date of the positions
will also be March 1st, 2026.
Salary: E 13 TV-L, 65% part-time
The position is fully funded, including social security, health
insurance, and other benefits. The specific salary follows the pay
scale of the German public service system.
The project deals with the impact of morphological derivation on the
clausal selection profile of clause-embedding predicates (CEPs). It
will compare category-shifting and category-preserving derivations and
focus on the derivations' effects on selected clause types, verb mood,
control properties/raising in infinitive complements, NEG-raising and
semantic entailments. The project will study the following phenomena:
- The effects of category-shifting derivation (e.g. nominalization and
adjectivization) on the clausal selection properties of the respective
CEPs (e.g., think -> think-able)
- The effects of category-preserving derivation (e.g. complex verbs)
on clausal selection properties (e.g. German denken 'think' ->
nach-denken 'be thinking about')
- Cyclic effects in the stacking of derivational morphology (e.g.
un-think-able, desir-abil-ity)
- Complex compounds with CEPs as heads (e.g. German
Organ-spende-bereit-schaft 'willingness to donate organs'); intended
as small-scale-study
- The effect of derivations on the interpretation of polysemous/vague
CEPs and the role of reading triggers in the clausal complement
The languages that can potentially be studied include those with
productive derivational morphology and/or productive complex
compounding and for which larger resources (corpora) are available; a
low-resource language can only be chosen if the PhD student is a
native speaker of the language. The PhD students are expected to focus
on different languages and study both category-shifting and
category-preserving derivation.
Applicants should have an M.A. in Linguistics or related fields and
have a strong interest in the lexical semantics of clause-embedding
predicates, their specific clausal complementation properties and the
role of derivational morphology. In addition, applicants should be
willing to do careful empirical work (checking corpora and/or running
acceptability studies) and to familiarize themselves with theoretical
approaches to clause-embedding predicates.
The PhD students are expected to participate in the rotation program
of the RU, which involves a 2-month internship in some other project
of the RU, and the courses offered in the RU training program. The PhD
students will have access to travel money for presenting their work on
conferences.
We actively encourage the PhD students to write their dissertations on
topics related to the project.
Further information about the project and the RU can be found on the
website https://www.philol.uni-leipzig.de/cyclops.
Applications should include the following supporting documents:
- Letter of motivation (1-2 pages, in English or German) that
clarifies the research interests of the applicant, in particular
detailing how these would fit in with the research goals of the
project
- 1-2 representative samples of research work (M.A. thesis and/or
advanced seminar papers) in English or German
- 2 letters of recommendation
- Curriculum Vitae (CV)
- Copy of M.A. certificate (to be handed in latest by February 28,
2026, if not already available by December 15, 2025)
All supporting documents for the application should be emailed
electronically as a single pdf file (the M.A. certificate to be
scanned in) to Prof. Barbara Stiebels (subject line: cyclop phd
morsem; email address given below) till December 15, 2025. The
recommendation letters should be emailed directly to this email
address by the referees.
Applicants may also apply to other PhD positions offered by the RU for
the second funding period.

Application Deadline: 15-Dec-2025

Mailing Address for Applications:
        Germany
Email Address for Applications: barbara.stiebels at uni-leipzig.de

Contact Information:
Barbara Stiebels

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