37.2936, All: Obituary: Conxita Lleó (1943-2026)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-2936. Tue Sep 15 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.2936, All: Obituary: Conxita Lleó (1943-2026)

Moderator: Steven Moran (linguist at linguistlist.org)
Managing Editor: Valeriia Vyshnevetska
Team: Helen Aristar-Dry, Daniel Swanson
Jobs: jobs at linguistlist.org | Conferences: callconf at linguistlist.org | Pubs: pubs at linguistlist.org

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Editor for this issue: Daniel Swanson <daniel at linguistlist.org>

================================================================


Date: 15-Sep-2026
From: Susana Cortés [susana.cortes at uib.cat]
Subject: Obituary: Conxita Lleó (1943-2026)


It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Conxita Lleó
on Tuesday, 8 September 2026, at the age of 83. She was an outstanding
linguist whose work made important contributions to phonology,
language acquisition, bilingualism, and Romance linguistics.
Born in Barcelona in 1943, Conxita Lleó obtained her Licenciatura in
Romance Languages from the University of Barcelona in 1966. Her
studies were strongly influenced by the distinguished Romanist Antoni
Badia i Margarit, whose interest in phonology and the phonological
evolution of languages had a lasting impact on her academic
development.
After completing her degree, Lleó received a Fulbright scholarship to
study linguistics at the University of Washington in Seattle. She
completed an MA in Linguistics and continued her doctoral studies
there, receiving her PhD in 1978. Her training focused on formal and
generative linguistics, particularly generative phonology, which she
applied to the study of Catalan phonology. Her academic interests soon
expanded to bilingualism and, especially, the simultaneous acquisition
of two languages.
After teaching at universities in Chile and Argentina, Lleó joined the
University of Göttingen in 1976 as a research and teaching assistant
in Romance Studies, where she taught Spanish and Catalan linguistics
until 1985. From 1985 to 2008, she was Professor at the Institute of
Romance Studies at the University of Hamburg, where she continued to
be academically active for several years after her retirement.
At Hamburg, Conxita Lleó developed an extensive research program and
led several projects funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(DFG). Her research focused primarily on the monolingual and bilingual
acquisition of Spanish, German, and Catalan, with particular attention
to phonological development. Another important strand of her work
concerned the current state of Catalan phonology in Barcelona,
including research on child, adolescent, and adult speakers.
Conxita Lleó has left a lasting mark on the fields of phonological
development, child language acquisition, bilingualism, and the Romance
languages, and will continue to be an important reference for scholars
working on language acquisition and multilingualism.
Well beyond her considerable academic achievements, those who knew
Conxita will remember her for her warmth and kindness, as well as for
her common sense, commitment, and modesty.

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition
                     Phonology
                     Sociolinguistics

Subject Language(s): Catalan (cat, stan1289)
                     German (deu)
                     Spanish (spa, stan1288)

Language Family(ies): Germanic (germ1287)
                      Ibero-Romance
                      Romance (roma1334)



------------------------------------------------------------------------------

********************** LINGUIST List Support ***********************
Please consider donating to the Linguist List, a U.S. 501(c)(3) not for profit organization:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=87C2AXTVC4PP8

LINGUIST List is supported by the following publishers:

Australian Linguistics Society https://als.asn.au/Home

Bloomsbury Publishing http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/

Cambridge University Press http://www.cambridge.org/linguistics

Cascadilla Press http://www.cascadilla.com/

De Gruyter Brill https://www.degruyterbrill.com/?changeLang=en

Edinburgh University Press http://www.edinburghuniversitypress.com

European Language Resources Association (ELRA) http://www.elra.info

John Benjamins http://www.benjamins.com/

Language Science Press http://langsci-press.org

Lincom GmbH https://lincom-shop.eu/

MDPI Languages https://www.mdpi.com/journal/languages

MIT Press http://mitpress.mit.edu/

Multilingual Matters http://www.multilingual-matters.com/

Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG http://www.narr.de/

Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke (LOT) http://www.lotpublications.nl/

Peter Lang AG http://www.peterlang.com

SIL International Publications http://www.sil.org/resources/publications


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-37-2936
----------------------------------------------------------