
B02 - Split case marking and constituent order variation in East Africa
This project investigates prominence relations in East African languages with different types of split case marking systems that interact with constituent order. The focus is on languages that mark case on postverbal (but not on preverbal) agents or subjects. Using spoken language corpora, we identify the features that trigger differential marking and study their interaction and variability in languages across the region.
Team


Jun.-Prof. Dr. Alice Mitchell
Principal Investigator B02
Office: Afrikanistik, Meister-Ekkehart-Straße 9E-Mail: alice.mitchell(at)uni-koeln.dePhone: (+49) 221 470-6936

Dr. Gertrud Schneider-Blum
Associated Postdoc B02
Office: SFB, Luxemburger Str. 299, room 2.10E-Mail: schneider_blum(at)yahoo.dePhone: (+49) 221 470-89906

Mandy Lorenzen
Representative Doctoral students, Doctoral student B02
Office: SFB, Luxemburger Str. 299, room 2.10E-Mail: mandy.lorenzen(at)uni-koeln.dePhone: (+49) 221 470-89906

Elisabeth Clages
Student assistant B02
Office: SFB, Luxemburger Str. 299, room 2.12E-Mail: e.clages(at)uni.koeln.de
Publications
To appear
- Mitchell, Alice. To appear. Documenting difference: Interactional approaches to the documentation of special registers. In Rich Sandoval & Nicholas Williams (eds.), Interactional approaches to language documentation (Language Documentation & Conservation SP). Honolulu, Hawai’i: University of Hawai’i Press.
- Mitchell, Alice. To appear. Pointing for time-of-day reference in Datooga. In Eric Dzwiza-Ohlsen (ed.), Deixis – Zeigen – Pointing. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven. Darmstadt: WBG.
2023
- Schneider-Blum, Gertrud. 2023. The impact of attentional centering on ergative marking in Tima. STUF - Language Typology and Universals 76(1). 87–112.
2022
- Hellwig, Birgit. 2022. Expressing events of directed caused accompanied motion in Qaqet. In Anna Margetts, Birgit Hellwig & Sonja Riesberg (eds.), Caused accompanied motion: Bringing and taking events in a cross-linguistic perspective, 341–368. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
- Hellwig, Birgit & Dagmar Jung. 2022. Events of caused accompanied motion in Qaqet and Dëne Sųłıné child language corpora. In Anna Margetts, Sonja Riesberg & Birgit Hellwig (eds.), Caused accompanied motion: Bringing and taking events in a cross-linguistic perspective, 397–434. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
- Hellwig, Birgit, Anna Margetts, Sonja Riesberg & Melanie Schippling. 2022. Bringing and taking: A cross-linguistic perspective on caused accompanied motion events. In Anna Margetts, Sonja Riesberg & Birgit Hellwig (eds.), Caused accompanied motion: Bringing and taking events in a cross-linguistic perspective, 1–41. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
- Margetts, Anna, Sonja Riesberg & Birgit Hellwig (eds.). 2022. Caused accompanied motion: Bringing and taking events in a cross-linguistic perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
- Mitchell, Alice & Anne Storch. 2022. The Unspoken. In Svenja Völkel & Nico Nassenstein (eds.), Approaches to language and culture, 217-236. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
- Schneider-Blum, Gertrud. 2022. On noncausal/causal alternations in Tima (Nuba Mountains, Sudan). Linguistique et Langues Africaines 8(2).
- Schneider-Blum, Gertrud, Sonja Riesberg, Birgit Hellwig & Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. 2022. On resolving prominence conflicts – exceptional case marking in Tima and Yali. In Gianollo, Chiara, Łukasz Jędrzejowski & Sofiana I. Lindemann (eds.), Paths through meaning and form, 211-215. Cologne: USB Monographs.
2021
- Compes, Isabel. 2021. The morphology of argument marking in the Wagi dialect of Beria. Studies in African Linguistics 50(2). 196–226.
- Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. 2021. The comparative method and language change in accretion zones: A view from the Nuba Mountains. In Na’ama Pat-El, Patience Epps & Danny Law (eds.), Historical linguistics and endangered languages: Exploring diversity in language change, 155–181. London: Routledge.
- Hellwig, Birgit. 2021. Children’s narratives in Papua New Guinea: A case study of Qaqet. In Christiane Bongartz & Jacopo Torregrossa (eds.), What’s in a narrative? Variation in storytelling at the interface between language and literacy, 99–120. Bern: Peter Lang.
- Mitchell, Alice. 2021. Phasal polarity in Barabaiga and Gisamjanga Datooga (Nilotic): Interactions with tense, aspect, and participant expectation. In Raija Kramer (ed.), The expression of phasal polarity in African languages, 419–441. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
2020
- Becker, Laura & Gertrud Schneider-Blum. 2020. Morphological marking of contrast in Tima. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 5(1).
- Casaretto, Antje, Gerrit J. Dimmendaal, Birgit Hellwig, Uta Reinöhl & Gertrud Schneider-Blum. 2020. Roots of ergativity in Africa (and beyond). Studies in African Linguistics 49(1). 111–140.
- Vossen, Rainer & Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (eds.). 2020. The Handbook of African Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2019
- Dimmendaal, Gerrit J., Colleen Ahland, Angelika Jakobi & Constance Kutsch Lojenga. 2019. Linguistic features and typologies in languages commonly referred to as ‘Nilo-Saharan’. In Ekkehard Wolff (ed.), Cambridge Handbook of African Linguistics, 326-381. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Hellwig, Birgit. 2019. Linguistic diversity, language documentation and psycholinguistics: The role of stimuli. In Aimée Lahaussois & Marine Vuillermet (eds.), Methodological tools for linguistic description and typology (Language Documentation and Conservation SP 16), 5-30. Honolulu, Hawai’i: University of Hawai’i Press.
- Hellwig, Birgit. 2019. Grammatical relations in Katla. In Alena Witzlack-Makarevich & Balthasar Bickel (eds.), Argument selectors: A new perspective on grammatical relations (Typological Studies in Language), 511-531. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
2018
- Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. 2018. Historical linguistics in an African context: A brief state of the art. In Augustine Agwuele & Adams Bodomo (eds.), Routledge Handbook of African Linguistics, 33-54. London: Routledge.
- Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. 2018. On stable and unstable features in Nilo-Saharan. In Helga Schröder & Prisca Jerono (eds.), Nilo-Saharan Issues and Perspectives, 9-23. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.
- Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. 2018. Reconstructing Katloid and deconstructing Kordofanian. In Gertrud Schneider-Blum, Birgit Hellwig & Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (eds.), Nuba Mountain Languages Studies: New Insights, 383-415. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.
- Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. & Gertrud Schneider-Blum. 2018. Transitivity in Tima. In Rose-Juliet Anyanwu (ed.), Transitivity in African languages, Frankfurter Afrikanistische Blätter, Jahrgang 2014, Band 26, 125-146. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.
- Hellwig, Birgit. 2018. Verbal derivation in Katla: The comitative. In Schneider-Blum, Gertrud, Birgit Hellwig & Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (eds.), Nuba Mountain Language Studies: New Insights, 209-232. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.
- Schneider-Blum, Gertrud. 2018. Constituent focus and selective marking in Tima. In Schneider-Blum, Gertrud, Birgit Hellwig & Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (eds.). Nuba Mountain Language Studies: New Insights, 255-279. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.
- Schneider-Blum, Gertrud & Birgit Hellwig. 2018. Reference tracking in Tima and its interplay with split ergative marking. Studies in Language 42(4). 970-993.
- Schneider-Blum, Gertrud, Birgit Hellwig & Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (eds.). 2018. Nuba Mountain Language Studies: New Insights. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.
- Veit, Nataliya. 2018. The verbal derivational morpheme -aa in Tima. In Schneider-Blum, Gertrud, Birgit Hellwig & Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (eds.). Nuba Mountain Language Studies: New Insights, 233-254. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.
2017
- Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. 2017. Areal contact in Nilo-Saharan. In Raymond Hickey (ed.), Cambridge Handbook of Areal Linguistics, 446-470. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Schneider-Blum, Gertrud. 2017. Once or more often? On pluractionality marking in Tima. STUF - Language Typology and Universals 70(1). 163-194. pdf