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.

See list of publications

Publications

To appear

• Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. To appear. 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. London: Routledge.
• Hellwig, Birgit. To appear. 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 story-telling at the interface between language and literacy. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
• Hellwig, Birgit. To appear. 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. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
• Mitchell, Alice. To appear. Documenting difference: Interactional approaches to the documentation of special registers. In Richard 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. 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, 441-466. Berlin: 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. Language Typology and Universals 70(1). 163-194. pdf