Fellows 2024-2025
A full list of publications and presentations from CSLS Fellows is available here
Ilia Afanasev
University of Vienna, Austria
Mentor: Daan van Soeren
The project delves into the study of variation of the czas prszyszły zlożony (compound future tense) within the modern spoken standard Polish. The goal is to provide a sufficient explanation for the distribution of -ł- (former past participle;cf. będzie googlowała 'she will be googling') and -ć- (infinitive; cf. będzie googlować 'they will be googling') forms, based on the concept of the modality degree. The study challenges the traditional view of randomness of this distribution, as well as the previous hypotheses that seemingly do not account for actual data, presenting, for instance, a superficial direct connection between -ł-form and a grammatical masculine gender.
Emmanuel Bawa
City University of New York, Graduate Center
Mentor: Nancy Stern
Research project: Conditional in New Testament Greek.
This research is an initial attempt to apply the CS framework to two forms in Greek, εἰ and ἐάν, in the New Testament, beginning with the letters of Paul. These forms have been described as conditionals, but their differences have not yet been discovered. This preliminary research seeks to account for the distribution of the two particles using the Novum Testamentum Graece (Greek New Testament) as a primary source.
Andrew McCormick
City University of New York, Graduate Center
Mentor: Nancy Stern
The focus of this dissertation is the form how. The goal is to account for the distribution of how, a monosemous form with a single invariant meaning will be proposed. This claim presents a challenge to traditional analyses, which have posited at least three categories for the form: manner adverb (‘how to make lasagna’), intensifier (‘how far/how many’) and complementizer (this role is applied to situations where how is believed to be interpreted as an informal version of ‘that,’ as in, ‘He said how nobody likes the new policy’).
Ludmila Novotny
Universidad nacional de la Plata, Argentina
Mentor: Nancy Stern
Ludmila Novotny is a Certified English-Spanish Translator and researcher based in the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina. She holds a degree in Literary and Technical-Scientific Translation from the Instituto de Enseñanza Superior en Lenguas Vivas “Juan Ramón Fernández,” a degree in Legal Translation from the Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina, and a Master’s Degree in Linguistics from the Universidad Nacional de La Plata. In addition to working as a translator and conducting her own research, Novotny works as a research assistant for a project at Osnabrück University (Germany).
In her master’s thesis, Novotny has successfully accounted for the distribution of the English form through based on a monosemic analysis of that form, guided by the principles of the Columbia School framework and using qualitative and quantitative methods. In her current research project, she adopts the same theoretical and methodological approaches with the aim to account for the distribution of the Mapudungun word pu. This form has been traditionally proposed to have two, unrelated meanings. Novotny’s proposal is that the distribution of pu in authentic discourse may be better explained by a single, invariant meaning.
In her free time, Novotny enjoys singing, practicing yoga or just relaxing at home with her husband, son and two cats.
Tanisha Pandey
University of Bern, Switzerland
Mentor: Nancy Stern
Tanisha is a first year fellow who is looking at the distribution of the form they, in particular its use for singular referents. She is studying the frequency and distribution of the form to investigate whether they signals a Number meaning. It's possible that the information on the number of referents implicated by theyis inferred by the reader from the context of the form’s use and is not indicated by the form itself. The study aims to investigate this hypothesis using short stories published in the The New Yorker as its data set, and will include both qualitative and quantitative analysis.
This work builds up on previous works conducted in Columbia School (including Stern 2019), and takes inspiration from Lavendera (1978), García (1985) and Otheguy & Shin (2021) to bring Columbia School linguistics in dialogue with social queries into language use, and vice-versa.
Tanisha was born in and finished high school in India and is currently pursuing her masters in Sociolinguistics at the University of Bern, Switzerland and lives in Hamburg, Germany.
Daan van Soeren
University of Groningen, Netherlands
Mentor: Bob de Jonge
Daan van Soeren recently completed his PhD project at the University of Groningen, under the auspices of the Columbia School Linguistic Society. In the 2024-2025 academic year, he will continue his scholarship as a postdoctoral Fellow at the Society. His work has a focus on Columbia School Phonology, more commonly known as Phonology as Human Behaviour (PHB; Diver 2012), which argues that the phonology of languages is shaped the balance between maximum communication and minimal effort. He recently published a paper on word stress as a relevant factor in the distribution of sounds. When comparing the distribution of consonants in Spanish, English and Dutch words that start with either a stressed or an unstressed syllable, the results undeniably show different distributional patterns for the two word types.
Lucia Zanfardini
Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Argentina
Mentor: Bob de Jonge and Angelita Martinez
The general purpose of this project is to make a contribution to the understanding of "para" in Spanish. In particular, this research intends to explain why, when using the language, individuals choose the form "para" every time they do so. In order to understand its use and to better specify the hypothesis about its meaning, "para" is studied in contrast with two other Spanish forms: "a" and "por". There is a notable consensus among grammarians in recognizing in these so-called oriented or dynamic forms the possibility of making inferences related to spatiality, temporality, and purpose. The hypothesis about the meaning of "para" is that the form suggests to the hearer that the subsequent expression is interpreted as a location in a determined and oriented area (in the sense of a two-dimensional space). Seen in this way, the meaning is suitable to contribute both to messages that conceptualize spaces in a literal sense and in a metaphorical sense. For this research, comments from the eWOM (Electronic Word of Mouth) communication on tourist destinations will be collected. The TripAdvisor community of travelers has been selected as a source of analysis, particularly comments related to destinations in the province of Río Negro (Argentina) written by speakers who have declared themselves to be Argentines.
Lucía Zanfardini is a Professor of Language and Literature, holding a Master's degree in Linguistics and a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the National University of La Plata (Argentina). She was a doctoral fellow of the UNLP (2014-2017) and a doctoral and postdoctoral fellow of CONICET (2017-2023). She has served as a professor at the Argentine universities of La Plata, Río Negro and Comahue. She currently teaches Grammar I and Grammar II at the Centro Universitario Regional Zona Atlántica (Universidad Nacional del Comahue).