Projects

Main topics of current research

  • Clause linkage in spoken and written varieties of Macrolatvian
  • Verbal categories and constructions in Latvian
  • Latgalian: documentation and description
  • The emergence of syntactic structures in oral narratives. A study of Latgalian folk tales

Participation in ongoing projects

  • DHELI Towards Development of an Open and FAIR Digital Humanities Ecosystem in Latvia. Start 2023.
  • COLING Minority Languages, Major Opportunities. Collaborative Research, Community Engagement and Innovative Educational Tools. Funded under H2020-EU.1.3.3 (Horizon 2020, RISE actions). Project ID: 778384. Project furthering collaboration among researchers and communities in the field of language revitalization. 2018-2023. Coordinator: Warsaw University. Homepage: https://coling.al.uw.edu.pl.

Participation in finished projects

  • Latgalian speech corpus (finished 2022)
  • The verb in Baltic languages (finished 2021)
  • TrimCo (finished 2017))
  • VARGReB (finished 30/09/2015)
  • Dziedzictwo Językowe Rzeczypospolitej (finished 2014)
  • INNET (finnished 2014)

Latgalian speech corpus

The development of a corpus of free speech in Latgalian dialects was part of the project „Digital Resources for Humanities: Integration and Development” funded within the Latvian State Research Program (2020-2021, project number VPP-IZM-DH-2020/1-0001). The corpus was developed by a team directed by Sanita Martena at Rēzekne Academy of Technologies. My part: Consultant.

Corpus website: https://mularkorpuss.rta.lv

The verb in Baltic languages: Grams, categories, domains. Project No. 09.3.3-LMT-K-712-01-0071, financed by the Lithuanian Research Council, located at Vilnius University. Project leader: Axel Holvoet. 2018-2022. My part: Senior researcher.

The results of the project were published in three thematic issues of Baltic Linguistics (open access):

TriMCo Triangulation Approach for Modelling Convergence with a High Zoom-In Factor (http://www.trimco.uni-mainz.de/)

This project is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and located at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz (started September 2013; coordinator: Prof. Dr. Björn Wiemer). Its aim is to investigate linguistic conversion in the Baltic-Slavic contact zone and to develop a comprehensive approach for the description and explanation of convergence phenomena in areas where dialects of different, though related languages are in contact.

My part: senior adviser; supervision of the Latgalian dialect corpus and analysis of Latgalian data; contributing a profil of Latgalian

VARGReB Valency, Argument Realisation and Grammatical Relations in Baltic

This project is located at Vilnius University and funded by the Lithuanian Research Council through a European Global Grant (duration: 01.10.2012-30.09.2015. Project coordinator: Axel Holvoet). Within this project an international team of researchers at various stages of their career investigate grammatical relations, argument realization and valency in Baltic languages from a synchronic point of view, combining formal and functional-typological approaches.

My part: senior researcher; author, co-editor and internal reviewer.

Main results published in three edited volumes:

Holvoet, Axel & Nicole Nau, eds. 2014. Grammatical relations and their non-canonical encoding in Baltic. (Valency, Argument Realization and Grammatical Relations in Baltic, 1). Amsterdam: Benjamin.

Holvoet, Axel & Nicole Nau, eds. 2015. Voice and argument structure in Baltic. (Valency, Argument Realization and Grammatical Relations in Baltic, 2). Amsterdam: Benjamin.

Holvoet, Axel & Nicole Nau, eds. 2016 Argument realization in Baltic. (Valency, Argument Realization and Grammatical Relations in Baltic, 3). Amsterdam: Benjamin.

My contributions to these volumes:

  • Nau, Nicole. 2014. Differential object marking in Latgalian. In: Axel Holvoet & Nicole Nau, eds. Grammatical relations and their non-canonical encoding in Baltic. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 207-255.
  • Holvoet, Axel & Nicole Nau. 2014. Argument marking and grammatical relations in Baltic: An overview. In: Axel Holvoet & Nicole Nau, eds. Grammatical relations and their non-canonical encoding in Baltic. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1-41.
  • Nau, Nicole. 2015. Morphological causatives in contemporary Latvian. In: Axel Holvoet & Nicole Nau, eds. Voice and argument structure in Baltic. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 99-146.
  • Nau, Nicole & Axel Holvoet. 2015. Voice in Baltic:– An overview. In: Axel Holvoet & Nicole Nau, eds. Voice and argument structure in Baltic. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1-36.
  • Nau, Nicole. 2016. Argument realization in Latvian action nominal construction. A corpus and text based investigation. In: Axel Holvoet & Nicole Nau, eds. Argument realization in Baltic. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 461-521.
  • Holvoet, Axel & Nicole Nau. 2016. Variation in argument realization in Baltic: An overview. In: Axel Holvoet & Nicole Nau, eds. Argument realization in Baltic. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1-34.

INNET Innovative Networking in Infrastructure for Endangered Languages (http://innet-project.eu)

The international project Innovative Networking in Infrastructure for Endangered Languages (INNET) is funded within the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission (grant agreement 284415; duration: 01.10.2011-30.09.2014). Partners: Universität Köln (UC, lead), Max Planck Institut für Psycholinguistik, Nijmegen (MPI), Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan (AMU), and Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HASRIL).

My part: coordination of the AMU-team, supervision of activities, contribution to the School Information Package.

Results (only AMU activities):

  • development of a School Information Package – a multimedia educational tool for learning and teaching about linguistic diversity, endangered languages, and language documentation, online at: languagesindanger.eu
  • local organization of a summer school on Technological Approaches to the Documentation of Lesser Used Languages in September 2013;
  • local organization of the Second INNET Conference on Best practices in digital archiving of language and music data, September 2013.

Dziedzictwo Językowe Rzeczypospolitej (The Linguistic Heritage of the Rzeczpospolita)

The national project Dziedzictwo Językowe Rzeczypospolitej was funded by the Polish National Program for the Development of the Humanities (Narodowy Program Rozwoju Humanistyki; project number 11H 11 001480; duration: 01.01.2012-31.01.2014). The project was carried out at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, coordinator: Dr. Tomasz Wicherkiewicz.

The aim of the project was to develop a database which provides substantial information on lesser used languages of the Rzeczpospolita: minority languages of today’s Poland as well as lesser used languages spoken on the territory of the historic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or it’s Polish successor. Potential users of the database are researchers (linguists, ethnographers) as well as the general public. During the project the database was filled with general information on 14 languages and data samples (spoken and written texts) and more detailed information for three selected languages: Wilamowicean, Polish Yiddish, and Latgalian.

My part: collecting and preparing (editing, translating, transcribing) Latgalian data. The main data source is the collection of folklore by the Polish ethnographer Stefania Ulanowska (published 1892-1895): fairy tales, folksongs, proverbs, riddles. In addition to the written texts, some recordings were made with today’s speakers of Latgalian (reading of fairy-tales and riddles, comments on proverbs, performance of folk songs). Further samples of contemporary spoken Latgalian were collected through interviews.

Results: The database and more information about the project can be found at: www.inne-jezyki.amu.edu.pl