Dialectology and Formal Linguistics
Project Manager : Philippe Del Giudice
Permanent members
Nikos Angelopoulos, Seçkin Arslan, Xavier Barillot, Lena Baunaz, Guylaine Brun-Trigaud, Sylvain Casagrande, Philippe Del Giudice (responsable), Raphaël Domange, Pierre-Aurélien Georges, Bohdana Librova, Lucia Molinu, Friederike Moltmann, Katerina Palasis, Diana Passino, Diego Pescarini, Olivier Rizzolo, Nicolas Trapateau.
Non-permanent members
Elisabetta Carpitelli, Michèle Oliviéri
Pierre Ardisson, Enrico Castro, Furkan Dikmen, Fiametta Di Pasquale, David Inman, Rawan Larkem, Alexis Mezin, Jinke Song, Xiaoming Sun, Camille-Ninon Urgon, Qingwen Ye
Presentation
The historical focus of the team’s work is the treatment of linguistic variation from different perspectives: diatopy (dialectology and geolinguistics), diachrony (evolution and reconstruction in phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexical semantics), and diastraty (sociolinguistics).
The research is based on observations made in a wide variety of languages, ranging from Gallo-Romance and Italo-Romance dialects to varieties of English, Creole languages, and non-Indo-European systems. Some of the data examined comes from original corpora—which may include first-hand data collected by the researchers themselves—used in customized databases. Overall, the idea behind the team’s work is that the study of variation provides insights into the diachronic evolution of language and allows us to question and thus clarify the theoretical principles of language faculty. In particular, the fields of generative syntax, formal semantics, the ontology of natural languages, and the philosophy of language have developed significantly within the team in recent years.
The work of the Dialectology and Formal Linguistics team therefore covers a broad disciplinary field, organized around three areas of research:
Axis 1: Formal linguistics
Members of this research group study the structure of languages or their diachronic evolution through formalized theoretical models or structuralist approaches. Syntax, phonology, and morphology are at the heart of this group, which aims to identify the principles and architecture underlying languages. Drawing on methodologies and data from comparative grammar, diachrony, experimental linguistics, and field research, its members explore how general principles and language-specific parameters are internalized by speakers, with the aim of learning more about the faculty of language.
The developmental perspective can complement certain research thanks to a database of French-speaking children in kindergarten (data partially available on the CHILDES platform; please contact Katerina.Palasis@univ-cotedazur.fr for any information and/or data sharing).
Axis 2: Dialectology
The Dialectology axis focuses on work on lexicon, lexicography, and language contact. Lexical semantics is represented through motivation theory. This area includes the ongoing development of the Occitan Thesaurus (THESOC), the result of recognized expertise in the fields of digital tool creation and linguistic mapping, alongside other emerging databases such as the Niçard metadictionary and the textual corpus of this dialect.
Axis 3: Formal semantics, ontology, and philosophy of language
Project Manager : Friederike Moltmann
This research area includes formal semantics, ontology, and the philosophy of language, and in particular the interface between the semantics (and syntax) of natural language and metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of mathematics.
Here is a list of current and past members:
http://www.friederike-moltmann.com/projects/
Our activities consist of weekly research meetings, regular (hybrid) courses on new developments in the ontology-linguistics interface, and frequent workshops, conferences, and lectures with guest speakers. Our national and international collaborations include the linguistics and philosophy departments of the universities of Lille, Nantes, Trento, Genoa, Geneva, TĂĽbingen, CUNY, and NYU, as well as a large network of colleagues in linguistics and philosophy.
For relevant publications, please see:
http://www.friederike-moltmann.com/papers/ and
http://www.friederike-moltmann.com/books/