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<p><font size="2" face="Courier New">The University Research </font><font
size="2" face="Courier New" color="#000000">Priority </font><font
size="2" face="Courier New">Program (URPP) “Language and Space”
is inviting applications for a funded PhD position within the
research group “Areal Morphology” (cf. </font><a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.spur.uzh.ch_en_research_arealmorphology.html&d=DwMDaQ&c=cjytLXgP8ixuoHflwc-poQ&r=xWgwnXzyLjTDtEN1jkc-sliD_cd49k7fc7XSMi_8aeo&m=oZuuCJ9m_8nmnTYB-AYuwg--UPKP3beV5KEKxrQVPAk&s=ubnMIz2pNUyZCJ4HivQEp5m_Cuwtwj2QpQav0wKAHy8&e="><font
size="2" face="Courier New" color="#0000FF"><u>http://www.spur.uzh.ch/en/research/arealmorphology.html</u></font></a><font
size="2" face="Courier New">).<br>
<br>
Project description:<br>
The Ancient Near East is a cultural, political, and economical
hotspot and melting pot with more than 4000 years of
uninterrupted documentation of linguistic history. Up until the
mid first millennium CE, various languages belonging to the
Afro-Asiatic, Hurro-Urartian, and Indo-European language
families are known to have coexisted with at least four language
isolates contributing to the mixture. This unique configuration
is an ideal testbed for tracing the distribution and spread of
linguistic features within and across families and is of
particular interest for estimating the impact language isolates
can have on the typological profile of languages from larger
families.<br>
In cooperation with the supervisors, the GIS Group of the UZH
URPP “Language and Space”, and the wider interdisciplinary
community in the language sciences at Zurich the successful
applicant will carry out research on the spatiotemporal
diffusion of morphological patterns in the Ancient Near East.
The main goal is to specify the role of contact in trait
diffusion by using extralinguistic information as a proxy, in
particular information relating to geopolitical and
socio-economical history (economic system, ruling system,
migrations, displacements), physical geography (obstacles,
affordance, trade routes), and population genetics. It is
planned to correlate linguistic and extralinguistic data in
order to specify their effect on the diffusion of feature
specification in space and over time.<br>
<br>
Funding and expected outcomes:<br>
</font><font size="2" face="Courier New" color="#000000">Funding
for the position is li</font><font size="2" face="Courier New"
color="#000000">mited to three years</font><font size="2"
face="Courier New">, salary is according to the Swiss National
Science Foundation pay scale for PhD employees. The successful
applicant is expected to complete his/her PhD dissertation at
the University of Zurich within this timeframe. The PhD will
preferrably be cumulative, consisting of four papers. The exact
topics of the papers will be determined in accordance with the
applicant's background and preferences, and papers may be
co-authored with the supervisors and other researchers, but they
must reflect original and independent work by the PhD candidate.<br>
<br>
Requirements:<br>
The candidate must hold a Master’s degree in linguistics
received at the latest by the time he/she takes up his/her
position. Top candidates will have excellent results from their
Master's degree courses/thesis, a focus on or interest in
typology and historical linguistics, and a firm command of
quantitative methods in linguistics. Knowledge of GIScience is
an asset.<br>
<br>
Start date: September 1, 2018<br>
<br>
Application<br>
Applications with the usual documents (cover letter, CV,
transcript of BA/MA studies) should be sent as a single PDF
document to Balthasar Bickel (</font><a
href="mailto:balthasar.bickel@uzh.ch"><font size="2"
face="Courier New" color="#0000FF"><u>balthasar.bickel@uzh.ch</u></font></a><font
size="2" face="Courier New">) and Paul Widmer (</font><a
href="mailto:paul.widmer@uzh.ch"><font size="2" face="Courier
New" color="#0000FF"><u>paul.widmer@uzh.ch</u></font></a><font
size="2" face="Courier New">) by June 15, 2018. Two letters of
reference should be sent directly by independent referees to the
same e-mail addresses. For more details, please contact </font><a
href="mailto:balthasar.bickel@uzh.ch"><font size="2"
face="Courier New" color="#0000FF"><u>balthasar.bickel@uzh.ch</u></font></a><font
size="2" face="Courier New"> or </font><a
href="mailto:paul.widmer@uzh.ch"><font size="2" face="Courier
New" color="#0000FF"><u>paul.widmer@uzh.ch</u></font></a><font
size="2" face="Courier New">.</font>
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