[Histling-l] PhD position at U. Zurich

[P. Widmer]

The University Research Priority Program (URPP) “Language and Space” is 
inviting applications for a funded PhD position within the research 
group “Areal Morphology” (cf. 
_https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.spur.uzh.ch_en_research_arealmorphology.html-5F&d=DwIDaQ&c=cjytLXgP8ixuoHflwc-poQ&r=xWgwnXzyLjTDtEN1jkc-sliD_cd49k7fc7XSMi_8aeo&m=oZuuCJ9m_8nmnTYB-AYuwg--UPKP3beV5KEKxrQVPAk&s=IM1IxN1dlJTYw-338U_QdK3_S6ETLB2zUn_DFpVcGhc&e=).

Project description:
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.
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.

Funding and expected outcomes:
Funding for the position is limited to three years, 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.

Requirements:
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.

Start date: September 1, 2018

Application
Applications with the usual documents (cover letter, CV, transcript of 
BA/MA studies) should be sent as a single PDF document to Balthasar 
Bickel (_balthasar.bickel at uzh.ch_ <mailto:balthasar.bickel at uzh.ch>) and 
Paul Widmer (_paul.widmer at uzh.ch_ <mailto:paul.widmer at uzh.ch>)  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 _balthasar.bickel at uzh.ch_ 
<mailto:balthasar.bickel at uzh.ch> or _paul.widmer at uzh.ch_ 
<mailto:paul.widmer at uzh.ch>.

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