Laura Grestenberger, PhD
- Assistant Professor, Classics, Modern Languages and Linguistics
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Sign in to editResearch areas: Indo-European linguistics, reconstruction of Indo-European nominal and verbal morphology, nominal compounding, Indo-Iranian nominal and verbal morphology, reflexivity in the Indo-European languages, voice systems, microvariation in agreement morphology, diachronic syntax, language change
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Biography
My research focuses on morphology, syntax, and comparative Indo-European linguistics. In my Ph.D. thesis, I analyze deponents (verbs with non-active morphology, but active syntax) in several non-informant Indo-European languages (Hittite, Vedic Sanskrit, Greek, Latin) and argue that voice mismatches develop diachronically in voice systems in which voice morphology is assigned postsyntactically (like in Greek), whereas voice systems with valency-reducing voice constructions (like English) do not exhibit voice mismatches. This thesis combines comparative reconstruction with current research in generative syntax, and approaching linguistic problems from both the synchronic and diachronic perspective is crucial to my research in general.
I have also worked on the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) verbal morphology, Indo-Iranian syntax and verbal morphology, syntactic change, and the history of linguistics. Within syntax, I have worked on reflexive constructions and possessive anaphors in Vedic and on number marking in pseudo-partitive constructions in Germanic.
My research in Indo-European linguistics has focused on the reconstruction of PIE nominal morphology (in particular the “individualizing” suffix *-i- in Indo-Iranian and the Latin and Greek verbal governing compounds in *-ā in connection with the prehistory of the feminine suffix *-eh2), as well as PIE voice morphology. My Ph.D. thesis also contributes to the question of the distribution of the PIE middle voice and the endings of the *h2e-conjugation.
Education
2014: PhD in Linguistics, Harvard University, Title of the Ph.D. thesis: “Feature mismatch: Deponency in Indo-European Languages” (Committee: Jay Jasanoff (chair), Sabine Iatridou, Isabelle Charnavel, Jeremy Rau)
2009: MA (Mag. phil.) in Linguistics, University of Vienna, Title of the M.A. thesis: “The Vedic i-Stems and Internal Derivation (adviser: Melanie Malzahn)
Teaching activities
Ling 200
Introduction to Linguistic Science
Ling 330
Sanskrit
Ling 336
Comparative Indo-European Linguistics
Ling 380
Morphology
Ling 420
Language Change
Ling 436
Advanced Indo-European Studies