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Prof. Dr. Johannes Helmbrecht

CV

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

  • General and Comparative Linguistics (major), Philosophy, and Psychology at the University of Bonn, 1983-1989.
  • Standard Arabic at the SOS (Seminar for Oriental Languages), 1985-1987.
  • M.A., University of Bonn (General and Comparative Linguistics (major), Philosophy, Psychology), 1989.
  • Linguistics at the University of Cologne, 1987-1994.
  • Ph.D., University of Bonn (Linguistics, Philosophy, Psychology), 1994.
  • Sommerschule der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft (Summer School of the German Linguistic Society) in Hamburg, Germany, 1989.
  • Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM, 1995.
  • Habilitation. “Habilitationsschrift” (the second PhD theses) and examination at the University of Erfurt in April 2005. Advisors were initially Prof. Hans-Jürgen Sasse (University of Cologne), and then Prof. Christian Lehmann (University of Erfurt.

PROFFESIONAL POSITIONS

  • Teaching position at the Northeastern Illinois University (Chicago, IL), 1995.
  • Teaching position at the Linguistic Department of the University of Cologne, Germany, 1997-1999.
  • Temporary professor (replacement) at the University of Applied Sciences in Cologne (“Fachhochschule K?ln”) at the Department of Foreign Languages, summer semester 1999. Subjects of teaching: translation English-German, languages for special purposes (technical and scientific language), computer linguistics, machine-aided translation, and others. Member of the committee for examination and graduation issues.
  • Assistant professor at the Linguistic Department of the University of Erfurt (director: Prof. Christian Lehmann) for general and comparative linguistics since winter semester 1999/2000. Member of the committee for examination and graduation issues for the BA and MA programs in linguistics.
  • Full Professor (Chair) for General and Comparative Linguistics at the University of Regensburg since fall 2006.

Research

FELLOWSHIPS AND RESEARCH PROJECTS

  • Fellowship from the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation for preparing the Ph.D. 1991-1994.
  • Grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG (German Research Society) for linguistic fieldwork ("Personal agreement systems") on East Caucasian languages in Makhachkala (Republic of Dagestan, Russia), from April-June 1994.
  • Fellowship from the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch-Dienst, DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) for post-doctoral research at the University of California, Los Angeles, CA, September 1994 - June 1995, (Declined).
  • Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation) for post-doctoral research on a comparative-typological study of personal pronouns in North American Indian languages at the Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, IL (also research fellow at the Newberry Library in Chicago, IL) from Summer 1994 - Summer 1996.
  • Northeastern Illinois University Foundation grant for fieldwork on the morphosyntax of Hooc?k (Winnebago), a North American Indian language of the Siouan family, January-June 1996.
  • Grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG (German Research Society) for linguistic fieldwork on the morphosyntax of Hooc?k (Winnebago) in Mauston, WI (at the Hooc?k Language Division) in the USA, August-November 1997.
  • Grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG (German Research Society) for linguistic fieldwork on the morphosyntax of Winnebago in Mauston, WI (at the Hooc?k Language Division) in the USA, August 1999.
  • Grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG (German Research Society) for linguistic fieldwork on the morphosyntax of Hooc?k (Winnebago) in Mauston, WI (at the Hooc?k Language Division) in the USA, 2002.
  • March 2003, participant in the European Academic Exchange Program (ERASMUS) for docents with the University of Pavia, Italy. Fellowship at the Linguistic Department of the University of Pavia.
  • May 2003 – April 2008, director of the DOBES project “Documentation of the Hooc?k language” (together with Prof. Christian Lehmann, University of Erfurt). It is part of the DOBES funding initiative of the Volkswagen Foundation (approximately 300.000 Euro plus a 50.000 Euro extension in the fourth year of the project). This project with three scientific assistants included the preparation of a representative digital corpus of texts from audio and video recordings, a dictionary, a sketch grammar, and teaching materials. Audio and video recordings are digitized, transcribed, grammatically annotated by means of morpheme by morpheme glosses, and translated. Since all documentation is digital, software such as praat (transcription), shoebox (grammatical and lexical annotation, dictionary), and ELAN (XML based simultaneous representation of audio and video recording plus all annotations) was used plus a number of task specific programs and scripts which were prepared by the members of the Hooc?k documentation team. The project comprised intense fieldwork by the key participants of the project; the PI (Helmbrecht) conducted four at least month-length fieldwork trips to the Hooc?k Indians in Wisconsin in 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007 ; (cf. the websites of a) the documentation project at the University of Erfurt, and b) and c) the DOBES website at the MPI Nijmegen:
    a) www.uni-erfurt.de/sprachwissenschaft/Vgl_SW/Hooc?k/index_frames.html;
    b) www.mpi.nl/DOBES/
    c) www.mpi.nl/DOBES/projects/Hooc?k
  • March 2010, participant in the European Academic Exchange Program (ERASMUS) for docents with the University of York, Great Britain. Fellowship at the Linguistic Department of the University of York.
  • Since April 2013, three year research project funded by the German Research Society (DFG, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) with a budget of approx. 130.000 Euros. The goal of the project is the development of a corpus-based descriptive grammar of Hooc?k.

CONFERENCES / WORKSHOPS / SUMMER SCHOOLS

  • Co-organizer of the Workshops on "Comparative Siouan Linguistics" (with John Boyle PhD North Eastern Illinois University, Chicago) at the Annual Siouan and Caddoan Languages Conferences at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln (June 2009) and at the North Eastern Illinois University in Chicago (2010).
  • International Conference "The Grammar of Proper Names – A Typological Perspective" organized and held at the University of Regensburg in October, 2010; funded by the Hans Vielberth Foundation of the University of Regensburg.
  • International Summer School "Theory and Methods of Language Documentation" and a Workshop on "Language Documentation Meets Corpus Linguistics: how to exploit DOBES corpora for descriptive linguistics and language typology?" at the University of Regensburg in September 19 – 28, 2011; funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and the Hans Vielberth Foundation.

Publications

SELECTEC CONFERENCE PAPERS, PUBLICATIONS AND EDITED VOLUMES

IN PREPARATION

  • Helmbrecht, Johannes. A Corpus-Based Grammar of Hooc?k (Winnebago)- A Siouan Language of Native North America. (Monographie).
  • Helmbrecht, Johannes & Jung, Dagmar (eds.) WSK 13. Linguistic Typology (Sprachtypologie). A dictionary of linguistic terms and concepts. Volume 13. (W?rterbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft WSK Bd. 13 - online). Berlin/ NY: Mouton de Gruyter.

TO APPEAR

  • Helmbrecht, Johannes, Lukas Denk, Sarah Thanner, Ilenia Tonetti. To appear. "Morphosyntactic coding of proper names and its implications for the Animacy Hierarchy". (Paper presented at the biannual international conference of the Association for Linguistic Typology ALT in Leipzig, August 2013).
  • Helmbrecht, Johannes. To appear. "On the Form and Function of Proper Names – A Typological Perspective". In. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung (Language Typology and Universals) STUF (Special issue on Referentiality).
  • Helmbrecht, Johannes. To appear. "A typology of non-prototypical uses of personal pronouns: synchrony and diachrony". In Journal of Pragmatics (Special issue "The Flexibility of Pronoun Reference in Context").
  • Helmbrecht, Johannes. To appear. "Typological view of Hooc?k and other Siouan languages" In Cristofaro, Sonja (ed.) Language and Linguistics Compass: Typology.

2014
  • "Politeness distinctions in personal pronouns – a case study in competing motivations." (Paper presented at the Competing Motivations Conference at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, November 2010, Leipzig). In: MacWhinney, Brian, Andrej Malchukov, and Edith Moravcsik (eds.). Competing Motivations in Grammar and Usage. Oxford University Press. 315-333.

2012

  • Bouda, Peter and Johannes Helmbrecht. 2012. "From corpus to grammar: how DOBES corpora can be exploited for descriptive linguistics". In Sebastian Nordoff (ed). Electronic Grammaticography. 129-159. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

2010

  • Helmbrecht, Johannes and Christian Lehmann (eds.) Hoc?k Teaching Materials, Volume 1. Elements of Grammar/ Learner's Dictionary. Albany,NY: SUNY Press.
  • Helmbrecht, Johannes & Elisabeth Verhoeven (eds.) Focus on Latin. In: Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung STUF (Language Typology and Universals).
  • "The accentual system of Hoc?k". In: Wohlgemuth, Jan & Michael Cysouw (eds.) Rara & Rarissima: Documenting the fringes of linguistic diversity. (Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Typology (EALT); 46). Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 117-145.
  • "H?flichkeitspronomina in Europa – Synchronie und Diachronie eines arealtypologischen Merkmals" in Hinrichs, Uwe (ed.) Handbuch der Eurolinguistik. (Slavistische Studienbücher). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, p. 683-702.

2009

  • Helmbrecht, Johannes & Nishina, Yoko & Shin, Yong-Min & Skopeteas, Stavros & Verhoeven, Elisabeth (eds.) Form and Function in Language Research. Papers in Honor of Christian Lehmann. Berlin/NY: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • "Causative constructions in Siouan Languages". (Paper presented at the Annual Siouan and Caddoan Linguistics Conference (SCLC) at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, June 2009). University of Regensburg. Manuscript.
  • "On the Typology of Proper Names". (Paper presented at the bi-annual conference of the Association for Linguistic Typology (ALT) in July 2009 at the University of California, Berkeley, CA). University of Regensburg. Manuscript.
  • Johannes Helmbrecht & Iren Hartmann "The tension between language documentation and descriptive linguistics – the case of Ho?ank deictic motion verbs". In: Current Issues in Unity and Diversity of Languages. (Collection of the papers selected from the 18th International Congress of Linguists (CIL 18), held at Korea University in Seoul, July 21-26, 2008). Seoul: Linguistic Society of Korea 2349-2364.

2008

  • Helmbrecht, Johannes & Christian Lehmann "Ho?ank's challenge to morphological theory". In: Rood, David & David Harrison & Arienne Dwyer (eds.) A World of Many Voices: Lessons from Documented Endangered Languages. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 271-315.
  • "Decay and loss of applicatives in Siouan languages – A grammaticalization perspective" In: Verhoeven, Elisabeth, et al. (eds.) Studies on Grammaticalization. Berlin/ NY:Mouton de Gruyter, p.135-157.
  • Verhoeven, Elisabeth & Stavros, Skopeteas & Yong Min Shin & Yoko Nishina & Johannes Helmbrecht (eds.) Studies on Grammaticalization. Berlin/NY: Mouton de Gruyter.

2006

  • "On the development of Standard Average European (SAE) – the case of polite pronouns." (Paper presented at the annual meeting of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS) at the University of Bielefeld, Germany). University of Erfurt. Manuscript.
  • "The problem of tense, mood and aspect enclitics in Hooc?k - how annotated corpora and concordancing tools can support descriptive linguistics". In: Steiner, Petra & Boas, Hans Christian & Schierholz, Stefan (eds.) Contrastive Studies and Valency. Studies in Honor of Hans Ulrich Boas. Bern: Lang, pp. 171-199.
  • "Personalpronomina – Eine Korpusanalyse und ihre Implikationen für die Sprachtypologie." [Personal pronouns – a corpus analysis and its implications for language typology] (Paper presented at the 39th conference of the Societas Linguistica Europaea at the University of Bremen). University of Erfurt. Manuscript.
  • "Are there Adjectives in Hooc?k (Winnebago)?" In: Lois, Ximena & Vapnarsky, Valentina (eds.) Lexical Categories and Root Classes in Amerindian Languages. Bern: Lang, pp. 289-319. (PDF/1.2MB)
  • "Applicatives in Siouan languages – a study in comparative Siouan morphosyntax" (Paper delivered at the Workshop on Comparative Siouan Grammar in Billings, MT June 2006). University of Erfurt. Manuscript.
  • "Selbstreferenz und Selbstbewusstsein. Zur grammatischen und pragmatischen Struktur von ICH"[Self-reference and self-consciousness – on the grammatical and pragmatic structure of I/me]. In: Gerhard Blanken & Winfried Franzen (eds.), Themenheft "Sprache und Denken". Neurolinguistik Zeitschrift für Aphasieforschung und –therapie 20,1-2:55-81. (PDF/1.7MB)
  • Johannes Helmbrecht & Christian Lehmann (eds.) Learners' Dictionary Ho?ank-English/ English-Ho?ank. In: Arbeitspapiere des Seminars für Sprachwissenschaft der Universit?t Erfurt (ASSidUE) Nr. 21. Erfurt: University of Erfurt. (PDF)

2005

  • "Das Problem der Universalit?t der Nomen/Verb-Distinktion." [The problem of the universality of the noun/ verb distinction] In: Arbeitspapiere des Seminars für Sprachwissenschaft der Universit?t Erfurt (ASSidUE) Nr. 16. Erfurt: University of Erfurt. (PDF)
  • "Hooc?k as an active/inactive language – Why there is no passive/antipassive" (Paper presented at the conference on the typology of stative/ active languages at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Mai 2005). In: Arbeitspapiere des Seminars für Sprachwissenschaft der Universit?t Erfurt (ASSidUE) Nr. 20. Erfurt: University of Erfurt. (PDF).
  • "Typologie und Diffusion von H?flichkeitspronomina in Europa."[On the Typology and Diffusion of politeness distinctions in personal pronouns in the languages of Europe] In: Folia Linguistica XXXIX,3-4:417-453. (PDF/2.2MB)
  • "Politeness Distinctions in Personal Pronouns". In: Haspelmath, Martin & Matthew S. Dryer & David Gil & Bernard Comrie (eds.) The World Atlas of Language Structures. pp. 186-90. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Also available online: Johannes Helmbrecht. 2013. "Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns". In: Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (http://wals.info/chapter/45, Accessed on 2014-09-18.)).

2004

  • "On the typology and grammaticalization of peripheral participants" (Paper presented on the 26th Annual Meeting of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS)at the University of Mainz, February 2004). University of Erfurt. Manuscript.
  • Personal Pronouns – Form, Function, and Grammaticalization. (Habilitationsschrift), University of Erfurt. Manuscript
  • "Cross-linguistic generalizations and their explanation". In: Booij, Geert/ Christian Lehmann/ Joachim Mugdan/ Stavros Skopeteas (eds.) Morphology. A Handbook on Inflection and Word Formation. (Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, HSK. Vol. 17,2). Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 1247-54.
  • "Ikonizit?t in Personalpronomen"[Iconicity in personal pronouns]. In: Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft ZS 23,2:211-45. (PDF/1.8MB)

2003

  • "Possession in Hooc?k (Winnebago) – Problems for a prototype approach." In: Arbeitspapiere des Seminars für Sprachwissenschaft der Universit?t Erfurt (ASSidUE) Nr. 8. Erfurt: University of Erfurt. (PDF).
  • Review of: Aikhenwald, Alexandra Y. & R. M. W. Dixon (eds.) 2001. Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance. Problems in Comparative Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. In: Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft ZS 22,2:250-4.
  • Review of: Bisang, Walter (ed.) Aspects of Typology and Universals. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung – Beihefte Studia typologia 1. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. In: Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft ZS 22,2:254-7.
  • "Politeness distinctions in second person pronouns". (Paper presented on the 23rd Annual Meeting of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS) in Leipzig, Germany and on the conference of the Association for Linguistic Typology ALT IV at the University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (UCSB)). In: Lenz, Friedrich (ed.) Deictic conceptualization of space, time and person. (Pragmatics and Beyond). Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp 183-203. (PDF/905kB)

2002

  • "Nouns and Verbs in Hooc?k (Winnebago)". In: International Journal of American Linguistics (IJAL) 68,1:1-27. (PDF/1.6MB)
  • "Bloomfield und die nordamerikanischen Algonkin-Indianersprachen"[Bloomfield and the North American Indian languages of the Algonquian family]. In: Ernst, Peter (ed.) Leonard Bloomfield – Leben und Werk. Wien: Edition Praesens, pp. 125-55. (PDF/1.1MB)
  • "Grammar and function of WE", (Paper presented on the 7th International Pragmatics Conference (IPrA) in Budapest, July 2000). In: Duszak, Anna (ed.) Us and Others. Social identities across languages, discourses, and cultures. (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series), Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 31-51. (PDF/993kB)
  • "Argument structure of the Hooc?k (Winnebago) clause". In: Arbeitspapiere des Seminars für Sprachwissenschaft der Universit?t Erfurt (ASSidUE) Nr. 4. Erfurt: University of Erfurt. (PDF).

2001

  • "Head marking versus dependent marking languages", in: Haspelmath, M./ E. K?nig/ W. ?sterreicher/ W. Raible (eds.) Language Typology and Language Universals, Vol. 2, (Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, HSK), Berlin, New York