Research

Research topics

The Chair of Anglistik IV focusses on the following topics:

1. Historical language contact

2. Language change

3. Morphology and syntax

Methodologically, we work with linguistically annotated corpora and lexical resources.

We follow an research-oriented teaching approach. Thus, our students are guided to work with corpora so that they can conduct their own studies with historical and authentic, contemporary data. For this purpose, we have developed the Toolbox Anglistik IV(Toolbox Anglistik IV). Outstanding student theses are published in the Student Edition of the journal Mannheim Papers in Multilingualism, Acquisition, and Change (MAPMAC). Promising students with a strong interest in linguistics are involved in research at an early stage through student jobs at the department.

Currently we work on the following projects:

The DFG research group “Structuring the input in language processing, acquisition, and change” (SILPAC, FOR 5157, Gepris 437487447), 1st phase from (2022–2025), investigates language change in a new, multidisciplinary approach in which historical linguists and psycholinguists work together both methodologically and theoretically.

The research project Borrowing Argument Structure in Contact Situation (BASICS, Gepris 265711632) (in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Achim Stein, University of Stuttgart), funded by the DFG from 2015–2021, investigates contact-induced grammatical change in language contact between English and French after 1066. Assuming that the massive borrowing of verbs from French triggered change in the argument structure of English, we investigate semantic verb classes and syntactic constructions for French influence. In order to investigate this, we have developed a set of tools (BASICS Toolkit).

The project Phrasal compoundsfrom a typological and theoretical perspective deals with the cross-linguistic description of phrasal compounds and with their theoretical modelling. Results from workshops were published in a special issue of STUF in 2013 and by Language Science Press (with Jaklin Kornfilt) in 2015.

Projects

Credit: Prof. Dr. Carola Trips

SILPAC (A IV)

Structuring the Input in Language Processing, Acquisition and Change

Credit: Christina Morillo / Pexels

Diachronic Generative Syntax (DiGS 25)

The 25th Diachronic Generative Syntax conference will take place at the University of Mannheim this year.

Elter, W. J. & Shaw, M. (2024). Loan verb accommodation: a comparison of Old Norse and French in Middle English. English Language and Linguistics, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1360674324000029
Percillier, M. & Schauwecker, Y. (2024). Cognitive mechanisms driving (contact-induced) language change: introduction to the special issue. Linguistics Vanguard, 10(2), 109–113. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2023-0164
Struik, T. & Schoenmakers, G.-J. (2023). When information structure exploits syntax: The relation between the loss of VO and scrambling in Dutch. Journal of Linguistics : JL, 59(3), 655–690. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226722000172
van Kemenade, A., Hinterhölzl, R. & Struik, T. (2023). Word order change, architecture, and interfaces: Evidence from the development of V to C movement in the history of English. Journal of Historical Syntax, 7(Article 25), 1–55.
Struik, T. (2022). OV/VO variation and information structure in Old Saxon and Middle Low German. Journal of Historical Syntax, 6(1), 1–36. https://doi.org/10.18148/hs/2022.v6i1.127
Struik, T. & van Kemenade, A. (2022). Information structure and OV word order in Old and Middle English: a phase-based approach. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics, 25(1), 79–114. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10828-022-09131-1
Trips, C. & Rainsford, T. M. (2022). Tolerating subject-experiencers? Yang’s tolerance principle applied to psych verbs under contact in middle english. Journal of Historical Syntax, 6(Article 12), 1–43. https://doi.org/10.18148/hs/2022.v6i12.118
Elter, W. J. (2020). The rise of the to-dative: a language-contact approach to a phenomenon of structural language change. Mannheim Papers in Multilingualism, Acquisition and Change, 1(Student edition), 1–71. https://doi.org/10.25521/mapmac.2020.121
Kaltenbach, L. (2020). The recipient passive in the history of English. Mannheim Papers in Multilingualism, Acquisition and Change, 1(Student Edition), 73–112. https://doi.org/10.25521/mapmac.2020.77
Percillier, M. (2020). A variationist approach to the spread of emergent features in Middle English. Recherches Anglaises et Nord-Américaines : RANAM, 53(1), 23–36.
Struik, T. & van Kemenade, A. (2020). On the givenness of OV word order: a (re)examination of OV/VO variation in Old English. English Language and Linguistics, 24(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1360674318000187
Trips, C. (2020). Impersonal and reflexive uses of Middle English psych verbs under contact influence with Old French. Linguistics Vanguard, 6(s2, Article 20), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2019-0016
Trips, C. & Stein, A. (2019). Contact-induced changes in the argument structure of Middle English verbs on the model of Old French. Journal of Language Contact, 12(1), 232–267. https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-01201008
Percillier, M. (2018). The non-standard in writing: A look at West African and Southeast Asian literature. E-REA : Revue Électronique d’Études sur le Monde Anglophone, 15(2), No. 6312. https://doi.org/10.4000/erea.6312
Keller, M. (2017). “Saying Thus or to the Same Defect”: A linguistic analysis of Shakespeare’s malapropisms. English Studies : A Journal of English Language and Literature, 98(3), 244–261. https://doi.org/10.1080/0013838X.2017.1283119
Percillier, M. & Paulin, C. (2017). A corpus-based investigation of world Englishes in literature. World Englishes : WE, 36(1), 127–147. https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12208
Percillier, M. & Paulin, C. (2017). Postcolonial literature and world Englishes: A corpus-based approach of modes of representation of the non-standard in writing. International Journal of Literary Linguistics : IJLL, 6(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.15462/ijll.v6i1.102
Paulin, C. & Percillier, M. (2015). Oral varieties of English in a literary corpus of West African and South East Asian prose (1954–2013): commitment to local identities and catering for foreign readers. Études de Stylistique Anglaise, 9(1), 59–79.
Percillier, M. (2015). Non-standard features of Asian Englishes in comment forums of social news websites. Recherches Anglaises et Nord-Américaines : RANAM, 48, 31–50.
Trips, C. & Kornfilt, J. (2015). Introduction. Language Typology and Universals = Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung, 68(3), 233–240. https://doi.org/10.1515/stuf-2015-0012
Trips, C. & Kornfilt, J. (2015). Typological aspects of phrasal compounds in German, English, Turkish and Turkic. Language Typology and Universals = Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung, 68(3), 281–321. https://doi.org/10.1515/stuf-2015-0015
Stein, A. & Trips, C. (2014). Les phrases clivées en ancien français : un modèle pour l'anglais? Revue de linguistique romane : (RLiR), 78(309), 33–55.
Trips, C. (2014). How to account for the expressive nature of phrasal compounds in a conceptual-semantic framework. SKASE journal of theoretical linguistics, 11(1), 33–61.
Fuß, E. & Trips, C. (2009). Introduction. Language Typology and Universals = Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung, 62(4), 251–257. https://doi.org/10.1524/stuf.2009.0019
Trips, C. (2003). Stylistic fronting in the Ormulum – Scandinavian syntactic phenomena in Early Middle English texts. Nordlyd : Tromsø University Working Papers on Language & Linguistics, 31(2), 457–472. https://doi.org/10.7557/12.15
Fuß, E. & Trips, C. (2002). Variation and change in Old and Middle English – on the validity of the double base hypothesis. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics, 4, 171–224. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1016588502117

Percillier, M., Schauwecker, Y., Stein, A. & Trips, C. (2024). Carrying verbs across the channel: modelling change in bilingual medieval England . Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50806-6
Keller, M. (2020). Code-switching : unifying contemporary and historical perspectives . Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34667-6
Trips, C. & Kornfilt, J. (eds.) (2017). Further investigations into the nature of phrasal compounding . Berlin: Language Science Press.
Percillier, M. (2016). World Englishes and second language acquisition : Insights from Southeast Asian Englishes . Amsterdam ; Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g58
Trips, C. (2015). English syntax in three dimensions : history – synchrony – diachrony . Berlin [u.a.]: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110290097
Keller, M. (2014). Phraseme im bilingualen Diskurs : “All of a sudden geht mir ein Licht auf” . Frankfurt a. M. [u.a.]: Lang. https://doi.org/10.3726/978-3-653-04258-0
Trips, C. (2009). Lexical semantics and diachronic morphology : the development of -hood, -dom and -ship in the history of English . Tübingen: Niemeyer .
Fuß, E. & Trips, C. (eds.) (2004). Diachronic clues to synchronic grammar . Amsterdam [u.a.]: Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/la.72
Trips, C. (2002). From OV to VO in early Middle English . Amsterdam [u.a.]: Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/la.60

Percillier, M. (2024). The outer and expanding circles in Southeast Asia. In A. J. Moody (eds.), The Oxford handbook of Southeast Asian englishes (S. 15–33). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Trips, C. & Stokes, P. A. (2023). From original sources to linguistic analysis: Tools and datasets for the investigation of multilingualism in medieval english. In S. M. Pons-Sanz & L. Sylvester (eds.), Medieval english in a multilingual context : current methodologies and appoaches (S. 49–91). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30947-2_3
Percillier, M. (2022). Adapting the Dynamic Model to historical linguistics : Case studies on the Middle English and Anglo-Norman contact situation. In B. Los (eds.), English historical linguistics : historical English in contact : papers from the xxth ICEHL (S. 6–33). Amsterdam [u.a.]: Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.359.02per
Keller, M. (2021). Developing a structural template for historical code-switching.. In E. Glaser, M. Prinz & S. Ptashnyk (eds.), Historisches Codeswitching mit Deutsch : multilinguale Praktiken in der Sprachgeschichte (S. 437–464). Berlin ; Boston, Mass.: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110752793-015
Trips, C. (2021). Diachronie des Englischen. In S. Dipper, R. Klabunde & W. Mihatsch (eds.), Linguistik : eine Einführung (nicht nur) für Germanisten, Romanisten und Anglisten (S. ). Berlin ; Heidelberg: Springer.
Keller, M. (2020). Compositionality: Evidence from Code-Switching. In E. Piirainen, N. A. Filatkina & S. Stumpf (eds.), Formulaic language and new data : theoretical and methodological implications. (S. 197–222). Berllin: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669824-009
Percillier, M. (2020). Allostructions, homostructions or a constructional family? Changes in the network of secondary predicate constructions in Middle English. In L. Sommerer (eds.), Nodes and networks in diachronic construction grammar (S. 214–242). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.27.06per
Stein, A., Ingham, R. & Trips, C. (2019). What's a diachronically stable system in a language-contact situation? : the case of the English recipient passive. In A. Breitbarth, M. Bouzouita, L. Danckaert & M. Farasyn (eds.), The determinants of diachronic stability (S. 215–243). Amsterdam [u.a.]: Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/la.254.09ste
Stein, A. & Trips, C. (2018). Entlehnung von Argumentstruktur in Sprachkontaktsituationen. In P. Bockwinkel (eds.), Digital Humanities : Perspektiven der Praxis (S. 149–163). Berlin: Frank & Timme.
Trips, C. & Stein, A. (2018). A comparison of multi-genre and single-genre corpora in the context of contact-induced change. In R. J. Whitt (eds.), Diachronic corpora, genre, and language change (S. 241–260). Amsterdam ; Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publ. Comp. https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.85.11tri
Trips, C. & Stein, A. (2018). Cleft sentences in the history of French and English: a case of pragmatic borrowing? In M. García García (eds.), Focus realization in Romance and beyond (S. 287–310). Amsterdam ; Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publ. Comp. https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.201.10car
Keller, M. (2017). Code-switched adjectives in macaronic sermons. In E. Louviot (eds.), Studies in language variation and change 2 : shifts and turns in the history of English (S. 197–216). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Percillier, M. (2017). Creating and analyzing literary corpora. In S. Hai-Jew (eds.), Data analytics in digital humanities (S. 91–118). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54499-1_4
Percillier, M. (2017). Une brève introduction à l'analyse statistique avec R. In C. Schnedecker (eds.), Le doctorat en France : mode(s) d'emploi (S. 205–220). Brussels: Peter Lang. https://doi.org/10.3726/b13090
Trips, C. (2017). Morphological change. In Oxford research encyclopedia. Linguistics (S. 1–22). : Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.260
Trips, C. & Kornfilt, J. (2017). Further insights into phrasal compounding. In C. Trips (eds.), Further investigations into the nature of phrasal compounding (S. 1–11). Berlin: Language Science Press.
Percillier, M. (2016). Cunning linguistics: The semantics of word play in South Park. In K. Beers Fägersten (eds.), Watching TV with a linguist (S. 139–160). Syracuse ; New York, NY: Syracuse University Press.
Percillier, M. (2016). Postcolonial and learner Englishes in Southeast Asia: implications for international communication. In G. Leitner (eds.), Communicating with Asia : the future of English as a global language (S. 135–152). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107477186.010
Stein, A. & Trips, C. (2016). Modelling language contact with diachronic crosslinguistic data. In S. Featherston (eds.), Quantitative approaches to grammar and grammatical change : perspectives from Germanic (S. 165–187). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110401929-009
Trips, C. (2014). Derivation and historical change. In R. Lieber (eds.), The Oxford handbook of derivational morphology (S. 384–406). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199641642.013.0022
Trips, C. (2014). The position proper of the adjective in Middle English. In P. Sleeman (eds.), Adjectives in Germanic and Romance (S. 73–94). Amsterdam [u.a.]: Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/la.212.03tri
Trips, C. & Fuß, E. (2009). The syntax and semantics of the temporal anaphor “then” in Old and Middle English. In A. Alexiadou (eds.), Advances in comparative Germanic syntax (S. 171–195). Amsterdam [u.a.]: Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/la.141.08the
Fuß, E. & Trips, C. (2004). Introduction. In E. Fuß (eds.), Diachronic clues to synchronic grammar (S. 1–29). Amsterdam [u.a.]: Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/la.72.02fus

Elter, W. J. (2023). Integration of cognate loan verbs in contact bClosely related languages effecting valency changes. In B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk & M. Trojszczak (eds.), Language in educational and cultural perspectives (S. 237–258). , Springer: Cham, Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38778-4_12
Percillier, M. & Trips, C. (2020). Lemmatising verbs in Middle English corpora: The benefit of enriching the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English 2 (PPCME2), the Parsed Corpus of Middle English Poetry (PCMEP), and A Parsed Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English (PLAEME). In N. Calzolari (eds.), LREC 2020 : twelfth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation$d May 11–16 , 2020, Marseille, France : conference proceedings (S. 7172–7180). , ELRA: Paris.
Trips, C. (2020). Copying of argument structure: A gap in borrowing scales and a new approach to model contact-induced change. In B. Drinka (eds.), Historical Linguistics 2017 : selected papers from the 23rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics, San Antonio, Texas, 31 July – 4 August 2017 (S. 409–430). Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, Benjamins: Amsterdam [u.a.]. https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.350.19tri
Percillier, M. (2019). Dynamic modelling of medieval language contact: The case of Anglo-Norman and Middle English. In R. Schöntag (eds.), Diachrone Migrationslinguistik: Mehrsprachigkeit in historischen Sprachkontaktsituationen : Akten des XXXV. Romanistentages in Zürich (08. bis 12. Oktober 2017) (S. 79–99). Sprache, Mehrsprachigkeit und sozialer Wandel, Peter Lang: Berlin.
Percillier, M. (2018). A toolkit for lemmatising, analysing, and visualising Middle English data. In A. U. Frank (eds.), CRH-2 : proceedings of the Second Workshop on Corpus-based Research in the Humanities 25–26 January 2018 Vienna, Austria (S. 153–160). Gerastree Proceedings, Dept. of Geoinformation, TU Wien: Wien.
Schauwecker, Y. & Trips, C. (2018). Who came riding first? Le chevalier or the knight? A multiple corpus analysis investigating language contact. In A. U. Frank (eds.), CRH-2 : proceedings of the Second Workshop on Corpus-based Research in the Humanities 25–26 January 2018 Vienna, Austria (S. 181–190). , Gerastree Proceedings: Wien.
Schneider, G., Pettersson, E. & Percillier, M. (2017). Comparing rule-based and SMT-based spelling normalisation for English historical texts. In G. Bouma (eds.), Proceedings of the NoDaLiDa 2017 Workshop on Processing Historical Language : 22 May 2017, Gothenburg (S. 40–46). NEALT Proceedings Series, Linköping University Electronic Press: Linköping.
Percillier, M. (2016). Verb lemmatization and semantic verb classes in a Middle English corpus. In S. Dipper (eds.), Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Natural Language Processing (KONVENS) Bochum, Germany September 19–21, 2016 (S. 209–214). Bochumer linguistische Arbeitsberichte : BLA, Ruhr-Universität Bochum: Bochum.
Schulz, S. & Keller, M. (2016). Code-switching ubique est – Language identification and part-of-speech tagging for historical mixed text. In N. Reiter (eds.), Proceedings of the 10th SIGHUM Workshop on Language Technology for Cultural Heritage, Social Sciences, and Humanities (LaTeCH 2016) : August 11, 2016, Berlin, Germany (S. 43–51). , Association for Computational Linguistics: Stroudsburg, PA. https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/W16-2105
Trips, C. (2016). An analysis of phrasal compounds in the model of Parallel Architecture. In P. . Hacken (eds.), The semantics of compounding (S. 153–177). Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316163122.009
Trips, C. (2016). Syntactic analysis of phrasal compounds in corpora: a challenge for NLP tools. In N. Calzolari (eds.), LREC 2016, Tenth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation : May 23–28, 2016, Portorož, Slovenia (S. 1092–1097). , European Language Resources Association, ELRA-ELDA: Paris.
Stein, A. & Trips, C. (2012). Diachronic aspects of borrowing aspect : the role of Old French in the development of the be going to + INF construction. In (S. 227–246). SHS web of Conferences : open access proceedings in Social and Human Sciences, EDP Sciences: Les Ulis. https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20120100254
Trips, C. (2012). Empirical and theoretical aspects of phrasal compounds: against the “syntax explains it all” attitude. In A. Ralli (eds.), Morphology and the architecture of grammar : on-line proceedings of the Eighth Mediterranean Morphology Meeting (MMM8), Cagliari, Italy , 14–17 September 2011 (S. 322–346). , University of Patras: Patras.
Trips, C. (2008). New insights into the rivalry of suffixes. In A. Ralli (eds.), Morphology and Dialectology : on-line proceedings of the Sixth Mediterranean Morphology Meeting (MMM6), Ithaca, 27–30 September 2007 (S. 132–146). , University of Patras: Patras.
Trips, C. & Stein, A. (2008). Was Old French -able borrowable? A diachronic study of word-formation processes due to language contact. In R. Dury (eds.), English Historical Linguistics 2006 : selected papers from the fourteenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL 14), Bergamo, 21–25 August 2006 ; Volume II: Lexical and Semantic Change (S. 217–239). Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, Benjamins: Amsterdam [u.a.].
Trips, C. (2006). Syntactic sources of word-formation processes : Evidence from Old English and Old High German. In J. M. Hartmann (eds.), Comparative studies in Germanic syntax : from Afrikaans to Zurich German; [selection of papers presented at the 20th Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop in Tilburg, June 2005] (S. 299–328). Linguistik aktuell : LA, Benjamins: Amsterdam [u.a.]. https://doi.org/10.1075/la.97.14tri
Trips, C. (2000). Scandinavian characteristics in the Ormulum: evidence for Scandinavian influence on the word order change in Early Middle English. In C. Czinglar (eds.), ConSole VIII proceedings : Proceedings of the Eighth Conference of the Student Organization of Linguistics in Europe (S. 327–342). , Univ., Dep. of General Linguistics, Sole: Leiden.