Dr. Martina Wiltschko
ICREA Research Professor
Research Themes: Language, Sustainability and Transnationalism
Dr. Wiltschko is on a leave of absence from UBC. She has taken up a research position with ICREA at UPF.
Martina Wiltschko’s current research focuses on the sources and limits of language variation in the realm of grammatical categories: under the assumption that there is a genetic predisposition for our language faculty, the comparison of languages which on the surface appear to differ quite radically becomes an important window into the nature of the human language faculty. As part of this work, she and her collaborators have developed discovery procedures for determining the formal and functional identity of a given category in any given language in a way which is not determined by notions developed on the basis of the better studied Indo-European languages. Martina has applied these discovery procedures to her work on Upriver Halkomelem (Salish), Blackfoot (Algonquian), Ktunaxa, and her native dialect of German, Upper Austrian. Martina is the director of the Syntax of Speech Acts project, also known as the ‘Eh-Lab’.
Research Interests
The sources and limits of language variation in the realm of grammatical categories. Discovery procedures for determining the formal and functional identity of a given category in any given language. Upriver Halkomelem (Salish). Blackfoot (Algonquian). Ktunaxa. Upper Austrian.