Sebastian FEDDEN

Professor of general linguistics (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)

CV 2024 (pdf)

Research topics

• Language typology
• Canonical typology
• Papuan languages and linguistics
• Categorization, language and cognition
• Systems of nominal classification (gender and classifiers)
• Agreement
• Argument realization and alignment

Selected grants

• Partner investigator: Complex Predicates in Languages: Emergence, Typology, Evolution (comPLETE), binational project ANR-DFG; Principal Investigators Martine Vanhove, Alexandre François, Walter Bisang, Andrej Malchukov (CNRS, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz), 2021-24.
• Valorisation du corpus de langue mian, au travers de la Collection Pangloss, Labex-EFL Action Défis sociétaux (Défi des langues minoritaires et des langues en danger), 2020-21.
• Consultant in Optimal categorisation: the origin and nature of gender from a psycholinguistic perspective (ESRC UK Grant RN0362A); Principal Investigator Greville G. Corbett, University of Surrey), 2018-22.
• Incomplete systems: Evidence from sporadic agreement, Research Incubator grant from the University of Sydney, 2015.
• Combining gender and classifiers in natural language, (with Greville G. Corbett, Dunstan Brown and Matthew Baerman); Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK)/Research Grant, 2013-2016.

Keywords

categorization – classifiers – gender – grammaticography – historical linguistics – morphology – morphosyntax – Papuan languages – psycholinguistics – typology

Mian – Skonga – Wagarabai – Telefol – Tifal – Faiwol – Bimin – Adang – Tok Pisin – German

Teaching

Courses taught at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (2022-24)
Master – Lecture – Soziolinguistik (1,5h per week = 22,5 hours total, face-to-face)
Master – Lecture – Sprachstruktur (1,5h per week = 22,5 hours total, face-to-face)
Master – Seminar – Feldforschung (1,5h per week = 22,5 hours total, face-to-face)
Master – Seminar – Kategorisierung in Sprache und Kognition (1,5h per week = 22,5 hours total, face-to-face)
Master – Lecture – Sprachtypologie (1,5h per week = 22,5 hours total, face-to-face)
Master – Seminar – Papuasprachen (1,5h per week = 22,5 hours total, face-to-face)
Bachelor – Lecture – Sprachtypologie und Kognition 1 (1,5h per week = 22,5 hours total, face-to-face)

Courses given at Sorbonne Nouvelle (2017-2022):
Master – Seminar – Introduction to the structure of a non-Indo-European language (2 hrs per week, face-to-face and distance learning)
Master – Seminar – Anglais pour sciences humaines 1 (1.5 hrs per week, face-to-face)
Master – Seminar – Anglais pour sciences humaines 2 (1.5 hrs per week, face-to-face and distance learning)
Undergrad – Lecture – Typologie linguistique (1.5 hrs per week, face-to-face and distance learning)
Undergrad – Lecture – Morphologie (1.5 hrs per week, face-to-face and distance learning)
Undergrad – Lecture – Linguistique aréale (1.5 hrs per week, face-to-face)

Courses given at the University of Sydney (2015-2016):
Master – Seminar – Structure of language (2 hrs face-to-face)
Master – Seminar – Sociolinguistics (2 hrs face-to-face)
Undergrad – Lecture – Syntax (2 hrs + 2 hrs of tutorials face-to-face)
Undergrad – Lecture – Phonetics and Phonology (2 hrs face-to-face)
Undergrad – Lecture – Phonology (2 hrs face-to-face)
Undergrad – Seminar – Language Diversity and Universals (2 hrs face-to-face)
Undergrad – Seminar – Categorization in language and cognition (2 hrs face-to-face)

 All teaching (pdf)

Supervision

– Moisés A. Veláquez, from 2020: “Grammaire du kibiri, un isolat menacé en Papouasie-Nouvelle- Guinée” (Ph.D. thesis) (Sorbonne Nouvelle)
– Neige Rochant, from 2019: “A grammar of Baga Pukur, an Atlantic language of Guinea” (Ph.D. thesis) (Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Administration

– Member of the conseil de gestion (ILPGA, Sorbonne Nouvelle)
– Member of the collège de spécialistes (section 7) (Language sciences: general linguistics and phonetics) (Sorbonne Nouvelle)
– Representative of LACITO at the Doctoral College (ED 622 Sciences du langage)
– Responsible for the Master Language Sciences (ILPGA, Sorbonne Nouvelle)
– Editor of LACITO Publications (Series Linguistic Diversity), a new open-access platform
– Member of the editorial board of Italian Journal of Linguistics
– Co-responsibility « La typologie du genre grammatical » (axe 2 – Labex-EFL) and « Typologie des systèmes flexionnels à flexion non canonique » (axe 3 – Labex-EFL)

Conference organisation

• Workshop “Uninflectedness” (organisé par Sebastian Fedden (LACITO/Sorbonne Nouvelle) & Enrique Palancar (SeDyl)) dans le cadre de la rencontre annuelle de la Société allemande de linguistique (DGfS) à Cologne, mars 2023.
• Descriptive Grammars and Typology II, Paris, December 2021 (organizing committee, with Neige Rochant, Yann le Moullec, Guillaume Segerer and Jeanne Zerner).
• 13th Austronesian and Papuan Languages and Linguistics Conference (APLL 13), University of Edinburgh, June 2021 (program committee).
• Current Trends in Papuan Linguistics, LACITO/INALCO, Paris, 11-12 December 2019 (organizing committee, with Sylvain Loiseau and Antoinette Schapper).
• Workshop “New approaches to the typology of inflection systems”, Fédération Typologie et Universaux Linguistiques, University of Chicago Center in Paris, November 2018 (organizing committee, with Olivier Bonami).
• 9th Austronesian and Papuan Languages and Linguistics Conference (APLL 9), LACITO, Paris, June 2017 (program committee).
• Gender and classifiers: diachrony and variation, University of Surrey, January 2016 (organizing committee).
• Workshop “Non-canonical gender systems”, 48th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE), University of Leiden, September 2015 (organizing committee, with Jenny Audring).

Publications

In the media
— Time to Think, University of Surrey Featured Story, 24 June 2013.​.

Videos
— (with Timothy Feist). Nominal classification in Mian, a Papuan language of New Guinea – Part 2. Surrey Morphology Group. 2016, Video clip, length 4:34 mins. [http://www.mian-kilivila.surrey.ac.uk]— Nominal classification in Mian, a Papuan language of New Guinea. Video clip. Surrey Morphology Group, Video clip, 2015, Length 3:48 mins. [http://www.mian-kilivila.surrey.ac.uk]

Website
— Fedden, Sebastian, Timothy Feist, Matthew Baerman, Dunstan Brown, Greville G. Corbett and Gunter Senft. 2015. Mian and Kilivila Collection. University of Surrey. http://dx.doi.org/10.15126/SMG.30/1.

 All publications (pdf)

Recent presentations