How do languages differ in complexity? And how do they remain learnable for the next generation of speakers? Does “complex” always mean “difficult” or are there forms of complexity that actually make it easier to acquire grammar?

In my postdoc project I am seeking the answer to these questions. I’m investigating a particular part of grammar – grammatical gender – in some 40 different languages.

Project: The complexity of gender. Start: 2013. Financing: NWO Veni.

Voor Nederlands, klik hier.

Publications

International refereed journals

Audring, J. (2014) Gender as a complex feature, Language Sciences. special issue “Exploring grammatical gender” 43, 5-17. pdf

Audring, J. (2013) A Pronominal View of Gender Agreement. Language Sciences 35. 32-46 pdf

Audring, J. (2009) Gender Assignment and Gender Agreement. Morphology 18, 93-116. pdf

Audring, J. (2006a) Pronominal Gender in Spoken Dutch. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 18.2, 85-116. pdf

National refereed journals

Audring, J. and Booij, G. (2009) Genus als probleemcategorie. Taal en Tongval 61, 13-37. pdf

Booij, G. and Audring, J. (2007) Uitgezwaaid en aangezwaaid. Morfologische en syntactische participiumconstructies. Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taalkunde 12. 52-62. pdf

Books, or contributions to books

Jackendoff, R. & Audring, J. (in preparation) The Texture of the Mental Lexicon. 

Audring, J. & Masini, F. (eds.) (in preparation) Oxford Handbook of Morphological Theory. Oxford University Press.

Audring, J. & Masini, F. (in preparation) Construction Morphology. In: Audring, J. & Masini, F. (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Morphological Theory. Oxford University Press. 

Audring, J. (2009) Reinventing Pronoun Gender. Utrecht: LOT Dissertation Series. pdf

Audring, J. (2010) Deflexion und pronominales Genus. In: Nübling, D., Dammel, A., Kürschner, S. (eds.)Kontrastive germanistische Linguistik vol. II. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag. 693-717. pdf

Audring, J. (2006b) Genusverlies en de betekenis van voornaamwoorden. In: Hüning, M., Verhagen A., Vogl, U., van der Wouden, T. (eds.) Nederlands tussen Duits en Engels. Leiden: Stichting Neerlandistiek Leiden. 71-88. pdf

Peer-reviewed online bibliography

Audring, J. (2011) Gender. In Oxford Bibliographies Online: Linguistics.

Conference proceedings

Audring, J. & Booij, G. (2007) Constructional Licensing in Morphology and Syntax. Proceedings of the 5th Mediterranean Morphology Meeting (MMM 5), Fréjus, France, 15-18 September 2005.

Reviews

Audring, J. (2014) Book notice of “The Grammar of Words” by Geert Booij, Morphology. pdf

Audring, J. (2013) Recensie van Miriam Ellert, Ambiguous Pronoun Resolution in L1 and L2 German and Dutch. Nijmegen: MPI Series in Psycholinguistics, 2010. Internationale Neerlandistiek. online

Popular science

Audring, J. & Booij, G. (to appear) De wendbaarheid van woorden. Onze Taal. 

Audring, J. (2013) Je bent zelf een universele afstandsbediening. Onze Taal 82 (4).

Audring, J. (2012) Tweelingtalen of Waarom Duits studeren. Kennislink. 

Dorren, G. and Audring, J. (2011) Taaltourisme. Feiten en verhalen over 53 Europese talen. Schiedam: Scriptum. website

Audring, J. (2008) Mijn hart, die klopte in mijn keel. Taalevolutie in voornaamwoorden. Onze Taal 77 (10), 278-279. jpg

Presentations

Talks, invited

- with Ray Jackendoff: Questions for a theory of morphology in the mind. MPI Nijmegen, March 13, 2015.

- with Ray Jackendoff: The texture of the lexicon. Grammar & Cognition Colloquium, Nijmegen, February 12, 2015.

- How complex is a gender system? MPI Nijmegen, January 15, 2015.

- Calibrating complexity - How complex is a gender system? CGCT Antwerp, Belgium, November 13, 2014.

- with Ray Jackendoff: The texture of the lexicon. ACLC Colloquium, Amsterdam, November 7, 2014. 

- Does language care about economy? TWIST conference University of Leiden, May 20, 2014 (plenary lecture).

- Genus in den Sprachen der Welt. University of Antwerp, Belgium. Oktober 31, 2013.

- Die Komplexität von Genussystemen, Conference Genus, Klassifikation und Kategorisierung, University of Münster, Germany. November 28-30, 2013.  

- Genus in den Sprachen der Welt. University of Antwerp, Belgium. Oktober 31, 2013.

- De talen van de wereld. Summerschool University of Amsterdam, August 21, 2013.

- How complex is grammatical gender? Workshop Linguistic Complexity, University of Amsterdam, June 21, 2013.

- Construction Morphology - A welcome. Bologna Seminar on Construction Morphology, University of Bologna, Italy, May 20-21, 2013.

- The semantics of gender assignment. Cross-Linguistic Semantics research group, University of Amsterdam, April 9, 2013. 

- with Geert Booij: Genus als bron van onzekerheid, Workshop Perspectieven op het genus in het Nederlands, Gent, Belgium, November 21, 2008. (plenary lecture)

- Pronominal gender in spoken Dutch: Variation and Change, University of Hamburg, Germany, November 15, 2007.

- Pronominal gender in spoken Dutch, University of Surrey, UK, March 30, 2006.

- Gender loss and resemanticization, University of Manchester, UK, March 13, 2006.

- Gender, Anaphora and the Corpus, University of Essex, UK, March 2, 2006.

- Countability and Pronominal Gender, LUCL Colloquium The Interaction of Gender and Number in the World’s Languages, Leiden University, October 11, 2005.

- Agreement Choices and Pronoun Processing, University of Maastricht, July 22, 2005.

Talks, peer reviewed

- (forthcoming) with Ray Jackendoff: Schemas in storage and processing. 9th International Morphological Processing Conference, Potsdam, Germany, June 18-20, 2015.  

- with Geert Booij: Coercion in Construction Morphology. ICCG8, Osnabrück, Germany, September 5, 2014. 

- with Ray Jackendoff: Motivation in the constructionist lexicon. International Morphology Meeting 16, Budapest, Hungary, May 29 - June 1, 2014.

- Radikale coercion. Morfologiedagen University of Leeuwarden, December 13, 2013.

Countability and gender in modern Dutch. Societas Linguistica Europaea, Split, Croatia, September 18-21, 2013.

- Pronouns - morphology or syntax? TIN-dag Utrecht, February 7, 2013. 

The complexity of gender, International Morphology Meeting (IMM15), Vienna, Austria, February 19-21, 2012.

- with Ton van der Wouden: The productivity of compounding, Morfologiedagen, Nijmegen, Netherlands, December 20-21, 2011.

- Gender Assignment and Gender Agreement, Mediterranean Morphology Meeting (MMM 6), Ithaca, Greece, September 27-30, 2007.

- Gender loss and demonstrative anaphors, Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft (DGfS 29), University of Siegen, Germany, February 28 - March 2, 2007.

- A Pronominal View on Gender Agreement, Amsterdam Gender Colloquium, VU University Amsterdam, September 15-16, 2006.

- De semantiek van het pronominale genus, Workshop Nederlands tussen Duits en Engels, Berlin, Germany, September 30 - October 1, 2005.

- Gender loss and resemanticization, International Conference on Language Variation and Change (ICLaVE 3), Amsterdam, June 23-25, 2005.

- Gender loss and semantic reorganization of pronominal gender in spoken Dutch, Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference (GLAC 11), Davis, CA, USA, April 21-22, 2005.

- Interdependencies between Syntax and Morphology in Constructions, Mediterranean Morphology Meeting (MMM 5), Fréjus, France, September 15-18, 2005.

- Resemanticizing gender, Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft (DGfS 27), Cologne, Germany, February 22-25, 2005.

- “Een huis die je thuis is” - Pronominaal geslacht in gesproken Nederlands, TIN-dag Utrecht, January 29, 2005.

- An OT-Based View on Gender Assignment to Loanwords, Berlin-Potsdam Workshop on OT Syntax+, Berlin, Germany, May 16-17, 2003.

Poster presentations

- Taalportaal (with Ton van der Wouden et al.), CLIN 2012, Enschede, January 18, 2013.

- Agreement Morphology and the Acquirability of Grammatical Gender, 12th International Morphology Meeting, Budapest, Hungary, May 25-28, 2006.

• 1977 born in Berlin, Germany
• 1997 Abitur, Rosa-Luxemburg-Gymnasium, Berlin
• 2003 MA General and German Linguistics, MA English Philology, Free University Berlin
• 2009 PhD, VU University Amsterdam
• 2009-2012 lecturer General Linguistics and German, VU University Amsterdam, Leiden University, University of Amsterdam
• 2011-2014 postdoc, Leiden University (project Taalportaal)
• 2013-present postdoc (NWO Veni grant), University of Amsterdam

• No ancillary activities