Alena Witzlack-Makarevich, Curriculum Vitæ

• Full CV as PDF

• I am a professor of Linguisics at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

• Before coming to Jerusalem in 2018, I was an Assistant Professor (Juniorprofessorin) for typology and linguistic variance at the Department of General Linguistics at the University of Kiel.

• Before that I was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Leipzig and at the University of Zurich.

• I received my PhD from the University of Leipzig in 2011. I wrote my thesis on Typological variation in grammatical relations
with Balthasar Bickel and Johanna Nichols.

Projects

Grammatical relations typology

I worked on various aspects of the typology of grammatical relations. These are some of the outcomes:

• my PhD thesis Typological variation in grammatical relations (2011)
• a co-edited volume with a useful introductory chapter Argument selectors: A new perspective on grammatical relations (2019, with Balthasar Bickel)
• a co-edited volume with a state-of-the art overview of differential argument marking Diachrony of differential argument marking (2019, with Ilja A. Seržant)
• another co-edited volume on Antipassive: typology, diachrony, and related constructions (2021)

Language description and documentation

The Nsua of Semuliki Forest

• In January 2025 me and Saudah Namyalo (Makerere University) are embarking on a new documentation project funded by ELDP. We will work on Documentation and description of the linguistic repertoires, culture, and oral tradition of the Nsua of Semuliki Forest

Ruuli (East Bantu)

• Together with Saudah Namyalo (Makerere University) and a number of colleague, I worked on the documentation of the previously not described language Ruuli. We published this grammar sketch and a dicitonary, as well as a number of papers on various topics of Ruuli morphosyntax.

So-called Khoisan

I worked on two so-called Khoisan languages and on the typology of the Kalahari Basin Languages more generally.

• Towards a phonological typology of the Kalahari Basin Area languages is the most recent paper on the Kalahari Basin Area.
• In 2021-2024 I was running the ISF-funded project Peripheral Khoekhoe varieties: A comprehensive documentation and description. We are working on the first papers from this project. We contributed a valency dataset to the BiValTyp project.
• I am a co-depositor of the documentation collection Text documentation of Nǀuu (or Nǁng or ǂKhomani) at Endangered Languages Archive.