Research Centre for Romance Linguistics

Romance linguistics and philology in Oxford

The University of Oxford has the only established Chair of the Romance Languages in Britain, inaugurated in 1909. Among previous distinguished holders of the Chair are Alfred Ewert, Thomas (Tim) Reid, Stephen Ullmann, Roy Harris, and Rebecca Posner. The tradition of research in Romance linguistics and philology nurtured by these scholars continues to flourish. Over the past few years the major research project has been an investigation of Romance verb morphology, Autonomous Morphology in Diachrony: comparative evidence from the Romance languages, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, involving eight scholars and led by Martin Maiden and John Charles Smith, with Maria Goldbach, Silvio Cruschina, Marc-Olivier Hinzelin (researcher, and latterly academic consultant to the project), Paul O'Neill, Drew Swearingen, Louise Esher (associate) and Steven Kaye (associate).
There is also a large number of ongoing individual research projects, including work on the following thems:

• Analogical Change in the Verb Morphology of Occitan Louise Esher
• The language of Antim Ivireanu Ioana Costache
• The prosody-syntax interface – Evidence from question formation in the varieties of the Northern Italian area Franziska Hack
• Conjugation class and heteroclisis from Italic to Romance Steven Kaye
• The Morphomic Structure of the Ibero-Romance Verb Paul O'Neill
• The Distinction between the Imperfect and the Preterite in Romance Languages Ana Todea
• Expresssive morphology Antonio Fortin (includes discussion of Spanish material)
  

Recently completed research projects (including submitted DPhils):

• Deixis in Italo-Romance, Alexandra Stavinschi (British Academy doctoral Fellow)
• Names and Addresses: aspects of address in Latin and Romance, Richard Ashdowne
• Writing Latin and reading Romance? On logographic reading in medieval Iberia, Tom Finbow
  Language standardization in the history of Italian: typology and effects, Nikola Milić
• Romance Imperatives: syncretism, irregularity, autonomy, Andrew Swearingen
• Personal pronouns in Italo-Romance Chiara Cappellaro

The Research Centre for Romance Linguistics

Further Information (Library, Joseph Cremona Archive)