Blog CRC1646

I have been on a short research stay at Bielefeld University during the 4th of May to the 28th of July, 2025 as part of the project A01: Creativity in (Morpho)syntactic Variation: the role of analogy. The project led by Prof. Dr. Jutta Hartmann and Dr. András Bárány, focuses on long-distance dependencies in languages, particularly long-distance movement and agreement. All aspects of morphosyntactic agreement, especially long-distance agreement, is my area of interest. Moreover, some phenomena such as adverbial agreement in Marathi (my native language) has been of my interest for some time. Particularly, the distribution of adverbial agreement shows patterns that are indicative of its spread in Marathi and other related language through analogical extension (perhaps a creative one). As such my interest areas seem to align with the project A01 perfectly. The project A01’s focus is also on experimental syntax, which is an area I wish to initiate into. So, with the aim of acquiring skills of syntactic experimentation to better understand the phenomena of agreement and long-distance dependencies in my language, I applied for a short research stay at Bielefeld University and subsequently joined the project A01 in May, 2025.

My three months long stay at the Bielefeld was certainly rich with interactions and learning experiences. As part of the project A01, I attended all of the group’s meetings as well as the meetings of the Current Research Group of General Linguistics. Through the colloquium lectures of the General Linguistics group as well as of the CRC, I got the opportunity to listen to several researchers in the field from various places. It was insightful overall to get a sense of the current and future directions in the field of language sciences. Interestingly, I was also invited to be part of the meetings of project A03 since one of the languages on the focal agenda of this group is Hindi, which I also work on. Interaction with this group was also equally stimulating.

As part of the project, I worked on two phenomena of agreement in Marathi: agreement in double-NP copular constructions and adverbial agreement. With the help of discussions with Prof. Hartmann, Dr. Bárány, Dr. Anke Himmelreich, Dr. Farhat Jabeen and the researchers Szilvia Dazcó, Fabian Zöfelt and Shravani Patil, I designed an experiment involving acceptability judgement task. During my stay here, I managed to set up an experiment and conduct a small pilot study (or a pre-study) and I am in the process of analysing the results. I am certain that even after I return to my work in India, our interactions and the collaborations with the project A01 will continue.

Overall the three months here were full of academic activities, including the Summer School in Linguistic Creativity and the Comparative Syntax conference. The work-life balance was great too, so that I could also enjoy the fun activities on campus and in the city. What I appreciated the most is the collaborative spirit in the CRC. Although, technically I was part of A01, my interactions stretched beyond this group alone. The General Linguistics group accommodated me easily amongst them and these interactions indicate promising start for continued collaborations in near future, which I am eagerly looking forward to engaging in. I would like to express many thanks to the entire CRC team for support me in every possible way.

Dr Renuka Ozarkar, Assistant Professor at the Department of Linguistics, University of Mumbai (India)

Link to Renuka Ozarkar at Mumbai

Link to the current call for Visiting Fellowships 2026

                                                        Renuka Ozarkar © SFB 1646