Iris Kamil

PhD Linguistics & English Language

  • Linguistics and English Language
  • School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

Contact details

Address

Street

Dugald Stewart Building

City
3 Charles Street, Edinburgh
Post code
EH8 9AD

Background

I am a Linguist and Assyriologist, specialising in Semitic languages, predominantly Akkadian and Ethiosemitic. My general approach to language is to view it as a very dynamic system of interaction between multiple internal systems and external factors. Being more interested in theoretical and historical questions, I mostly investigate morphological problems in their interfaces with syntax, phonology, and semantics with a special regard to how these forms and problems arise and develop diachronically.

As for my background, I have studied at the University of Vienna between 2016 and 2022, earning a BA in Linguistics (2019), an MA in Assyriology (2022), and soon a second MA in Indo-European Studies and Historical Linguistics. Between 2019-2021 I was a research fellow at the Department of Near Eastern Studies, working on the Late Babylonian Priestly Literature project.

CV

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Qualifications

  • BA in Linguistics (2019)
  • MA in Assyriology (2022)

 

Research summary

My work fits somewhere within the triangle of Theoretical Linguistics - Historical Linguistics - Assyriology. Predominantly, I employ methods of theoretical linguistics on questions of the historical linguistic field on languages spoken in the ANE.

Current research interests

Akkadian verb; Semitic morphosyntax, morphophonology, morphosemantics; Proto-Semitic reconstruction; epistolary corpora. My PhD project sets out to reinvestigate the Akkadian verbal system within the framework of Distributed Morphology. Special attention will be given to a re-evaluation of the system as an aspectual one, to the forms' argument structure, and the role of the roots and their Aktionsart. Ultimately, this project sets out to test how much such an analysis can help us make predictions for Proto-Semitic mophosyntax.

Past research interests

While at the Assyriology department in Vienna, I worked on Late Babylonian literature, religion, epigraphy.

Invited speaker

2022:

t-Forms of the Akkadian Stative, Workshop on Semitic Prefixes and Suffixes,  Paris, 11th-12th of March 2022

2021:

Akkadian Pluractionals in Old Babylonian Letters – a Reanalysis,  Atelier de Phonologie, Université de Paris 8 (virtual), 24th of November 2021

Organiser

Workshop on the Afroasiatic t-Morpheme (WAMt), University of Edinburgh, May 2024, Organiser

Categorizers in Diachrony, Workshop at ICHL 26 Heidelberg, 7th of September 2023, Co-Organiser

Norbert Jokl Gedenksymposium, University of Vienna, 3rd of May 2022, Co-Organiser

Participant

2024:

Verbs of Fine Quality: Aspect and Argument Structure in the Old Babylonian (Akkadian) Verbal System, LEL PGC 24, Edinburgh, 3rd–5th of June 2024

Introduction, Workshop on the Afroasiatic Middle t-Morpheme (WAMt, Edinburgh, 8th–9th of May 2024

 

2023:

From Middle-marker to “Event-relator” – The Akkadian t-Morpheme, Meaning and Grammar Research Group, University of Edinburgh, 28th November 2023

Anticausativization Strategies in Akkadian – Innovated and Inherited, Workshop on Diachronic and Typological Perspectives on Anticausativization, Torino, 9th–10th of November 2023

Re-imagining the Akkadian Verb, Angus MacIntosh Center “Catchup Sessions”, University of Edinburgh, 3rd October 2023

Categorizers in Diachrony (with Laura Grestenberger and Viktoria Reiter), 26.International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Heidelberg, 4th–8th of September

Middles, Perfectives, Pluractionals. A reinvestigation of the usage and function of the -ta-infix in the old Babylonian Mari letters, 67. Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Leiden, 17th–23rd of July 2023

Deadjectival Statives in Akkadian and Indo-European: comparative and theoretical considerations, Workshop on Deadjectival verb formation in Indo-European: Historical and theoretical perspectives, Vienna, 10th-11th of March 2023

 

2022:

News on the Adad-Šuma-Uṣur Epic, 34. Deutscher Orientalistentag, Berlin, 12th-17th of September 2022

Tocharian periphrastic yām-constructions revisited (with Laura Grestenberger), 34. Deutscher Orientalistentag, Berlin, 12th-17th of September 2022

New Visions on Kingship in Late Babylonian Priestly Literature (with Céline Debourse), 66. Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Mainz, 25th-29th of July 2022

 

2021:

Old Babylonian Pluractionals and Their Medial Nature, 46. Österreichische Linguistik-Tagung, Vienna (virtual), 9th of December 2021

 

2020:

Semitic Verbal Diminutives and Their Morphological Derivation, 68. Studentische Tagung der Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin (virtual), 19th of November 2020

Kamil, Iris. 2023. t-Forms of the Akkadian Stative. Brill’s Journal for Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 15(1). 262–290.