Iris Kamil
PhD Linguistics & English Language
- Linguistics and English Language
- School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences
Contact details
- Email: Iris.Kamil@ed.ac.uk
- Web: Personal Website
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

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
Norbert Jokl Gedenksymposium, University of Vienna, 3rd of May 2022
Participant
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.