The ILLC is looking for a PhD candidate within a Vidi research project

The project studies how inferences based on language use (pragmatic implicatures) can become part of literal meaning in historical processes of conventionalizations (grammaticalization). The aim of the PhD project is to study the gradual grammaticalization of various pragmatic implicatures in words with indefinite reference (e.g. English 'someone', 'anyone', 'whatever').

Tasks:
The PhD candidate needs to carry out a number of diachronic studies of indefinite words in various languages and develop formal models of their changes in meaning and use and needs to write a dissertation within three years.

Requirements:
The candidate must have a Research Master degree or equivalent qualification in linguistics or in a related discipline obtained no longer than five years ago. The ideal candidate will have the proven ability to collect and analyze primary data, but also a solid background in formal semantics and pragmatics.

For more information, see Dr. M.D. Aloni, Leerstoelgroep Taalfilosofie, University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 15, 1012 CP, Amsterdam, +31 20 525 4537, m.d.aloni at uva.nl, or the managing director of the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, drs. I.M. van Loon, +31 20 525 6090, ingrid at science.uva.nl