Nadine Grimm

Nadine Grimm

she/her/hers

James P. Wilmot Distinguished Assistant Professor of Linguistics

Associate Professor of Linguistics

Director of Language Documentation and Description Program

Co-Director of Grammar and Variation Lab

PhD, Humboldt University Berlin, 2015

Office Location
509 Lattimore Hall
Web Address
Website

Office Hours: By appointment

Curriculum Vitae

Biography

Professor Nadine Grimm joined the Department of Linguistics in October 2014.

PhD in African Linguistics (magna cum laude). 2015. Humboldt University Berlin, Germany, Department of Asian and African Studies. Dissertation: A Grammar of Gyeli. Advisors: Prof. Tom Güldemann and Prof. Maarten Mous

MA in African Studies, German Linguistics, and French. April 2006 - February 2010. Humboldt University Berlin, Germany, Department of Asian and African Studies. Thesis: The Numeral System of Ikaan.

BA in General Linguistics and French. October 2002 - March 2006. University of Bielefeld, Germany.

Awards and grants:

  • Leonard Bloomfield Book Award of the Linguistic Society of America 2023 for "A grammar of Gyeli"
  • Panini Award of the Association for Linguistic Typology 2019 for (the dissertation version of) "A grammar of Gyeli"
  • NSF BCS-1535846: Causality Across Language. August 2015 - February 2023. Role: Collaborator, PI: Prof. Jürgen Bohnemeyer, SUNY Buffalo.
  • Volkswagen Foundation "DoBeS" (Documentation of Endangered Languages) Project on Bakola/Bagyeli (Cameroon). Research Grant. April 2010 - August 2014.
  • Hans Rausing Foundation: Endangered Languages Project on Ikaan (Nigeria).
  • Fieldwork Grant. January - March 2008.
  • Fellow of the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes). February 2007 - December 2009.

 

Research Overview

Research Interests

  • Language Documentation and Description
  • Typology
  • Linguistic Fieldwork
  • African Linguistics
  • Grammatical Tone
  • Grammar Writing
  • Language and Culture
  • Language and Cognition

Courses Offered (subject to change)

  • LING 104:  Language and Culture
  • LING 215/415:  Languages of Africa
  • LING 270(W)/470:  Preserving Diversity in Language & Culture
  • LING 389:  Senior Seminar
  • LING 471:  LDD Field Methods

Selected Publications

  • Grimm, Nadine. 2025. Tonal forms of stamp morphemes in northwestern Bantu. In Fiedler, Ines & Lee Pratchett (eds.), Areas, families, and pools aplenty: a Festschrift for Tom Güldemann. Berlin: Humboldt-Universität, pp. 237-256. . DOI: 10.18452/31543.
  • Grimm, Nadine. Accepted. Negation in Gyeli. In Miestamo, Matti & Ljuba Veselinova (Eds.), Negation in the languages of the world: Typologically and functionally based descriptions, Berlin: Language Science Press.
  • Grimm, Nadine. Bare nouns and reference tracking in Gyeli (Bantu). Forthcoming. In Armoskaite, Solveiga & Martina Wiltschko (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Determiners, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Botne, Robert, Malin Petzell & Nadine Grimm. (2023) Temporal status vs. timescape status in Kami and Gyeli. In Botne, Robert & Axel Fanego (Eds.), Domains and regions in Bantu tense and aspect, pp. 77-103, Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.
  • Grimm, Nadine. (2022) Exponence and the functional load of grammatical tone in Gyeli. Phonology 39(3):473-501. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0952675723000131.
  • Grimm, Nadine. (2022) Documentary approaches to lexicography. In Ekpenyong, Moses & Imelda Udoh (Eds.), Current issues in descriptive linguistics and digital humanities: A Festschrift in honour of Professor Eno-Abasi Urua, pp. 551-567. Singapore: Springer.
  • Grimm, Nadine. (2021). A Grammar of Gyeli. Comprehensive Grammar Library 2. Berlin: Language Science Press. (recipient of the Panini Award of the Association for Linguistic Typology 2019 and the Leonard Bloomfield Book Award of the Linguistic Society of America 2023) [monograph]
  • Grimm, Nadine. (2020) Descriptive and documentary dimensions of Gyeli numerals. In Vander Wal, Jenneke & Heleen Smits & Sara Petrollino & Victoria Nyst & Maarten Kossmann (Eds.), Explorations in African languages and linguistics in honour of Maarten Mous, pp. 371-393. Leiden: Africa Studies Centre Occasional Publications.
  • Grimm, Nadine, Emmanuel Ngue Um & Daniel Duke. (2020) A documentation of the Bagyeli/ Bakola forest foragers of Cameroon. Nijmegen: MPI, The Language Archive. Handle: https://dobes.mpi.nl/projects/bakola/. [curated linguistic dataset]
  • Grimm, Nadine. Implosives in Bantu A80? The case of Gyeli. In press. Proceedings of the 47th Annual Conference of African Linguistics.
  • Grimm, Nadine. (2017) Causality Across Languages (CAL): Gyeli. London: SOAS University of London, Endangered Languages Archive. Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/2196/00-0000-0000-0010-798E-8. [curated linguistic dataset]
  • Grimm, Nadine. A Grammar of Gyeli. In preparation. Dissertation defense version from 2015.
  • Grimm, Nadine. (2014) Color categories in language contact: “Pygmy” hunter-gatherers and Bantu farmers. Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 38, 31-45. Berkeley Linguistic Society. Berkeley, CA.
  • Borchardt, Nadine. (2011) The numeral system of Ikaan, a Benue-Congo language of Nigeria. Asien- und Afrikastudien der Humboldt-Unversität zu Berlin. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.