Dr. Marius Zemp

Research Profile

Reconstructing the history of the Tibetic languages

Hundreds of verb stems have different meanings in an eastern and a western branch of Tibetan – a comprehensive account of these functional divergences goes hand in hand with a detailed reconstruction of a Proto-Tibetan which, on the one hand, facilitates a neat explanation also of how evidentiality developed in different modern varieties, and on the other, suggests that the language originates from an expanded pidgin. (More...)

• Vorlesung : Die Geschichte der tibetischen Sprachfamilie

A diachronic typology of evidential contrasts (from a Himalayan perspective)

While work on evidentiality traditionally (e.g. Aikhenvald 2004, 2018) ignores agentive markers, an adequate account of the evidential contrasts found in Tibetan and neighboring languages needs to include them. In fact, most of the evidential contrasts we find in this region involve one verb form which mainly occurs when the speaker/addressee is the subject in a statement/question (‘egophoric’) and another mainly when s/he isn’t (‘allophoric’). (More...)

• Kurs FS24 : Diachrone Typologie evidentieller Kontraste 1.zip
• Kurs FS24 : Diachrone Typologie evidentieller Kontraste 2.zip
• Kurs FS24 : Diachrone Typologie evidentieller Kontraste 3.zip

Reconstructing the history of the Kaike-Ghale-Tamangic languages

My work on Kaike and Kutang and Northern Ghale suggests that these languages belong to the Tamangic family, and that most if not all languages of this family have been heavily influenced by the Tibetic varieties with which there is widespread bilingualism – a  comparative dictionary of the Kaike-Ghale-Tamangic languages would allow us to identify features that are shared by (some of) these languages and thus need to be reconstructed for their common ancestors and features that were borrowed from (or modelled after) a Tibetic or another contact language. (More...)

• HLS2023 Abstract : Tichurong-Tibetic influence in the grammar of Kaike
• HLS2024 Abstract : Stylized intonation in a tone language
• SLE2024 : Copulas in Kutang.pptx
• ÖLT2024 Abstract : The evidential contrasts of Kaike and Kutang and the tones of Northern Ghale — Tibetic influence on peripheral members of the Tamangic language family

Towards a dialect geography of intonation in Swiss German

Having captured a salient intonational difference between Valais and Midland varieties of Swiss German (Zemp 2018), I taught a field linguistics class in spring 2024 here at the ISW in which we identified intonational characteristics of various other Swiss German dialects – our major findings were presented at the Alemann:innentagung in Bern on September 9 (abstract and slides of the presentation are found below).

• ALTA Abstract : Intonatorische Eigenheiten einiger Dialekte des Schweizerdeutschen

I have received an SNF-Spark-Grant to work on this topic at the ISW in 2025.