Johanna Nichols

                                                                                   


Professor, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures                                          
Affiliate professor, Department of Linguistics
University of California, Berkeley



 

Contact:
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, #2979
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-2979, USA

 Phone     (1) 510 642-1097
                (1) 510 642-2979   (department office; messages)
 Fax         (1) 510 642-6220   (departmental fax)

 e-mail:  johanna  "at"  berkeley.edu
 
 

Education:
Ph.D.:  University of California, Berkeley (Linguistics), 1973
B.A.:   University of Iowa, 1967
 

Areas of specialization:
Chechen, Ingush, and East Caucasian (Nakh-Daghestanian) languages
Origin and prehistory of the Slavic language family
Language origins and language spreads on the western Eurasian steppe periphery, Neolithic to present
Typology and comparative grammar
Origin and dispersal of languages

Current research projects:
Ingush grammar, dictionary, and texts  (see website)
Chechen grammar, dictionary, and texts (see website)
AUTOTYP project and database  (see website)
Lexical typology

Courses taught recently:
Linguistics 122:   Typology and universals
Slavic 220:    Comparative Slavic grammar
Linguistics 100:  Introduction to linguistic science
Slavic 158:     Languages and peoples of the Caucasus
Slavic 39H:   The Russian-Chechen wars
Slavic 280:    Slavic linguistics seminar
Slavic 289:    Studies in languages of the Caucasus (Ingush)
Linguistics 240A-B:    Field methods: Chechen (co-taught with Sharon Inkelas and Andreas Kathol); Ingush
Slavic 222:    Introduction to descriptive Russian grammar
Slavic 210:    Old Church Slavic
Slavic 220:    Historical and comparative Slavic grammar
Slavic 230:    Historical Russian grammar
Slavic/Linguistics 139:    Language spreads (co-taught with Richard Rhodes)
Linguistics 21:    Languages and peoples of the world
Linguistics 130:    Historical and comparative linguistics


 

Publications 



Field work in languages of the Caucasus:

Ingush:

1979, 1981, 1984  (Tbilisi) (funding: IREX)
1989  (Grozny, Dzheirax) (funding: IREX)
1992, 1995-6, 1996  (Berkeley) (funding:  self, UCB Deans of Humanities and Social Sciences)
1997- 2001  (Berkeley) (NSF, self)
2002-present  (Berkeley, Leipzig)  (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, self

Chechen:

1979, 1981, 1984  (Tbilisi)  (funding: IREX)
1983  (Jordan dialect)  (Berkeley) (funding: self; UCB Committee on Research)
1989  (Grozny, Makhachkala) (funding: IREX)
1999-2000  (Berkeley)  (funding: NSF; UCB Deans of Humanities, Social Sciences, Graduate Division; UCB Committee on Research; self)

Georgian:
1974-5  (San Francisco; funding: UC Berkeley)
1976, 1979  (Tbilisi) (funding: IREX)



Grants, awards:

1996     NSF 96-16448:  Ingush grammar, dictionary, and texts.
             International Supplement for Chechen, 1999.

1994     Leonard Bloomfield Book Award (Linguistic Society of America), for Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time  (University of Chicago Press, 1992).  This award is given once every two years to “the LSA member who has published the volume which makes the most outstanding contribution to the development of our understanding of language and linguistics”.

1992     NSF 92-22294:   Lexical valence as a source of genetic markers.