Prof. Dr. Uta Reinöhl

Chair of General Linguistics

Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Belfortstraße 18
79085 Freiburg im Breisgau

Telephone: 0761-203-3165
E-Mail: uta.reinoehl(at)linguistik.uni-freiburg.de

Academic Career

Publications and Lectures

Projects and Awards

Office Hours (during the semester): Monday 12 p.m.–14 p.m. (no appointment needed)

Research Focus

Grammaticalisation Theory
Historical Syntax
Non-configurationality
Serial Verbs
Tonal Phonology
Languages: Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, South Asian Sprachbund, Tibeto-Burman (Mishmi)

since 05/2020	Holder of the Chair of General Linguistics Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (Germany)
10/2019–04/2020	Acting Professor of General Linguistics LMU Munich (Germany)
since 02/2019	Head of an Emmy Noether Junior Research Group (DFG) at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz on the topic: “Non-hierarchicality in grammar. Construction formation without word class distinction across categories and languages.” Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
08/2017–01/2019	Return to the position as Assistant in General Linguistics, Institute of Linguistics University of Cologne (Germany)
10/2015–06/2017	Research stay at the ANU Canberra with a Feodor Lynen Postdoctoral Fellowship (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation) ANU Canberra (Australia)
27/03/2014–01/2019	Research assistant in General Linguistics (Assistant position) University of Cologne (Germany)
12/2013	PhD defense on the topic: Grammaticalization and the Rise of Phrase Structure – On the Emergence of Postpositional Constructions in Indo-Aryan (Supervisors: Prof. Nikolaus Himmelmann and Prof. Hans Henrich Hock) University of Cologne (Germany)
04/2013–03/2014	Research assistant in General Linguistics (covering assistant position) University of Cologne (Germany)
07/2011–12/2011	DAAD Research Fellow Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (India)
02/2011–07/2013	PhD Scholarship recipient from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes)
10/2010–10/2013	Fellow of the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne Cologne (Germany)
04/2010–07/2011	PhD studies University of Cologne (Germany)
04/2010–07/2011	Research Assistant in General Linguistics University of Cologne (Germany)
01/03/2010	Magistra Artium (Master of Arts), Thesis topic: On the Concept of Renovation in the Framework of Grammaticalization Theory Westphalian Wilhelm University Münster (Germany)
10/2006–02/2010	Undergraduate studies majoring in General Linguistics with minors in Philosophy and English Philology Westphalian Wilhelm University Münster (Germany)
09/2005–06/2006	Studies in Linguistics, Philosophy, English Literature, and Political Science University College Dublin (Ireland)

Current Research Projects

Co-Speaker with Prof. Dr. Stefan Pfänder (Romance Linguistics, Freiburg), as well as Prof. Dr. Achim Rabus (Slavic Linguistics, Freiburg), Prof. Dr. Daniela Marzo (Romance Linguistics, Freiburg), Prof. Dr. Lars Bülow (German Linguistics, LMU Munich), Dr. T. Mark Ellison (General Linguistics, University of Cologne) of FRIAS Project Group on Repetition in Language (2022/2023).
Project leader of an Emmy Noether Research Group on the topic: Non-hierarchicality in grammar. Construction formation without word class distinction across categories and languages.
VedaWeb (Based at the University of Cologne, in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Daniel Kölligan, Prof. Dr. Rolshoven, and Prof. Dr. Patrick Sahle), since July 2017.
Agent prominence and the diachrony of predication in Indo-Aryan (Together with Prof. Dr. Dimmendaal), subproject B03 in the Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 1252 Prominence in Language at the University of Cologne, January 2017–December 2020.
Projekt Multi-headedness in cross-categorial perspective. The syntax and semantics of referents and events. Postdoctoral project funded by a postdoctoral scholarship from the University of Cologne.

Further information about the seminar’s current research projects can be found here.

Former Research Projects

Non-hierarchicality in grammar. Construction formation without word class distinction across categories and languages
- Emmy Noether research group, Pl, 2018–2024
VedaWeb
- DFG-Projekt, angesiedelt an der Universität zu Köln, in Kooperation mit Prof. Dr. Daniel Kölligan, Prof. Dr. Rolshoven und Prof. Dr. Patrick Sahle, 2017–2020
Agensprominenz und die Diachronie des Prädizierens im IndoarischenAgent prominence and the diachrony of predication in Indo-Aryan
- DFG-Teilprojekt B03 (SFB 1252, Prominenz in Sprache), angesiedelt an der Universität zu Köln, in Kooperation mit Prof. Dr. Dimmendaal, 2017–2020
Multi-headedness in cross-categorial perspective. The syntax and semantics of referents and events.
- Post-Doc-Projekt gefördert durch ein PostDoc-Stipendium der Universität zu Köln. 2014–2016.

Awards

Heinz-Maier-Leibnitz-Preis 2019, the most important German early-career award, granted by the DFG (German Research Foundation) and the BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research)
Wilhelm von Humboldt Prize for the Best Dissertation 2015, German Linguistics Society
Award for the Dissertation by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes)
Offermann-Hergarten Award 2016, University of Cologne

Publications and Lectures

Corpora and Annotation Conventions

Peck, Naomi, Kirsten Culhane, Simon Fries & Uta Reinöhl. 2026. TONIC – Testing the One-new-idea Constraint Annotation Guidelines. OSF. March 12. doi: 10.17605/OSF.IO/AR7CF.
Reinöhl, Uta. 2024. Documentation of Igu, Data Center for the Humanities. [Online]. doi: 10.18716/dch/b.00000017.
Casaretto, Antje, Jakob Halfmann, Natalie Korobzow, Daniel Kölligan, & Uta Reinöhl. 2023. The morphologically glossed Rigveda – The Zurich annotation corpus revised and extended, hosted by VedaWeb – Online Research Platform for Old Indic Texts, University of Cologne. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.8410655.
Casaretto, Antje, Simon Fries & Uta Reinöhl. 2021. Vedic Sanskrit prose interlinearized and GRAIDed. Data Center for the Humanities. doi: 10.18716/dch/a.00000053.
Kölligan, Daniel, Claes Neuefeind, Uta Reinöhl, Patrick Sahle, Antje Casaretto, Anna Fischer, Börge Kiss, Natalie Korobzow, Jürgen Rolshoven, Jakob Halfmann, & Francisco Mondaca, VedaWeb – Online Research Platform for Old Indic Texts, University of Cologne.

Books and Edited Volumes

Riesberg, Sonja, Uta Reinöhl, & Birgit Hellwig (eds.). 2026. The Documentarist Turn: From observable linguistic behaviour to typological generalizations. Vol. 240. Studies in Language Companion Series. Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company. doi: 10.1075/slcs.240.
Louagie, Dana & Uta Reinöhl (eds.). 2022. Typologizing the Noun Phrase, special issue of Linguistics, vol. 60(3).
Reinöhl, Uta. 2016. Grammaticalization and the Rise of Configurationality in Indo-Aryan, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Reinöhl, Uta. 2010. Zum Begriff der Renovation im Rahmen der Grammatikalisierungstheorie, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, manuscript.

Articles in Academic Journals and Edited Volumes

Ellison, T. Mark and Uta Reinöhl (2026). “Recurrence plots in linguistics”. Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top. doi: 10.1140/epjs/s11734-026-02570-x.
Reinöhl, Uta & T. Mark Ellison (2026). “Recurrence plots – a tool for exploring repetition in un(der)studied language data”. Int J Digit Humanities. doi: 10.1007/s42803-026-00130-2.
Reinöhl, Uta. 2026. More diachronic than you think: Historical depth within language documentation corpora and its potential to mitigate two major biases in linguistics. In Sonja Riesberg, Uta Reinöhl, & Birgit Hellwig (eds.), Studies in Language Companion Series. Vol. 240. Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 287–313. doi: 10.1075/slcs.240.12rei.
Reinöhl, Uta & Naomi Peck. 2026. “The ‘idea’ in the one-new-idea constraint”. Functions of Language (Online First). doi: 10.1075/fol.26012.rei.
Reinöhl, Uta & Naomi Peck. 2026. “How much is too much? The one-new-idea constraint and the information–intonation interface”. Functions of Language (Online First). doi: 10.1075/fol.25065.rei.
Reinöhl, Uta & T. Mark Ellison. 2026. “The one–new–idea constraint, functor–argument metaphors, and holistic speech processing”. Functions of Language (Online First). doi: 10.1075/fol.26015.rei.
Reinöhl, Uta & Mark T. Ellison. 2026. “The pivotal role of metaphor – word order routinization from proto- to modern language”. In Stefan Hartmann, Marta Sibierska, Marlen Fröhlich, Yannick Jadoul, Mathilde Josserand, Theresa Matzinger, Katie Mudd, Jonas Nölle, Michael Pleyer, Sławomir Wacewicz, & Przemysław Żywiczyński (eds.), The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 16th International Conference (EVOLANG XVI). Nijmegen, The Evolution of Language Conferences. doi: 10.17617/2.3696655.
Hellwig, Birgit, Uta Reinöhl, Sonja Riesberg, Isabel Compes, Carmen Dawuda, Dagmar Jung, Felix Rau, Fritz Serzisko, Vera Szöllösi-Brenig, Katherine Walker, Helga Weyerts-Schweda, & Lena Wolberg. 2026. “Nikolaus Himmelmann and the documentarist turn”. In Sonja Riesberg, Uta Reinöhl, & Birgit Hellwig (eds.), Studies in Language Companion Series. Vol. 240. Amsterdam, John Benjamins.
Reinöhl, Uta, Pachu Pulu, & Usha Wallner. 2025. “A sketch grammar of Igu, the shamanic language of the Kera’a”. Himalayan Linguistics, 24(1). 58–87.
von Contzen, Eva, Stefan Pfänder, Uta Reinöhl, & Maria Sulimma. 2024. “Repetition, again: Cross-disciplinary approaches to practices and forms of repeating”. DIEGESIS. Interdisciplinary E-Journal for Narrative Research / Interdisziplinäres E-Journal für Erzählforschung, 13(2). 138–159, doi: 10.25926/dr7c-jt58.
Reinöhl, Uta & T. Mark Ellison. 2024. “Metaphor forces argument overtness”. Linguistics, 62(4). 795–847, doi: 10.1515/ling-2021-0072.
Casaretto, Antje & Uta Reinöhl. Identifying discourse functions without formal clues – Secondary predicates and related functions in Vedic Sanskrit, submitted for publication.
Ellison, T. Mark & Uta Reinöhl. 2022. “Compositionality, Metaphor, and the Evolution of Language”. International Journal of Primatology, 45. 703–719, doi: 10.1007/s10764-022-00315-w.
Louagie, Dana & Uta Reinöhl. 2022. “Typologizing nominal expressions: The noun phrase and beyond”. In Dana Louagie & Uta Reinöhl (eds.), Typologizing the Noun Phrase, special issue of Linguistics, 60(3). 659–714.
Reinöhl, Uta. 2022. “Locating Kera’a (Idu Mishmi) in its linguistic neighbourhood: Evidence from dialectology”. In Mark W. Post, Stephen Morey, & Toni Huber (eds.), Ethnolinguistic Prehistory of the Eastern Himalaya. 232–263, Leiden: Brill.
Kaland, Constantijn, Naomi Peck, T. Mark Ellison, & Uta Reinöhl. 2021. An initial exploration of the interaction of tone and intonation in Kera’a, Proc. 1st International Conference on Tone and Intonation (TAI). 132–136, doi: 10.21437/TAI.2021-27.
Casaretto, Antje, Gerrit J. Dimmendaal, Birgit Hellwig, Uta Reinöhl, & Gertrud Schneider-Blum. 2020. “Roots of ergativity in Africa (and beyond)”. Studies in African Linguistics, 49. 111–140.
Reinöhl, Uta. 2020. “Continuous and discontinuous nominal expressions in flexible (or ‘free’) word order languages: Patterns and correlates”. Linguistic Typology, 24. 71–111.
Reinöhl, Uta. 2020. “What are and what aren’t complex nominal expressions in flexible word order languages?”. Language Typology and Universals, 73. 57–79.
Kölligan, Daniel, Claes Neuefeind, Börge Kiss, Francisco Mondaca, Uta Reinöhl, and Patrick Sahle. 2019. VedaWeb – On the role of annotations in analyzing ancient Indo-Aryan texts, in Proc. Historical Corpora and Variation Conference (HiCoV), Cagliari, Italy.
Kiss, Börge, Daniel Kölligan, Francisco Mondaca, Claes Neuefeind, Uta Reinöhl, and Patrick Sahle. 2019. It takes a village: Co-developing VedaWeb, a digital research platform for Old Indo-Aryan texts. In Steven Krauwer & Darja Fišer (eds.), Workshop Proceedings. Twin Talks: Understanding Collaboration in DH. Fourth Digital Humanities Conference in the Nordic Countries (DHN2019). 35–44, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Ellison, T. Mark & Uta Reinöhl. 2018. Metaphorical extension and the evolution of configurationality. In Christine Cuskley et al. (eds.), The Evolution of Language. Proc. 12th International Conference, Torun, Poland.
Reinöhl, Uta & Antje Casaretto. 2018. “When grammaticalization does NOT occur: Prosody-syntax mismatches in Indo-Aryan”. Diachronica, 35(2). 238–276.
Reinöhl, Uta & Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. 2017. “Renewal: A figure of speech or a process sui generis?”. Language, 93(2). 381–413.
Reinöhl, Uta. 2016. “A single origin of Indo-European primary adpositions? Unveiling the Indo-Aryan branch-off”. Diachronica, 33(1). 95–130.
Reinöhl, Uta. 2013. Reassessing Indo-Aryan postpositions in the Sprachbund debate, in Preproceedings of the International Conference on Language Contact in India. 170–184.

Reviews and similar publications

Reinöhl, Uta. 2018. Review of Eystein Dahl & Krzysztof Stroński (eds.). 2016. Indo-Aryan ergativity in typological and diachronic perspective. Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics 5(1). 111–121.
Reinöhl, Uta & Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. 2011. Review of Christoph Schroeder et al. (eds.). 2008. Secondary Predicates in Eastern European Languages and Beyond. Linguistic Typology 15(1). 131–139.

Selected talks / presentations

Reinöhl, Uta. Schamanismus, Sprache und Heilungsritual im östlichen Himalaya. Dienstagskolloquium “Seele – Geist – Körper”. University Hospital Freiburg. Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. 12 July 2022.
Mondaca, Francisco, Felix Rau, Claes Neuefeind, Börge Kiss, Daniel Kölligan, Uta Reinöhl, & Patrick Sahle. C-SALT APIs – Connecting and Exposing Heterogeneous Language Resources. Digital Humanities Conference 2019 (DH2019). Utrecht, Netherlands. 9–7 May 2019.
Kölligan, Daniel, Claes Neuefeind, Börge Kiss, Francisco Mondaca, Uta Reinöhl, & Patrick Sahle. VedaWeb – on the Role of Annotations in Analyzing Ancient Indo-Aryan Texts. Historical Corpora and Variation Conference (HiCoV). Cagliari, Italy. 04–05 April 2019.
Kiss, Börge, Daniel Kölligan, Francisco Mondaca, Claes Neuefeind, Uta Reinöhl, & Patrick Sahle. It takes a village: Co-developing VedaWeb, a Digital Research Platform for Old Indo-Aryan Texts. Twin Talks: Understanding Collaboration in DH. Fourth Digital Humanities Conference in the Nordic Countries 2019 (DHN2019). Copenhagen, Denmark. 05 March 2019.
Reinöhl, Uta & T. Mark Ellison. Obligatorification stems from universal communicative requirements not syntactic reanalysis. Wither reanalysis? HU Berlin. Berlin, Germany. 1–2 March 2019.
Reinöhl, Uta & T. Mark Ellison. Obligatorification in syntax. ICL 20. Cape Town, South Africa. 2–6 July 2018.
Reinöhl, Uta & Antje Casaretto. Secondary predicates in Vedic Sanskrit – On the challenge of identifying syntactic categories in a so-called ‚non-configurational‘ language. South Asian Language Analysis 34. University of Constance, Germany. 19–21 June 2018.
Reinöhl, Uta & T. Mark Ellison. Obligatorification in syntax. Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, Australian National University. Canberra, Australia. 16 March 2018.
Reinöhl, Uta. Functions of discontinuous nominal expressions in Vedic Sanskrit. SLE. Zurich, Switzerland. 10–13 September 2017.
Reinöhl, Uta. Towards a Typology of Old Grams. International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL) 23. San Antonio, USA. 2017.
Reinöhl, Uta. Syntactic Paradigmatization as a Constraint on Grammaticalization – On the Rise of Participial Predicates in Indo-Aryan. International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL) 23. San Antonio, USA. 2017.
Reinöhl, Uta. Locating Kera’a (Idu Mishmi) in its linguistic neighbourhood: Evidence from dialectology. International Consortium for Eastern Himalayan Ethnolinguistic Prehistory, La Trobe University. Melbourne, Australia. 8–10 February 2017.
Reinöhl, Uta. Exploring configurationality as a historical phenomenon. From non-configurational to (low-level) configurational in Indo-European. Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, Australian National University. Canberra, Australia. November 2015.
Reinöhl, Uta. The Indo-Aryan ‘alignment change’ revisited. International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL) 22. Naples, Italy. July 2015.
Reinöhl, Uta. The origins of the New Indo-Aryan postpositional phrases. South Asian Language Analysis 31. Lancaster, UK. May 2015.
Reinöhl, Uta. Disentangling semantic and formal change in grammaticalization – A case study from Indo-Aryan. University of Zurich, Institute fürComparative Linguistics. Zurich, Switzerland. 8 May 2015.
Reinöhl, Uta. Exploring configurationality as a historical phenomenon. Syntax of the World’s Languages 6. Pavia, Italy. 8–10 September 2014.
Reinöhl, Uta. Syntactically nouns, semantically spatial relators: Zero-valent adverbs undergoing the genitive shift in Post-Vedic Old Indic. 36. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft (DGfS). Marburg, Germany. 6–7 March 2014.
Reinöhl, Uta. An outlier in the family: Indo-Aryan branching off from Indo-European in its route to adpositions and configurationality. Contrastive Linguistics & Diachrony (CoLiDi). Ghent, Belgium. 27–28 February 2014.
Reinöhl, Uta. Syntactic variation and the rise of configurationality in Indo-Aryan. International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL) 21. Oslo, Norway. 5–9 August 2013.
Reinöhl, Uta. Reassessing Indo-Aryan postpositions in the Sprachbund debate. Language Contact in India. Pune, India. 6–8 February 2013.
Reinöhl, Uta. Invited talk with Nikolaus P. Himmelmann: A Note on Renovation. Journée d’étude. Autour de la grammaticalisation, Université Lille 3. Lille, France. 7 December 2012.
Reinöhl, Uta. Die Entstehung phrasaler Struktur im Indoarischen – Konstituenz als emergentes Phänomen. Sprachwandel. Munich, Germany. 13–15 July 2011.

Posters

Kiss, Börge, Daniel Kölligan, Francisco Mondaca, Claes Neuefeind, Uta Reinöhl, & Patrick Sahle. 2018. VedaWeb – A Web-based Platform for Ancient Indo-Aryan Texts. To Appear in: Book of Abstracts of the First European Association for Digital Humanities Conference (EADH 2018 – Data in Digital Humanities). Galway, Ireland. 7–9 December 2018.
Reinöhl, Uta, Daniel Kölligan, Börge Kiss, Francisco Mondaca, Claes Neuefeind, & Patrick Sahle. 2018. VedaWeb – eine webbasierte Plattform für die Erforschung altindischer Texte. In Book of Abstracts der 5. Jahrestagung der Digital Humanities im deutschsprachigen Raum (DHd 2018), 485–486. Cologne, Germany. 26 February–2 March 2018.