Temporary page while we relaunch our institute website over the coming months. Contact the organizers, Ksenia Shagal and Jeremy Bradley, with questions and suggestions. Last update: 18 May 2026.
How to join us:
Our colloquium is a hybrid event taking place every week from 2:15–3:45 PM (Central European Summer Time). You can find us:
In person: Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 (main building), F 007
Welcome! - The team of the Institute of Finno-Ugric / Uralic Studies
Schedule for Summer 2026:
13.4.2026
Prof. Dr. Beáta Wagner-Nagy (Universität Hamburg)
Das Leben ist ein Geben und Nehmen: zwei Ereignisse und ihre Verwendung in den samojedischen Sprachen
20.4.2026
Dr. Josefina Budzisch (University of Vienna)
What you can do with a corpus – examples from Selkup This talk introduces the SLC and INEL Selkup corpora and demonstrates how they can be used to explore a range of linguistic questions. Using several small case studies – such as cardinal directions, definiteness, existential-locative constructions, and dialectal variation – I show how different layers of annotation in the corpus can be used for different types of analysis, illustrating the versatility of annotated corpora for linguistic research.
Remarks on Relativization in Meadow Mari – a corpus-based approach In this talk, I present the theoretical background of my doctoral research on relativization in Meadow Mari and introduce preliminary findings that will be further developed throughout the dissertation. Relative constructions and relative clauses have received sustained attention in both typological and Uralic linguistics. Building on this work, I examine relativizing strategies in Meadow Mari using preliminary corpus data. Specifically, I map the relativizing capacities of participles (i.e., which arguments they can relativize) and investigate the functions and distribution of the relative pronoun kudo in written corpora. I tentatively propose that the lexical semantics of the verb underlying a participle may influence its relativizing potential. I also suggest that the relative pronoun kudo occurs more frequently in formal registers, such as scientific texts and Wikipedia articles, indicating that it may be associated with more formal varieties of written Meadow Mari.
4.5.2026
The NOMAC team (Ksenia Shagal, Jeremy Bradley, Daria Zhornik, Timofey Arkhangelskiy, Sophie Pokrovskaya – LMU Munich)
Northern Mansi Corpus (NOMAC): Project launch
11.5.2026
Hanna Männikkölahti (Jyväskylä)
Reading is for everyone! Finnish plain-language literature in focus
18.5.2026
Dr. Sabine Grasz (Universität Oulu)
Code-Switching Deutsch-Finnisch in deutsch-finnischen Tandemgesprächen
1.6.2026
Ilia Egorov (LMU Munich)
The formation of the Saami continuum: morphosyntactic features This talk will explore the results of modelling the diversity of Saami morphosyntax and phonology, based on the UraTyp data. It will present the results of various quantitative analyses and provide a diachronic interpretation. Particular attention will be paid to discrepancies between clustering based on morphosyntactic parameters and phylogenies inferred from lexical data and phonological innovations.
8.6.2026
Prof. Dr. Miina Norvik (University of Tartu)
Continuity and change of structural features: the example of southern Finnic The presentation focuses on phonological and morphosyntactic features of southern Finnic from an areal typological perspective, examining both change and persistence. The study covers about forty Finnic varieties and roughly one hundred features, primarily from the UraTyp dataset, but extended for detailed analysis. The aim is to compare, for instance, to what extent phonological and morphosyntactic features are responsible for different grouping of these varieties. A further objective is to explore how innovations and geographic factors (center vs. periphery) shape these patterns.
15.6.2026
Miscellanea
22.6.2026
Attila Benő (Babeș-Bolyai University)
TBA
29.6.2026
Katri Wessel (LMU München)
Beobachtungen zur sprachlichen Entlastung: Literatur in Selkosuomi und Leichter Sprache
6.7.2026
Johannes Hirvonen (LMU Munich)
A new survey of borrowed negative indefinites
13.7.2026
Denis Rakhman (LMU Munich)
Purposive and aspectual semantics interaction: the cases of Finnish and Russian
