Laura J. Downing

Downing earned her B.S. in linguistics from Georgetown University in 1977, and her PhD in linguistics from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign in 1990.{{Cite web |title=University of Illinois Ph.D. Recipients in Linguistics {{!}} Linguistics at Illinois |url=https://linguistics.illinois.edu/research/university-illinois-phd-recipients-linguistics |access-date=2022-03-12 |website=linguistics.illinois.edu}} Her dissertation, The tonal phonology of Jita, was published by Lincom Europa in 1996. After receiving her PhD, she held several positions in North America before moving to Europe in 2001. She was a senior researcher at the ZAS (Center for General Linguistics) in Berlin from 2001 to 2012,{{Cite web |title=ZAS Berlin: PB4 |url=https://www.leibniz-zas.de/en/research/research-areas/project-archive/projekt-archive/pb4 |access-date=2022-03-12 |website=www.leibniz-zas.de |language=en-EN}} and was professor of African Languages at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, from 2012 until her retirement in 2021.{{Cite web |title=Laura Downing {{!}} University of Gothenburg |url=https://www.gu.se/en/about/find-staff/lauradowning |access-date=2022-03-12 |website=www.gu.se |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=GU Journalen 3-2015 by University of Gothenburg - Issuu |url=https://issuu.com/universityofgothenburg/docs/gu-journalen3-2015 |access-date=2022-03-12 |website=issuu.com |date=12 May 2015 |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=GU-Journal no 1 2013 by University of Gothenburg - Issuu |url=https://issuu.com/universityofgothenburg/docs/guj1-13inenglish |access-date=2022-03-12 |website=issuu.com |date=13 February 2013 |language=en}}

Downing's research centers on the formal analysis of the prosody of Bantu languages, including prosodic morphology, lexical and grammatical tone systems, information structure and phrasal prosody.{{Cite web |title=Laura J. Downing |url=https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=LnOGCa4AAAAJ&hl=en |access-date=2022-03-12 |website=scholar.google.de}} Her research has contributed to a better understanding of the prosodic and morphological constraints on reduplication, especially in Bantu languages (Downing 2006). Her work with Lisa Cheng on the phonology-syntax interface, in particular in Zulu, shows the close interaction between the prosodic phrasings of a language and the syntactic structure within the Minimalist framework (Cheng & Downing 2009, 2016). Fieldwork over many years in Malawi in collaboration with Al Mtenje led to them co-authoring The Phonology of Chichewa (Downing & Mtenje 2017).{{Cite journal |last1=Marlo |first1=Michael R. |last2=Frost |first2=Joshua |last3=Kujath |first3=Elizabeth |last4=Lawlor |first4=Cara |last5=Pribe |first5=Sarah |last6=Raney |first6=Emily |last7=Skrivan |first7=Patrick |last8=Thein |first8=Alexa |date=2018 |title=The phonology of Chichewa by Laura J. Downing and Al Mtenje |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/702692 |journal=Language |language=en |volume=94 |issue=3 |pages=714–717 |doi=10.1353/lan.2018.0042 |s2cid=149490714 |issn=1535-0665}}{{Cite journal |last=Franich |first=Kathryn |date=2018 |title=Laura J. Downing and Al Mtenje (2018). The phonology of Chichewa. (The Phonology of the World's Languages.) Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xvi+294. |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0952675718000167/type/journal_article |journal=Phonology |language=en |volume=35 |issue=3 |pages=537–543 |doi=10.1017/S0952675718000167 |s2cid=70125906 |issn=0952-6757}}

Downing was also involved in international collaborative projects funded by leading funding agencies. She co-directed, with Annie Rialland, a French-German ANR-DFG project, BANTUPSYN, devoted to the Phonology-syntax Interface in Bantu languages (2009–2012).{{Cite web |title=ZAS Berlin: SynPhonI |url=https://www.leibniz-zas.de/en/research/research-areas/project-archive/projekt-archive/synphoni |access-date=2022-03-12 |website=www.leibniz-zas.de |language=en-EN}}{{Cite web |last=Lacombe |first=Stephanie |title=Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3 - ANR - BANTUPSYN |url=http://www.univ-paris3.fr/anr-bantupsyn-59974.kjsp |access-date=2022-03-12 |website=www.univ-paris3.fr |language=fr-FR}} This project led to a co-edited volume on Intonation in African tone languages (Downing & Rialland, eds., 2017).{{Cite journal |last=Snider |first=Keith L. |date=2018 |title=Book review |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0024384117304515 |journal=Lingua |language=en |volume=204 |pages=16–20 |doi=10.1016/j.lingua.2017.10.008}} With Maarten Mous (Leiden University) and Morgan Nilsson (U of Gothenburg), she led a VR project investigating Somali prosody from 2016 to 2019.{{Cite web |title=Somaliska språket och prosodisk typologi |url=https://www.gu.se/forskning/somaliska-spraket-och-prosodisk-typologi |access-date=2022-03-12 |website=www.gu.se |language=sv}}

• Honorary Member of the LSA (elected 2019){{Cite web |title=LSA Elects Three to Honorary Membership {{!}} Linguistic Society of America |url=https://www.linguisticsociety.org/news/2019/01/24/lsa-elects-three-honorary-membership |access-date=2022-03-12 |website=www.linguisticsociety.org}}
• Vice-president then President of the Association of Contemporary African Linguistics (ACAL), 2017–2024; Member of the ACAL executive committee, 2014–2017.{{Cite web |title=Past officers {{!}} ACAL |url=https://acal.linguistlist.org/executive-committee-and-contacts/past-officers/ |access-date=2022-03-12 |language=en}}
• Member of the KVVS (elected 2012);{{Cite web |title=Kungl. Vetenskaps- och Vitterhets-Samhället i Göteborg (KVVS) {{!}} Ledamöter |url=https://kvvs.se/ledamoter/ |access-date=2022-03-12 |language=sv-SE}} Member of AcademiaNet (elected 2017){{Cite web |title=Prof. Laura J. Downing - AcademiaNet |url=https://www.academia-net.org/profil/prof-laura-j-downing/1489651 |access-date=2022-03-12 |website=www.academia-net.org}}
• Member of the Editorial Board of Phonology for 20+ years{{Cite web |title=LSA Elects Three to Honorary Membership {{!}} Linguistic Society of America |url=https://www.linguisticsociety.org/news/2019/01/24/lsa-elects-three-honorary-membership |access-date=2022-03-12 |website=www.linguisticsociety.org}}
• A Festschrift in Downing's honor was published in the open access journal, Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics.{{Cite web |title=Crossing boundaries: a Festchrift for Laura Downing; Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus |url=https://spilplus.journals.ac.za/pub/issue/view/99 |access-date=2022-03-12 |website=spilplus.journals.ac.za |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=Vol. 62 No. 2 (2022): Crossing boundaries: a Festchrift for Laura Downing (part 2) Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus |url=https://spilplus.journals.ac.za/pub/issue/view/101 |access-date=2022-06-21 |website=spilplus.journals.ac.za |language=en-US}}

Books

Laura J. Downing. 1996. The tonal phonology of Jita.  LINCOM Studies in African Linguistics 05.  Munich:  LINCOM EUROPA.  [revised version, dissertation]. 245 pp. {{ISBN|978-3-89586-032-4}}

Laura J. Downing. 2006. Canonical Forms in Prosodic Morphology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 284 pp.  {{ISBN|978-0-19-928639-3}} {{doi|10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199286393.001.0001}}

Laura J. Downing and Al Mtenje. 2017. The Phonology of Chichewa. Phonology of the World's Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-19-872474-2}} {{doi|10.1093/oso/9780198724742.001.0001}}

Laura J. Downing and Annie Rialland, eds. 2017. Intonation in African Tone Languages. Phonology & Phonetics 24. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. {{ISBN|978-3-11-048479-3}}

Selected other publications

Lisa L.-S. Cheng and Laura J. Downing. 2009. Where's the topic in Zulu? In Helen de Hoop & Geertje van Bergen (eds.), Topics Cross-linguistically. Special issue, The Linguistic Review 26, 2/3: 207–238. {{doi|10.1515/tlir.2009.008}}

Laura J. Downing and Larry M. Hyman. 2016. Information Structure in Bantu Languages. In Caroline Féry & Shinichiro Ishihara (eds.), Handbook of Information Structure. Oxford University Press, 790–813. {{doi|10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199642670.013.010}}

Lisa L.-S. Cheng and Laura J. Downing. 2016. Phasal syntax = cyclic phonology? Syntax 19 (2), 159–191. {{doi|10.1111/synt.12120}}

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{{Authority control}}

Category:American women linguists

Category:1954 births

Category:Phonologists from the United States

Category:American Africanists

Category:University of Illinois College of Liberal Arts and Sciences alumni

Category:Georgetown University College of Arts & Sciences alumni

Category:Academic staff of the University of Gothenburg

Category:Living people

Category:20th-century American linguists

Category:21st-century American linguists

Category:Linguists of Bantu languages