Delia Bentley

Delia Bentley

Prof

 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2203-5197

Personal profile

Overview

I am a Professor of Romance Linguistics in the Department of Linguistics and English Language at the University of Manchester. My principal research interest is in the interface of syntax with discourse and lexical meaning, which I explore on evidence from the grammars of the Romance languages, particularly the lesser-studied ones (e.g., Sicilian and Sardinian). By observing these cognate languages, I investigate how facets of meaning provided by the lexicon, or the context or co-text of the proposition, are reflected by patterns of grammatical variation. Over the years I have studied extensively existential, locative, presentational, causative, anticausative, modal and voice constructions. I have held Principal Investigator positions in two research projects funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (see http://existentials.humanities.manchester.ac.uk). I am the editor of Transactions of the Philological Society and a member of the Council of the Society (http://www.philsoc.org.uk/ ). I am a syntax consultant on the Atlante Linguistico della Sicilia (http://atlantelinguisticosicilia.it/cms/)) and I have in the past collaborated with the Atlante Sintattico dell’Italia Settentrionale (http://asit.maldura.unipd.it/). I am the author of two monographs, published by Mouton de Gruyter (2006) and Oxford University Press (2015), and of over fifty research articles, which have appeared in major linguistics journals (Glossa, Journal of Linguistics, Language, Lingua, Linguistics, Rivista di Linguistica, Transactions of the Philological Society…) and in edited collections. I am an editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Role and Reference Grammar (2023, Cambridge University Press) and of other collections/ thematic issues of journals. Although I fully engage with linguistic research of any theoretical persuasion, the framework which I usually adopt in my own work is that of Role and Reference Grammar (http://linguistics.buffalo.edu/people/faculty/vanvalin/rrg.html). I am an editor of the Studies in Role and Reference Grammar series of Mouton de Gruyter (https://www.degruyter.com/serial/strrg-b/html#overview)

 
Membership of bodies
The Philological Society (editor of Transactions from 2024, editor of the monograph series from 2006 to 2012).
The Societas Linguistica Europaea.
The Linguistic Association of Great Britain.
The Centro di Studi Filologici e Linguistici Siciliani.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College (from 2017 to 2020).
 
 
Awards and research projects
Research Support Fund award of the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures (2024, 2015, 2014).
AHRC Research Grant, Standard Scheme (AH/H032509/1, £535,927): Existential constructions: An investigation into the Italo-Romance dialects (November 2010-June 2014).
AHRC Research Grant, Research Leave Scheme (AH/E506011/1, £23,268): Existential constructions: discourse, semantics, syntax (Semester 2: Academic year 2008/2009).
Consultant on the Atlante Linguistico della Sicilia (on-going), the Atlante Sintattico d'Italia (Universita' degli studi di Padova) (2013-2015) and on the AHRC-funded project Sintassi degli Antichi Volgari d'Italia (University of MAnchester and University of Bristol, 2000-2004).
 
Editor roles
Editor of Transactions of the Philological Society (ongoing).
Editor of Studies in Role and Reference Grammar series (Mouton de Guyter) (ongoing).
Associate Editor of Folia Linguistica Historica (2020-2024).
Member of the Board of Consulting Editors, Linguistics (2019-2022).
Member of the International Advisory Board of Italian Journal of Linguistics (2013-2015).
Honorary Secretary for Publications (monograph series), The Philological Society (2006-2012).


Leadership
Programme Director of the MA Linguistics, University of Manchester (January 2019 - August 2021).
Expert peer reviewer for Italian Ministry for Education, University and Research (MIUR).
Head of the Division of Languages and Intercultural Studies,The University of Manchester (2016-2017)
Head of the Division of Linguistics and English Language, The University of Manchester (2012-2014)
Head of the Department of Russian and Eastern European Studies, The University of Manchester (2011-2012)
Head of the Department of Italian Studies, The University of Manchester (2010-2012)
Director of the Institute of Linguistics and Language Studies, The University of Manchester (2008-2010)



 
 
 

 

Research interests

My principal research interest is in the Romance languages. Availing myself of Romance evidence I study aspects of grammar which are underpinned by specific facets of lexical or contextual meaning (cause, result, topic, comment, etc.). My principal research contributions to date have been on split intransitivity; existential, locative and presentational constructions; the discourse and semantic underpinnings of subjecthood; SE constructions (passives, reflexives, anticausatives); the formation of result state adjectives and resultative passives.

I have a keen interest in the documentation of the Romance dialects of Italy, a large number of Romance languages which are rapidly receding under pressure from the national language (Italian). In my AHRC-funded research projects on existential and locative constructions, I set up a publicly accessible source of data from Italo-Romance and Sardinian dialects of Italy (http://existentials.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/). With Francesco Ciconte and Silvio Cruschina, the RAs on the project, I also produced a collection of short stories and fairy tales in the dialects of Italy. This is available on DVD and booklet.

I am a member of the Linguistic Diversity Collective of the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures and I actively participate in its activites aimed at discussing and promoting linguistic diversity in the local community.

Principal awards :

Research Support Fund award of the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures (June 2024, June 2015, November 214).

 AHRC Research Grant, Standard Scheme (AH/H032509/1, £535,927): Existential constructions: An investigation into the Italo-Romance dialects (November 2010-June 2014): http://www.existentials.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/

 AHRC Research Grant, Research Leave Scheme (AH/E506011/1, £23,268): Existential constructions: discourse, semantics, syntax (Semester 2: Academic year 2008/2009).

Teaching

As a teacher, I encourage curiosity and enthusiam for knowledge and scientific investigation. I reward rigorous and independent thinking and clarity of thought and expression. I pay particular attention to the development of transferable skills, which students can apply later in life in any work environment.


Over the years I have taught undergraduate and postgraduate course units on Italian and Romance linguistics, the syntax-lexical semantics interface, syntax, stylistics, dialectology (the Romance dialects of Italy).

I currently teach both in the Department of Linguistics and English Language and in the Modern Languages Department. The course units that I offer at the moment are the following:

LELA10301 - English Word and Sentence Structure.

LELA32001/LELA62001/ITAL32001 - Romance Linguistics.

ITAL50510 - Italian Language Lecture.

I also co-teach the Research Methods component of our MA Linguistics.

 

Supervision information

Postgraduate supervisions
Over the years I have supervised postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers working on a variety of topics in Italian and Romance syntax as well as tense, aspect, modality and voice in typological perspective. I welcome doctoral supervisions in the following areas: syntactic microvariation, Italian and Romance syntax and dialectology,the discourse-syntax interface, the syntax-lexical semantics interface, syntactic theory. I am currently supervising the following PhD projects:

A comparative analysis of the TAM system of Greek and Romance dialects of Southern Italy (Author: Paris Zeikos)

The syntax-discourse interface: A comparative study of Catalan and
Spanish (Author: Núria Barrios Jurado)

The Acquisition of Unaccusativity on Evidence from Early and Late Dialect-Italian Bilinguals (Author: Elizabeth Tobyn)

A corpus-assisted study on the selection of Estonian infinitives in multipredicative clauses (Author: Michael Green)

This is a sample of the PhD theses that I supervised in the past:

Relative and cleft constructions in Kréol Rényoné (Author: McLellan, Alina)

The Syntactic-Pragmatic Interface in North-Eastern Italian Dialects: Consequences for the Geometry of the Left Periphery (Author: De Cia, Simone)

The microvariation in passive and impersonal constructions in Italo-Romance dialects of Italy (Author: Stampone Chapman, Vicky)

Testing the Interclausal Relations Hierarchy: Aspectual and Modal Periphrases in Modern Sardinian (Author: Casti, Francesco)

Existentials in Early Narratives of the Vernaculars of Italy (Author: Ciconte, Francesco Maria)

 

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 4 - Quality Education

Areas of expertise

  • P Philology. Linguistics
  • discourse-syntax interface
  • lexical semantics-syntax interface
  • microvariation
  • PC Romance languages
  • lesser-known Romance languages
  • dialects of Italy

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