current projects
Subject positions in Urdu:
Urdu has several types of subjects which take a range of cases (ergative, nominative, dative, instrumental, genitive). Often these subjects pass some but not all of the so-called subject tests, suggesting that subject properties are not associated with a single structural position and that not all subjects are found in the same position. This has previously been suggested for Hindi-Urdu for dative vs ergative and nominative subjects by Davison (2004), and for dative and ergative vs nominative subjects by Poole (2016).
Instrumental case in Urdu:
Instrumental case is extremely versatile, and is found on by-phrases, causees, inabilitative subjects, comitatives, instruments and materials, and locations in Urdu. I am interested in the conditions on instrumental case assignment in Urdu. While by-phrases, causees, inabilitative subjects and comitatives, are arguments, instruments, materials and locations are adjuncts. Interestingly, this seems to follow the animacy distinction. One possibility is that there is both an inherent (for adjuncts) and structural (for arguments) instrumental case in Urdu. However, all the arguments are not generated in the same position, making it difficult to identify a functional head responsible for assigning structural instrumental case under an Agree-based approach to case assignment.
papers
| 2022b | A Case for Bare Accusatives in Hindi-Urdu. In I. Guha, S. Kidwai, & M. Schwarz (Eds.), Proceedings of (Formal) Approaches to South Asian Languages 10. [link] |
| 2022a | The Urdu Active Impersonal. In S. Alam, Y. Sinha, & S. Srinivas (Eds.), Proceedings of (Formal) Approaches to South Asian Languages 11. [link] |
| 2021 | Nguyen, L., Bryant, C., Kidwai, S. & Biberauer, T. Automatic language identification in code-switched Hindi-English social media text. Journal of Open Humanities Data, 7, 7. [link] |
| 2020 | Case-Mismatching in Urdu Sluicing. In A. Cairncross, & S. Kidwai (Eds.), The Cambridge Occasional Papers in Linguistics, 12, 47-78. [pdf] |
talks and posters
| Mar 2021 | The Urdu Active Impersonal. Poster presented at (Formal) Approaches to South Asian Languages 10 ((F)ASAL-10), online. [poster; handout] |
| Feb 2021 | The Urdu Active Impersonal. Poster presented at 46° Incontro di Grammatica Generativa, online. [poster] |
| Feb 2021 | The Urdu Active Impersonal. Talk given at SyntaxLab, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. [handout] |
| Jun 2020 | Accepted at South Asian Languages Analysis Roundtable 36 (SALA-36). Postponed due to COVID-19. |
| Jun 2020 | Accusative case and the verbal domain in Hindi-Urdu. Talk given at SyntaxLab, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. [handout] |
| Mar 2020 | A case for bare accusatives in Hindi-Urdu. Poster presented at (Formal) Approaches to South Asian Languages 10 ((F)ASAL-10), online. [poster; handout] |
| Feb 2020 | Using Case as a Diagnostic in Urdu Sluicing. Poster presented at The Cambridge Occasional Papers in Linguistics (COPiL) Poster Event 2020, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. [poster] |
| Nov 2019 | Kidwai, S., Bryant, C., Nguyen, L., and Biberauer, T. Automatic Language Identification in Code-Switched Hindi-English Social Media Texts. Poster presented at Cambridge Language Sciences Symposium, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. [poster] |
| May 2019 | Resolving -ko in Urdu. Talk given at SyntaxLab, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. [handout 1; handout 2] |
theses
| 2019 | Double Agents in Urdu Case: -ko and ∅. (MPhil thesis) University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. [pdf] Supervisor: Theresa Biberauer |
| 2018 | Case-(Mis)Matching in Urdu Sluicing. (BA thesis) University College London, London, UK. [pdf] Supervisor: Klaus Abels |
funding awards
For the full list, see my CV.
| 2020 | Linguistics Association of Great Britain Student Conference Sponsorship For The Cambridge Occasional Papers in Linguistics Poster Event 2020 As lead organiser, with Alexander Cairncross (approx. £90). |
| 2019 - 2023 | Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholarship Fully funded PhD grant (approx. £181,000). |
| 2019 | Cambridge Language Sciences Incubator Fund As research assistant, with Li Nguyen (co-PI), Theresa Biberauer (co-PI), and Christopher Bryant (£2,500). |
| 2018 - 2019 | Cambridge Trust Scholarship Full tuition fees for MPhil (approx. £23,750). |
| 2018 | LAGB Outstanding Undergraduate Dissertation in Linguistics (£100). |