Postdoctoral researcher, Computational linguistics, morphology and constructicography of Dutch
Listed on 2026-10-03
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Research/Development
Data Scientist, Research Scientist, Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Postdoctoral researcher, Computational linguistics, morphology and constructicography of Dutch
Job Description Postdoctoral researcher, Computational linguistics, morphology and constructicography of Dutch Vacancy number: 16898 Job type:
Academic staff Contract hours min: 28 Contract hours max: 40
Location:
Leiden Applying is possible up to and including: 1 November 2026
Postdoctoral researcher, Computational linguistics, morphology and constructicography of Dutch
Starting date: January 2027 (a later starting date can be negotiated)
Description
Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) invites applications for a Postdoc position within the NWO project ‘The Morphicon: A new gateway to morphological knowledge’.
The postdoctoral researcher will work in a small team to build a morphological construct icon
for Dutch
, and to use it toadvance our understanding of productivity
in word-formation
.
Construct icons are digital networks of grammatical constructions in a language. Such resources are being built for a variety of major languages, but not yet for Dutch. Moreover, existing construct icons all focus on syntactic constructions, neglecting morphology. The aim of this project is to develop the first morphological construct icon or “Morphicon” with Dutch as the target language. The resource will be developed by a team of three researchers—the PI, the Postdoc and a PhD—in collaboration with the Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal.
The postdoctoral researcher will participate in the team effort, but will also have their own research project.
The team will work together on transforming existing lexicographic and grammatical resources into a digital network. The network will consist of lexical constructions (simple and complex words) and grammatical constructions (word-formation patterns), linked to one another by the properties they share. An important part of the work will be to find, test and develop digital tools to assist in classification, annotation and network building.
The Postdoc, the computational expert in the team, will play a key role in this process.
The Morphicon provides essential empirical data relevant for the investigation of linguistic productivity, including word-formation patterns of varying generality, information on semantic and formal hubs and outliers, competing affixes and frequency distributions. The postdoctoral researchers will use the Morphicon to further our understanding of what makes morphology productive or not.
This Postdoc position is part of an NWO-funded Open Competition Large project involving PI dr. Jenny Audring (Leiden University) and external partner prof. dr. Sjef Barbiers (Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal).
Tasks and responsibilities- Finding, evaluating and developing digital tools, including LLMs, to assist in the morphological classification of complex words, the annotation of words and word-formation schemas, and network building;
- Investigating Dutch morphological constructions quantitatively and qualitatively;
- Presenting (joint) research results at workshops and conferences;
- Publishing (joint) research results ;
- Participating in (the organisation of) knowledge dissemination activities;
- Participating in meetings and training sessions of the project research group.
Selection criteria:
- A PhD in linguistics, completed before the start date;
- Demonstrable expertise in computational modelling of grammatical patterns; affinity with the framework of Construction Grammar;
- Native or near-native proficiency of Dutch and excellent command of academic English;
- Excellent research and analytical skills.
Appointment will be according to the terms of the Collective Labour…
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