Dr Marc Olivier-Loiseau
Academic linguist
I am a Lecturer in Linguistics based at the University of Oxford, UK. I am the Linguisitics Organising Tutor of St John's College and St Catherine's College.
On top of the research I undertake in my institution, I am an Associate Researcher of the Maison Française d'Oxford and a member of the CLESTHIA research team at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris.
I currently sit on the Executive Committee of Societas Linguistica Europaea, the largest linguistics society in Europe.
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My research lies at the intersection of formal syntax and historical linguistics, with a focus on Old French and Old Occitan. I am particularly interested in clitics, clause size, infinitives, and auxiliary selection.
Prior to my current post, I held research and teaching positions at Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University. I have a PhD in Linguistics, with specialisation in historical syntax. In 2023, I was awarded a Seal of Excellence by the European Commission in recognition of the quality of my research
Where to meet me:
I'll give a talk at the General Linguistics Seminar in Oxford, on Monday of week 6. Join us if you want to hear more about my work on clitics, clitic placement, and cliticisation.
If you're based in Oxford, I convene a weekly Occitan reading group. All welcome! This term (HT25) we're meeting every tuesday at 5pm in the MML Faculty.
I am organising the third edition of the Occitan Studies Day at the Maison Française d'Oxford, on May, 10th 2025. Send me your abstract! 500 words on any aspect of Occitan (abstracts can focus on linguistics, literature, history, etc.).
I am organising DiGS26 in Oxford. The conference will feature a workshop entitled Investigating diachronic syntax with less-documented and unwritten languages: methods and theory. You can submit an abstract here until January 27, 2025.
I am co-organising a workshop at the 58th edition of Societas Linguistica Europaea, in Bordeaux. It is entitled Diachronic Studies on Minoritised and Under-researched Romance Varieties. The asbtract submission platform is now closed.
Still at the SLE, I'm co-organising the Outreach session with Alexandru Nicolae. We will circulate the call for papers soon, but don't hesitate to reach out for more!
News:
I have a new paper coming up in Probus. It's a syntactic (minimalist) analysis of auxiliary selection in French, in which I argue against the traditional hypothesis that argument structure plays a part. It's in press for now, but feel free to ask for a preprint.
I am editing a special issue of the Catalan Journal of Linguistics with Afra Pujol i Campeny, titled Crosslinguistic perspectives on syntactic change in the diachrony of Romance. The call for papers is available here, if you want to submit an article.
I am editing a special issue of Revue Romane with Anna Paradís, which will feature interdisciplinary research on Occitan. The issue is planned for publication for Autumn 2025 and will include contributions in several languages, watch this space!