College: Selwyn College
Email: os345@cam.ac.uk
Supervisor: Prof Adam Ledgeway
About Me
Onkar received a B.A. in Modern and Medieval Languages from the University of Cambridge in 2018, with a year spent studying Romanian language and Romance linguistics and philology at the University of Padua. He then completed an MPhil in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics at Cambridge in 2019, specialising in (Italo-) Romance syntax, with a thesis investigating the emerging system of differential object marking in northern spoken Italian. His MPhil studies were funded in part by the Isaac Newton Trust.
Onkar started his PhD in 2021 at Selwyn College, supervised by Professor Adam Ledgeway and fully funded by the Keith Sykes Cambridge Italian PhD scholarship. His research project investigates the morphosyntactic distribution and microvariation in differential object marking structures in the Italo-Romance varieties, on both a diachronic and synchronic level.
Research
His doctoral research investigates differential object structures in Romance both in diachrony and in synchronic varieties, looking at its licensing and development in the nominal, clausal, and verbal domains. Novel data collected from this study hopes to shed light on the development of this prevalent structure within Romance and to help us to understand the parameters under which it is licensed.
He has also worked on other projects relating to the syntax of medieval Romance and Italian dialectology, such as a project on the Verb Second constraint within later old Venetian.
Scholarships / Prizes
Recipient of the Keith Sykes Cambridge Italian PhD scholarship.
Teaching
Supervisor (2019-present): CS1
Lecturer (2021-present) and supervisor (2020-present): IT2, IT1/ITA3
Publications
Singh, Onkar. 2021. Verb Second in Old Venetian. In Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics 7, 7:1-28.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.110
Other activities and roles
Onkar is a co-organiser of the Romance Linguistics Circle talks, organised by the Universities of Cambridge and Newcastle (previously known as the Anglia Ruskin-Cambridge Romance Linguistics Seminars). He is also secretary for the Cambridge Linguistics Society.
Personal website
