Luca Gal
Contact
About
Luca has been a PhD candidate in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics since 2023.
She completed her BA in Linguistics at the University of Cambridge (2018-2021). Her undergraduate dissertation, supervised by Dr Theresa Biberauer, focused on the application of the Evaluative Morphology framework to Hungarian frequentative suffixes. In 2022, she graduated with an MPhil in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics at the same department. In her MPhil research, she studied the replication of Italo- and Gallo-Romance evaluative morphemes in the Walser German dialects of Northern Italy, under the supervision of Prof Adam Ledgeway.
Supervised by:
Research
The replication of Evaluative Morphology in Romance–non-Romance language contact
Luca’s main research interests lie in Contact Linguistics, Morphology and Romance Linguistics.
For her doctoral project, Luca is investigating the replication of Evaluative Morphology (specifically: diminutives, augmentatives, and pejoratives) focusing on the language contact between (1) Basque and Ibero/Gallo-Romance, (2) Maltese and Italo-Romance and (3) Griko and Salentino. The primary purpose of her research is to provide a comprehensive account of the replicability of Evaluative Morphology based on diverse cross-linguistic data, with a particular focus on how base selection preferences and grammatical gender are affected by contact. Her research aims to enhance the theoretical understanding of the role of sociolinguistic characteristics and typological differences in morphological replication, while providing novel insights into the position of EM in relation to derivation and inflection, and the influence of language contact on grammatical gender.
Teaching and supervision
- Supervisor for CS1 (The Romance Languages)
- Supervisor for IT1/ITA3 (Introduction to Italian Linguistics)
- Supervisor for IT2 (Structures and Varieties of Italian)
- Supervisor for Li11 (Historical Linguistics)
- Supervisor for Li4 (History of English)
- Supervisor for Li17 (Language Typology and Cognition)
Other activities and roles:
- Secretary of the Cambridge Linguistics Forum
- Co-organiser of RoLinC (Romance Linguistics Circle)