Motoki Nomachi

Education:

2011 Ph.D., Slavic Linguistics, University of Tokyo
2002 M.A., Slavic Studies, University of Tokyo
2000 B.A., Slavic Studies, University of Tokyo

Field of Study:

I have been analyzing grammatical structures in the Slavic languages from the viewpoints of language typology, language contact (areal linguistics), and historical linguistics. I began my scholarly career as a specialist in Russian, particularly its syntax. During M.A., I began examining two South Slavic languages, BCMS and Slovene, in the context of contrastive linguistic analysis of Russian and South Slavic. Since working on my Ph.D. thesis, I have been interested in and intensively studying grammatical changes in minority Slavic languages, focusing particularly on Kashubian, which is spoken mainly in Pomeranian Voivodeship in the northern part of Poland. In addition, I am a sociolinguist and specialize in language policy, language planning, and linguistic landscape from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. I am specifically interested in the so-called Slavic literary microlanguages and until now, I have conducted numerous field studies on Kashubian and Podlachian (Poland), Burgenland Croatian (Austria), Banat Bulgarian (Serbia and Romania), Bunjevac (Serbia), West Polessian (Belarus and Ukraine), Gorani (Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania) and other areas. Furthermore, I have been an active organizer of various international conferences on Slavic linguistics which were and will be held at SRC and other universities (2011, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2022).

Related Sites:

academia.edu
researchmap

Recent Publications (Selected):

Edited Books:

(with Tomasz Kamusella) Languages and Nationalism Instead of Empires. London: Routledge, 2023.
(with Shiori Kiyosawa) Grammar in Society, Society in Grammar: Studies on Normative Grammar of Slavic Languages. Moscow: JaSK, 2020
(with Andrii Danylenko) Slavic on the Language Map of Europe: Historical and Areal-Typological Dimensions. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2019.
(with Dieter Stern and Bojan Belić) Linguistic Regionalism in Eastern Europe and Beyond: Minority, Regional and Liteary Microlanguages. Bern: Peter Lang, 2018.
(with Aleksandr D. Duličenko) Slavic Microphilology. Sapporo: Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, 2018.
Serbica Iaponica: Doprinos japanskih slavista srpskoj filologiji. [Serbica Iaponica: Japanese Contribution to Serbian Philology]. Novi Sad/Sapporo: Matica srpska, SRC, 2016.
(with Tomasz Kamusella and Catherine Gibson) The Palgrave Handbook of Slavic Languages, Identities and Borders. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015.
(with Ljudmila Popović and Dojčil Vojvodić) Inside the Space of Slavic Linguistics: Papers in Honor of Predrag Piper on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday. Belgrade: University of Belgrade, 2015.
(with Ljudmila Popović) The Serbian Language as Viewed by the East and the West: Synchrony, Diachrony, and Typology. Sapporo: Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, 2015.
(with Andrii Danylenko and Predrag Piper) Grammaticalization and Lexicalization in Slavic Languages[Die Welt der Slaven, Sammelbaende/ Sborniki No. 55]. München: Verlag Otto Sagner, 2014.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters:

“The Early Nikita Il’ič Tolstoj as a Macedonist,” In: Svetlana M. Tolstaya (ed.). Slovo i čelovek akademika Nikity Il'iča Tolstogo. K 100-letiju so dnja roždenija. pp. 258–274, 2023.
“On a particular usage of the locative and accusative cases in Bugenland Croatian,” Južnoslovenski filolog, LXXVIII 2, pp. 383–408, 2022.
“Afanasij M. Seliščev’s unpublished manuscript on South Slavic languages,” Slavistika 26 (1), pp. 156–172, 2022.
“Interactions between Blaže Koneski and Samuil Bernštejn: From unpublished archival materials (correspondence from Koneski to Bernštejn in the 1940s and 1950s),” XLVIII Megjunarodna naučna konferencija na LIV letna škola na megjunarodniot seminar za makedonski jazik, literatura i kultura, pp. 43–61, 2022.
“The Evolution of Samuil B. Bernštejn’s Views on Two “Questions of Slavistics”,” Balkanistica 35, pp.111–174, 2022.
(with Johan van der Auwera and Olga Krasnoukhova) “Connective negation and negative concord in Balto-Slavic,” In: Arkadiev, P., Pakerys, J., Šeškauskienė, I. and Žeimantienė, V. (eds). Studies in Baltic and Other Languages. A Festschrift for Axel Holvoet on the occasion of his 65th birthday. pp. 45–66, 2021.
“How do Russians verbalize the art of kissing? An appendix to Jurij D. Apresjan's analysis of the verb CELOVAT’ ‘to kiss’,” Proceedings of the V.V. Vinogradov Russian Language Institute 2, pp. 241–256, 2020.
“Language Loss and Preservation: The Case of Banat Bulgarian in Serbia,” Balkanistica 30, pp. 289–318, 2020.
“Linguistic ideology and the art of reedition: On the second edition of Ioann Rajić's History of Various Slavic Peoples (1823),” Naš jezik L, sv. 2, pp. 717–727, 2019.
“The Gorani People in Search of Identity: The Current Sociolinguistic Situation among the Gorani Community of the Former Yugoslavia,” In: Aleksandr D. Duličenko, Motoki Nomachi, eds., Slavic Microphilology. Sapporo: Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, pp. 375–413, 2018.
“Contact-induced Grammatical (Non)changes? Observations of the Morpho-Syntactic Structures in the Kashubian Dialect in Canada,” Južnoslovenski filolog, LXXIV 1-2, pp. 13–29, 2018.
(with Bojan Belić) “Vojvodina’s Minority Languages in Light of a Language Emancipation Theory,” Balkanistic Forum 3: 1, 19–33, 2018.
(with Bojan Belić) “21st Century Standard Language Ideology in Serbia and Poland,” Belgrade English Language and Literature Studies 10, pp. 177–192, 2018.
“Another Look at the Rise and Fall of the West Polessian Literary Microlanguage (with a Glance toward Less Discussed Ukrainian Factors),” In: Ljudmila Popović, ed., Ukrainian Studies and Slavic World. 264–283, 2017.
“Dative of External Possession in Croatian: From an Areal-Typological Perspective,” Jezikoslovlje 17: 1-2, pp. 453–474, 2016.
(with Biljana Sikmić) “Linguistic Landscape in the Memorial Space of Multilingual Society: A Case of Banat Bulgarians in Serbia,” Južnoslovenski filolog, LXXII 1-2, pp. 453–474, 2016. (in Serbian)
“The Rise, Fall, and Revival of the Banat Bulgarian Literary Language: Sociolinguistic History from the Perspective of Trans-Border Interactions,” In: Tomasz Kamusella, Motoki Nomachi, and Catherine Gibson, eds., The Palgrave Handbook of Slavic Languages, Identities and Borders. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 394–428, 2016.
“On the Second Be Periphrasis (BE-2) in Kashubian: Its Grammatical Status and Historical Development,” Slavia: časopis pro slovanskou filologii, vol. 84, No. 3, pp. 268–283, 2015.
“Language Contact and Structural Changes in Serbian and Other Slavic languages in the Banat Region,” In: Ljudmila Popović, Dojčil Vojvodić and Motoki Nomachi, eds., In the Space of Slavic Linguistics. Belgrade: Faculty of Philology at University of Belgrade, pp. 549–565, 2015.
“Possessive Constructions in the South Slavic Languages: Some Implications for Areal Typology,” Balkanistica, vol.28, pp. 337–360, 2015.

Invited Lectures and Keynote Addresses (Selected):

Zdzisław Stieber and His Contribution to Kashubian Studies. Spuścizna Zdzisława Stiebera wobec dawnych i nowych tendencji w językoznawstwie slawistycznym Sesja w 120. rocznicę urodzin Zdzisława Stiebera, Warsaw, Poland (6 June, 2023)
Avram Mrazović’s Linguistic Thought and the Question of Polyvalency in Church Slavonic. The 25th Kenneth E. Naylor Memorial Lecturer in South Slavic Linguistics, Columbus (OH), USA (24 April, 2023)
A Foiled Soviet Contribution to Macedonian Linguistics (1948-1950). 2nd International Ohio State – Ca’ Foscari Joint Workshop on South Slavic and Balkan Languages, Columbus (OH), USA (21 April, 2023)
(with Johan van der Auwera) Connective negation and negative concord in Balto-Slavic. The Slavic Linguistics Society 17th Annual Meeting (4 September, 2021)
“Evolution of Samuil B. Bernštejn’s Views of Two Slavistic Questions,” LIX Annual Meeting of the Serbian Association for Slavic Studies, Belgrade, Serbia (28 January 2021)
“Archaism or Innovation? One Particular Usage of the Locative and Accusative Cases in Burgenland Croatian,” Język w regionie – Region w języku. Konferencja IV, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland (18 November 2020)
“Old Scripts Meet New Context: Recent Dynamics in Script Usage among South Slavs,” Institut slavjanovedenija RAN, Moscow, Russia (24 December 2019)
“Will Old Scripts be Back Again: Aspects of Script Usage among South Slavs Today,” Instytut filologii słowiańskiej, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland (11 June 2019)
“If it were not for the Tito-Stalin Split…Samuil B. Bernštejn’s unrealized version of the Macedonian Literary Language,” Slovanský ústav AV ČR, Prague, Czech Republic (5 November 2018)
“Dynamika sytuacji kaszubszczyzny w ujęciu teorii emancypacji językowej,” Debata pt. Języki narodowe Europy Środkowej i Południowej: Globalizacja, Ideologia, Tożsamość. Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland (13 June 2018)
“Language Emancipation of Slavic Microlanguages: A Comparative Case Study,” School of International Letters and Cultures at Arizona State University, Tempe, USA (26 April 2018)
“The Breakup of Serbo-Croatian and the Gorani of Kosovo,” Modern History Research Seminar Series, School of History at University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK (17 April 2018)
“On the Project of the West Polissian Literary Language Revisited after 30 years,” International Symposium Ukrainian Studies and Slavonic World at University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia (17 November 2016)
“Dative of External Possession in Croatian: From an Areal-Typological Perspective,” The 5th Croatian Syntax Days at Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Osijek, Croatia (7 June 2015)

Courses Taught:

- Introduction to Slavic Linguistics
- Overview of Contemporary Slavic Languages
- Old Church Slavonic
- History of West Slavic Languages
- History of South Slavic Languages with Balkan Linguistics
- History of East Slavic Languages
- Contrastive Grammar of Russian and Serbian
- Minorities in the Slavic World and their Languages: History, Current Situation, and Future Perspective
- Russian (beginner and intermediate)
- Polish (beginner and intermediate)
- BCMS (beginner and intermediate)

Grants and Fellowships:

- The (Pre-)History of the Macedonian Literary Language: An Interdisciplinary Approach (JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research, B, 2023–2027)
- Overseas Research Fellow (Kajima Foundation, 2021–2022)
- Visiting Scholar at UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (2020. Accepted, but not realized yet due to the COVID-19 pandemic)
- Multi-hierarchical Approaches to Kashubian Grammar on the Basis of a Newly Devised Corpus (JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research A, 2017–2021)
- Language Change in Banat Bulgarian in Serbia and its Current Situation (JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research, 2016–2018)
- A Comprehensive Study of the Slavic Micro Literary Languages after the Revolution of Eastern Europe (JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research B, 2013–2016)
- A Comprehensive Study of the Kashubian Syntax (JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Young Scientists B, 2010–2012)
- The Functional Approach to the Typology of Slavic Languages: Research in the Semantic Category of Possessivity (JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Young Scientists (Startup), 2008–2009)
- Typology of Possessive Constructions in Slavic (JSPS Grants-in-Aid for JSPS Fellow, 2007–2008)

Awards:

2023 The 25th Kenneth E. Naylor Memorial Lecturer in South Slavic Linguistics
2019 Honorary member of the Serbian Association for Slavic Studies
2018 Ryngraf Witosława
2016 13th JSPS Prize
2016 13th Japan Academy Medal
2016 Povelja zahvalnosti filološkog fakulteta, Univerziteta u Beogradu [Charter of Gratitude, Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade]

- Executive Member, Slavic Linguistics Society (2016–2019)
- Director, Information Office of the International Council for Central and East European Studies (ICCEES) (2015–2021)
- Associate Member, The Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies at the University of Chicago (2012–present)
- Board Member, The Southeast European Studies Association (2022–present)
- Member, Commission on the Study of Slavic Literary Microlanguages at International Committee of Slavists (2016–present)
- Member, Commission on the Study of the Grammatical Structure of Slavic Languages at International Committee of Slavists (2011–present)
- Advisory Committee, Biuletyn Rady Języka Kaszubskiego (2020–present)
- Advisory Committee, Zeszyty łużyckie (2020–present)
- Editorial Committee, Ezikov Svyat (2020–present)
- Editorial Committee, Bulletin of the Kyiv National Linguistic University. Series “Philology” (2019–present)
- Editorial Committee, Uzhhorod University Scientific Bulletin. Series “Philology. Social communications” (2019–present)
- Editorial Committee, Slavistika (2017–2023)
- Editorial Committee, Zbornik Matice srpske za filologiju i lingvistiku (2016–present)
- Editorial Committee, Slavjanskij Al’manax (2015–present)
- Editor-in-Chief, Acta Slavica Iaponica (2014–2022)