Specialization:
Linguistic typology; quantitative typology and data structuring in language science; typological databases; morphosyntax and complex syntax; areal linguistics (South Asia); Tibeto-Burman languages of the Indo-Myanmar border; Gallo-Italic and Extreme Southern Italian languages; East Slavic languages (Ukrainian and Rusyn).
Education:
Ph.D University of Pavia 2017
Bio:
My research revolves around the striking variation found in the world’s languages and aims to identify what linguistic structures exist, how they vary, where they occur, and why languages diversify the way they do. To this end, I use qualitative, quantitative, and social sciences methods across different scales of
variation in morphosyntax and complex syntax: from large-scale typological surveys and studies of areal convergence to in-depth analyses within individual families and languages. A central aspect of my work is improving methods of cross-linguistic comparability through the development of typological databases. I am also engaged in the documentation and description of previously undocumented Tibeto-Burman languages spoken on the Indo-Myanmar border, including Suansu, Kongai, Challow and Tangkhul Naga. Finally, I am interested in incorporating interdisciplinary insights (genetics, anthropology, geography) into linguistic research.
Projects:
Research topics I am currently interested in include:
- Crosslinguistic patterns in event packaging and decomposition: use of single verb or multiverb constructions to encode the same event across languages ('eat' vs 'do-bite-chew')
- Grammatical categories (number, noun classes), especially the distributional patterns of allomorphs on semantic referents
- The morphosyntactic encoding of modality from a typological perspective (structural properties and tendencies)
- Documentation and description of the Tibeto-Burman languages spoken on the Indo-Myanmar border (all domains of grammar)
- Structuring linguistic data and typological databases (comparing like with the like in typological research)
- Micro and macro typology
If you are interested in working with me as an undergraduate student: you must have taken LING181 and/or LING109 to join my lab. Email me to get in touch.
If you are interested in working with me as a graduate student: email me to get in touch.
Courses (at UCSB):
Undergraduate
LING 181: Languages of the World
LING 109: Introduction to Syntax
Graduate
LING 222: Typology and Universals
Office Hours (Fall 2025):
Monday 1:30-2:30 pm Pacific time, online
Thursday 2:15-3:15 pm Pacific time, online
Book your appointment here
Publications
Journal publications (peer reviewed):
1. Ivani, Jessica K. and Tulchynska, Kira. 2025. Universal Dependencies for Suansu. In Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop on Universal Dependencies (UDW, SyntaxFest 2025), pages 30–38, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Association for Computational Linguistics.
2. Ivani, Jessica K. 2024. Caritive expression in Suansu. Himalayan Linguistics 23(3). https://doi.org/10.5070/H9.35193
3. Ivani, Jessica K. & Zakharko, Taras. 2024. Phasal polarity in Suansu. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 47(2). https://doi.org/10.1075/ltba.00023.iva
4. Ivani, Jessica K. 2023. Some preliminary notes on Challow, a Tibeto-Burman language from Manipur, India. Languages and Peoples of the Eastern Himalayan Region series (LPEHR), Himalayan Linguistics 22(2). https://doi.org/10.5070/H922259698
5. Ivani, Jessica K. 2023. A field report on Kongai language from Manipur, India. Languages and Peoples of the Eastern Himalayan Region series (LPEHR), Himalayan Linguistics 22(2). https://doi.org/10.5070/H922259792
6. Ivani, Jessica K. 2023. Suansu language from northeastern India: a field report. Linguistics of the Tibeto Burman Area 46(1). https://doi.org/10.1075/ltba.22005.iva
7. Skirgård, Hedvig, […], Ivani, Jessica K., […], Gray, Russel D. 2023. Grambank reveals the importance of historical constraints on linguistic diversity and highlights the impact of language loss. Science Advances 9(16). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adg6175
8. Ivani, Jessica K. Comparative constructions in Suansu and the languages of northeastern India. 2022. Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads 2(1):65-93. https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-231320
9. Ivani, Jessica K., Paudyal, N., Peterson, John. 2021. Indo-Aryan – a house divided? Evidence for the East-West Indo-Aryan Divide and its significance for the study of prehistorical northern South Asia. South Asia as a “Sprachbund”? Advances in the study of language contact in South Asia. Special issue of Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics (JSALL). https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-216529
10. Ivani, Jessica K and Peterson, John. 2021. Introduction. In: South Asia as a “Sprachbund”? Advances in the study of language contact in South Asia. Special issue of Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics (JSALL). https://doi.org/10.1515/jsall-2021-2036
Edited volumes and book chapters (peer reviewed):
11. Ivani, Jessica K. & Bickel Balthasar. 2025. Databases for comparative syntactic research. In: Handbook of Comparative Syntax, Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/9781009179362
12. Ivani, Jessica K. & Bickel, Balthasar. In press. Clause combining in Tibeto-Burman. In: Handbook of Tibeto-Burman Languages, Oxford University Press.
13. Ivani, Jessica K. & Peterson, John (eds.) 2021. South Asia as a “Sprachbund”? Advances in the study of language contact in South Asia. Special issue of Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics (JSALL).
Databases and electronic corpora
14. Ivani, Jessica K. & Tulchynska, Kira. 2025. Universal Dependency corpus for Suansu (Tibeto-Burman). https://github.com/UniversalDependencies/UD_Naga-Suansu
15. Ivani, Jessica K. 2023. Kongai 100-word Swadesh list. [Audio Dataset]. Available on Zenodo.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8338261
16. Ivani, Jessica K. 2023 Challow 100-word Swadesh list [Audio dataset]. Available on Zenodo.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8338134
17. Ivani, Jessica K. 2022. Suansu language from northeastern India: a field report [Audio
dataset]. Available on Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7069299
18. Ivani, Jessica K., Peterson, John, and Chevallier, Lennart. 2022. Kiel South Asian Typological
Database [Dataset]. Available on Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7153825
19. Ivani, Jessica K. 2020. Comparative constructions in Tibeto-Burman languages of
northeastern India [Dataset]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4274488
20. Ivani, Jessica K. 2019. Suansu 250 concepts wordlist [Dataset]. Available on Zenodo.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3383006
21. Ivani, Jessica K., and Zakharko, Taras. 2019. Tymber, Database on nominal number marking
constructions [Dataset]. Available on GitHub. https://github.com/jkivani/tymber
Monographs
1. Ivani, Jessica K. 2017. The morphosyntax of number systems: a crosslinguistic study. Ph. D. thesis. University of Bergamo / University of Pavia.