Main

Welcome to my website.

I am a linguist interested in the (pre-)history of Lithuanian and Indo-European comparative linguistics. I have been studying the prehistorical developments of the languages and linguistic reconstructions. The information on my previous projects are available here.

Since August 2021, I started a blog in linguistic topics as a part of my outreach activity. Some language- or linguistics-related topics are presented in Japanese in a small-talk style. Your visits are much welcomed.

My academic background

• 2024-present Associated Fellow at Center for the Human Past


• 2018-2025 Researcher at the Department for Slavic and Baltic Studies, Finnish, Dutch and German, Stockholm University.
  • Fall 2024 Senior fellow at Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study / Center for the Human Past.
  • 2018 - 2021 International Postdoc at the Department of Comparative Language Science, Zurich University.


• 2012-2016 PhD student at the Department for Slavic and Baltic Studies, Finnish, Dutch and German, Stockholm University.


• 2007-2012 Doctoral student at the Linguistics Department, Kyoto University.
  • 2010-2011 Special student at the Linguistics Department, Harvard University.
  • 2008-2010 JSPS Research Fellow, DC2.


• 2005-2007 Master student at the Linguistics Department, Kyoto University.


• 2001-2005 Undergraduate student at the Faculty of Letters, Kyoto University.

email:
yoko dot yamazaki at balt.su.se

2024

• "The simple thematic present ending in the 2nd person singular in Baltic" The Journal of Indo-European Studies 51 (1 & 2), 2023, 147-164.

2023

• "Diathetic problem of the Baltic ā-preterits to the simple thematic presents" Historische Sprachforschung 134 (1), 2021, 290-311.


• "The prehistory of kláusti, klausýti, and their related forms revisited" Lietuvių kalba 17, 2022, 49-60. doi: 10.15388/LK.2022.4.

2022

• Sommer, Florian, Karin Stüber, Paul Widmer, and Yoko Yamazaki (eds.) Indogermanische Morphologie in erweiterter Sicht. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität 2022.


• "The Baltic transitive ia-presents and their paired preterits in the ē- or *iyā-stem — Between a conditioned allomorph and an independent morpheme" In: Sommer et al. (eds.) Indogermanische Morphologie in erweiterter Sicht, Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität 2022, pp. 413–430.

2021

• 「ベルンドイツ語の丁寧表現、不思議だと思ったことありませんか？」『ベルン日本人会会報 241号』 pp. 4-5. (a popular science publication in Japanese; published in a local newsletter of the Japanese society of Bern, Switzerland, Bern Nipponjin-kai kaiho Vol. 241, December 2021, pp. 4-5.)


• 「バルト語 歴史言語学の世界にようこそ」『ベルン日本人会会報 239号』pp. 8-11. (a popular science publication in Japanese; published in a local newsletter of the Japanese society of Bern, Switzerland, Bern Nipponjin-kai kaiho Vol. 239, July 2021, pp. 8-11.)


• “Lith. mir̃ti / Latv. mirt `to die' and Lith. mir̃šti / Latv. mìrst `to forget' in East Baltic” Acta Linguistica Lithuanica 83, 2021, 11-26.

2020

• “A review of Jay Jasanoff (2017) The prehistory of the Balto-Slavic accent” Acta Slavica Iaponica 40, 2020, 283-299.

2019

• "Sievers-Edgertons Variants, Stang-Larssons Rule, and Narten Imperfects in Baltic Long-Vowel Preterits" Baltistica 54(1), 2019, pp. 35-46.


• "The root vocalism of Lith. dãvė / dial. dẽvė 'gave' revisited" In: Catt, Adam Alvah, Ronald I. Kim, and Brent Vine (eds.) QAZZU warrai, 2019, pp. 410–419, Beech Stave Press.

2017

• “Balto-Slavic accentology, schools” to appear in Encyclopedia of Slavic Languages and Linguistics, Rene Genis and Marc L. Greenberg (eds.). First published online: 2017.

2016

• Monosyllabic Circumflexion in Lithuanian. PhD thesis, 2016, Stockholm University. Available at DiVa; the errata list is here.

2014

• "Monosyllabic circumflexion or shortening? － The treatment of the long vowels in the 3rd person future forms in Lithuanian －" Indogermanische Forschungen 119, 2014, 339-354.


• Jenny Larsson, Kristina Bukelskytė-Cepelė, and Yoko Yamazaki “Report from the Second Joint Conference on Baltic and Scandinavian Studies held at Yale University, 13–15 March 2014.” Baltu filoloģija 23 (1), 2014, 129–132.

2009

• "The Saussure Effect in Lithuanian" The Journal of Indo-European Studies 37 No. 3 & 4, 2009, 430–461. [PDF file]
  • The list of corrigenda is available.
  • The original manuscript is also available.

• "Working and Eating Together — Some aspects of the life of Early Bronze Age peoples in Contacts in post-Seima-Turbino-Transcultural-Complex Community",
  December 10th, 2024, Baltic Seminar, Stockholm University.


• "Baltic kinship terms in Finno-Ugric, Indo-European kinship terms and their family structure", w. Axel Palmér,
  November 27th, 2024, Mini-Seminar, Center for the Human Past.


• "Working and Eating Together — Some Aspects of the Life of Early Bronze Age Peoples in Contacts in Seima-Turbino Transcultural Complex",
  October 8th, 2024, SCAS seminar, Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study.


• "A case study on Lith. sùkti-type verbs — an investigation in descendants of the lost mediopassives"
  September 10th, 2024, Fachtagung der indogermanischen Gesellschaft, University of Basel. [presentation slides]


• "The simple thematic present ending in the 2nd person singular in East Baltic"
  September 13th, 2023, Arbeitstagung der indogermanischen Gesellschaft , University of Köln. [presentation slides]


• "The 3rd person thematic ending in Baltic"
  November 30th, 2022, Indo-European Seminar, Uppsala University. [presentation slides]


• "The Baltic verbal endings - what happened to them while traveling from the IE homeland?"
  September 22nd, 2022, Tarptautinė Kazimiero Būgos konferencija, Vilnius University.


• "Dar kartą apie kláusti, klausýti ir jiems giminingų formų priešistorę (Examining once again the prehistory of kláusti, klausýti, and their related forms)"
  May 27th, 2022, 3-ioji tarptautinė hibridinė Prano Skardžiaus konferencija, Vilnius. [presentation slides]


• "Introducing Traveling Voices — The diachronic development of the voice system in the Baltic, Slavic, and Germanic branches from a migrational perspective"
  March 23rd, 2022, The Next Step — Shaping the Future of Indo-European Studies, Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study. [Presentation slides].


• "Diathetic problem of the Baltic ā-preterits to the simple thematic presents"
  October 14th, 2021, XIII Starptautiskā Baltistu Kongress, University of Latvia. [Presentation slides].


• "Investigation on the prehistory of the Baltic preterit system"
  November 28th 2019, Språkhistoriska seminariet, Stockholm University. Available on youtube.


• "A preliminary investigation on the “medial-intransitive” ė-preterits in Baltic"
  September 27th 2019, International Conference on the occasion of the 140th Anniversary of Kazimieras Būga, Birštonas.


• "Sievers-Edgerton's law and Stang-Larsson's rule in the Baltic ē-preterite"
  June 4th 2019, Arbeitstagung der indogermanischen Gesellschaft, Ljublijana.


• "Diathetic Problem in the Baltic Preterit System"
  March 28th 2019, Kyoto Indo-European Roundtable in Honor of Kazuhiko Yoshida, Kyoto.


• Luzius Thöny & Yoko Yamazaki "Shared retentions and the periphery: From dialect maps to computer simulations"
  July 25th 2018, IXth Congress of the International Society for Dialectology and Geolinguistics, Vilnius University.


• "Sievers-Edgerton’s Law, Stang-Larsson’s rule, and Narten Imperfects in Baltic"
  April 5th 2018, 4th Indo-European Research Colloquium, University of Zürich.


• "A revisit to the origin of the root vocalism of Lith. dãvė / dẽvė 'gave'"
  October 20th 2017, Kalbų ir Tarmių Transformacijos, Lietuvių Kalbos Institutas.


• "The root vocalism of Lithuanian ė-preterit''
  May 7th 2017, Revitalizing Baltic Linguistics in Bern, University of Bern.


• "The root vocalism of Lithuanian ė-preterit"
  April 20th 2017, 3rd Indo-European Research Colloquium, University of Vienna.


• "What are they fighting about? The different schools of Balto-Slavic accentology"
  December 15th 2016, Språkhistoriska seminariet, Stockholm University [PDF file].


• "Monosyllabic Circumflexion of the Lithuanian 3rd person future forms: its distribution and origin"
  August 20th 2016, Nordiska Slavistmötet, Stockholm. [PDF file]


• "Historical phonology in Lithuanian and Balto-Slavic: relative chronology of Monosyllabic Circumflexion"
  December 4th 2015, Phonology Colloquium, Stockholm University.[PDF file]


• "The Tones of Lithuanian Demonstrative Pronoun ‘tas/ta’"
  October 30th 2015, 12th International Congress of Balticists, Vilnius University.[PDF file]


• "The relative chronology of Monosyllabic Circumflexion"
  May 29th 2015, Workshop on Baltic and Slavic Accentology, Stockholm University.[PDF file]


• "The accentuation of the East Baltic particles and Monosyllabic Circumflexion"
  March 2015, First Indo-European Colloquium, Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.[PDF file]


• "The Accentuation of East Baltic Reflexes of PIE Root Nouns"
  IWoBA X, October 2014, University of Ljublijana. [PDF file]


• "The East Baltic accentuation of the former root nouns in PIE"
  March 14th 2014, conference on Baltic and Scandinavian studies, Yale University. [PDF file]


• "Some Notes on the 3rd Person Future Forms in Lithuanian"
  30th July, 2013, The Lengthened Grade in Indo-European, Leiden University. [PDF file]


• "Monosyllabic Circumflexion in Lithuanian － with an investigation of some dialectal forms －"
  6th March, 2012, Conference on Indo-European Linguistics, Kyoto University. [PDF file]


• "The Chronology of Monosyllabic Circumflexion in Lithuanian"
  April 8th 2011, Harvard University. [PDF file].


• "On the Intonation of the Nominative Singular Ending of n-stems in Lithuanian and the Minimal Word Syndrome"
  June 12th 2010, Stockholm University. [PDF file].

• "Introduction to Baltic linguistics" Spring term 2016, baltiska språk, Stockholm University.


• "Tutorial on Historical Linguistics" a class meeting on 26/04/2012 −Departmental Seminar at Division of Behavioral Studies, Kyoto University.

• March 2017
  Prize for outstanding PhD theses, Kungliga Vitterhetsakademien (Swedish Royal Academy of Letters).

• 2011
  Fulbright Award, Japan-United States Educational Commission (JUSEC).