Scientific activities
Major research interests
- Language typology
- Historical linguistics (contact, classification, reconstruction)
- Language documentation and description
- Information structure, syntax and discourse
Languages: all families subsumed under "Khoisan", Bantu
Projects
- Focus in South African Languages, with M. Krifka, P7 in the Research program of the Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalien-forschung (ZAS), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, 4/2003-3/2006;
(http://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/index.html?research_oldProjects_p07) - Documentation of Western !Xõo, with R. Kießling, Research program: Documentation of endangered languages (DOBES), Volkswagen-Foundation, 4/2004-7/2007
- A pan-dialectal documentation of Taa, with R. Kießling, Research program: Documentation of endangered languages (DOBES), Volkswagen-Foundation, 8/2007-12/2009;
(http://www.mpi.nl/DOBES/projects/taa) - A text documentation of N|uu, Research program: Endangered Languages Project (ELDP), School of Oriental and African Studies London, Hans Rausing Foundation, 10/2007-9/2010;
(http://www.hrelp.org/grants/projects/index.php?projid=131) - Predicate-centered focus types: A sample-based typological study in African languages, B7 in the SFB 632: Informationsstruktur: Die sprachlichen Mittel der Gliederung von Äußerung, Satz und Text, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, 9/2009-6/2011
- Inheritance and contact in a language complex: the case of Taa varieties (Tuu family), Collaborative Research Project (CRP): The Kalahari Basin area: a 'Sprachbund' on the verge of extinction (see below), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, 1/2010-12/2012
The Kalahari Basin area: a 'Sprachbund' on the verge of extinction, CRP in the EUROCORES program: Better Analyses Based on Endangered Languages (EuroBABEL), European Science Foundation, 1/2010-12/2012
Conferences and workshops
- 1998: AG 'Form und Funktion der Redewiedergabe' with M. von Roncador; DGfS-Jahrestagung, Halle
- 2005:International Conference 'Focus in African Languages' with L. Downing, B. Reineke, K. Hartmann; ZAS Berlin and Humboldt University Berlin
(http://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/events/ibfc/conference-contact.html) - 2006:International Workshop 'The morphosyntax of Khoe languages'; MPI-EVA Leipzig

- 2006:International Workshop 'Historical linguistics and hunter-gatherer populations in global perspective'; MPI-EVA Leipzig
(http://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/HunterGathererWorkshop2006/) - 2010: Berlin Workshop 'Genealogical language classification in Africa beyond Greenberg'; Humboldt University Berlin
(http://african-language-classification.hu-berlin.de/)
Editorial activities
- Studies in Language (Consulting editor ab 2004, Member of editorial board ab 2009)
- Africana Linguistica (Member of editorial board ab 2007)
- Language Documentation and Conservation (Member of editorial board ab 2008)
Recent conference presentations
- Negation in the Gulf of Guinea creoles: typological and historical perspectives;

- Ditransitives in the Tuu family;

- Bantu in its macro-areal context of Africa and implications for the early typology of Bantu and Niger-Congo;

- The alleged grammaticalization of quotative~complementizers in Atlantic creoles: a West African substrate perspective;

- The history of quotative predicatives: Can lexical properties arise out of a grammatical construction?;

- Linear order as a basic morphosyntactic factor in Non-Khoe Khoisan;

- Noun categorization, agreement, and "janus-headed" compounds in Western !Xõo;

- "Khoisan" linguistic classification in the light of genetic, anthropological, and geographical evidence in southern Africa;

- Participant marking in Sinitic viewed from a Tuu perspective;

Member of
- Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft
- Association for Linguistic Typology
- Gesellschaft für Bedrohte Sprachen
- Linguistic Society of America
Field work in Africa
- Tanzania, Namibia, South Africa, Botswana
Publications
Books and monographs:
Heine, Bernd et al. 1993. Conceptual shift - a lexicon of grammaticalization processes in African languages. Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 34/5. Köln: Institut für Afrikanistik, Universität zu Köln.
Güldemann, Tom. 1996. Verbalmorphologie und Nebenprädikationen im Bantu: Eine Studie zur funktional motivierten Genese eines konjugationalen Subsystems. Bochum-Essener Beiträge zur Sprachwandelforschung 27. Bochum: Universitätsverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer. (= Ph.D. thesis 1995)
Güldemann, Tom. 1997b. Prosodische Markierung als sprachliche Strategie zur Hierarchisierung verknüpfter Prädikationen am Beispiel des Shona. University of Leipzig Papers on Africa, Languages and Literatures 2. Leipzig: Institut für Afrikanistik, Universität Leipzig. (= M.A. thesis 1993)
Güldemann, Tom. 1998a. San languages for education: a linguistic short survey and proposal on behalf of the Molteno Early Literacy and Language Development (MELLD) Project in Namibia. Okahandja: National Institute of Educational Development, Ministry of Basic Education and Culture.
Güldemann, Tom and Manfred von Roncador (eds.). 2002. Reported discourse: a meeting ground for different linguistic domains. Typological Studies in Language 52. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Güldemann, Tom. 2008b. Quotative indexes in African languages: a synchronic and diachronic survey. Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 34. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. (= Habilitation thesis 2001)
Güldemann, Tom. in preparation a. Westphal's field notes on N/huki with a linguistic analysis. Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.
Güldemann, Tom (ed.). in preparation b. Africa. The Field of Linguistics: A Survey of Linguistics Research 1, ed. by Hans Henrich Hock. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Güldemann, Tom, Patrick McConvell and Richard Rhodes (eds.). in Vorbereitung. Hunter-gatherers and linguistic history: a global perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Articles:
Güldemann, Tom. 1992. Ist Swahili eine monogenetische Einheit? - Betrachtungen aus der Sicht peripherer Varietäten unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Verbalmorphologie. Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 30: 35-62.
Güldemann, Tom. 1997a. Prosodic subordination as a strategy for complex sentence construction in Shona: Bantu moods revisited. In Herbert, Robert K. (ed.), African linguistics at the crossroads: papers from Kwaluseni (1st World Congress of African Linguistics, Swaziland, 18-22, July, 1994). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe, 75-98.
Güldemann, Tom. 1997c. The Kalahari Basin as an object of areal typology - a first approach. Khoisan Forum, Working Papers 3. Köln: Institut für Afrikanistik, Universität zu Köln. (= Güldemann 1998b)
Güldemann, Tom. 1998b. The Kalahari Basin as an object of areal typology - a first approach. In Schladt, Mathias (ed.), Language, identity, and conceptualization among the Khoisan. Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 15. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe, 137-169.
Güldemann, Tom. 1998c. The relation between imperfective and simultaneous taxis in Bantu: late stages of grammaticalization. In Fiedler, Ines, Catherine Griefenow-Mewis and Brigitte Reineke (eds.), Afrikanische Sprachen im Brennpunkt der Forschung: Linguistische Beiträge zum 12. Afrikanistentag Berlin, 3.-6. Oktober 1996. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe, 157-177.
Güldemann, Tom. 1999a. Head-initial meets head-final: nominal suffixes in eastern and southern Bantu from a historical perspective. Studies in African Linguistics 28,1: 49-91.
Güldemann, Tom. 1999b. The genesis of verbal negation in Bantu and its dependency on functional features of clause types. In Hombert, Jean-Marie and Larry M. Hyman (eds.), Bantu historical linguistics: theoretical and empirical perspectives. CSLI Lecture Notes 99. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), 545-587.
Güldemann, Tom. 1999c. Toward a grammaticalization and typological account of the ka-possessive in Zulu. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 20,2: 157-184.
Güldemann, Tom. 2000a. Editor's introduction. In Bleek, Dorothea F. [edited and introduced by Tom Güldemann], The //N !ke or Bushmen of Griqualand West; Notes on the language of the //N !ke or Bushmen of Griqualand West. Khoisan Forum, Working Papers 15. Köln: Institut für Afrikanistik, Universität zu Köln, 7-13.
Güldemann, Tom. 2000b. Noun categorization systems in Non-Khoe lineages of Khoisan. Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 63: 5-33.
Güldemann, Tom and Rainer Vossen. 2000. Khoisan. In Heine, Bernd and Derek Nurse (eds.), African languages: an introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 99-122.
Güldemann, Tom. 2001. Phonological regularities of consonant systems across Khoisan lineages. University of Leipzig Papers on Africa, Languages and Literatures 16. Leipzig: Institut für Afrikanistik, Universität Leipzig. (= Güldemann forthcoming o)
Güldemann, Tom. 2002a. Die Entlehnung pronominaler Elemente des Khoekhoe aus dem !Ui-Taa. In Schumann, Theda, Mechthild Reh, Roland Kießling and Ludwig Gerhardt (eds.), Aktuelle Forschungen zu afrikanischen Sprachen: Sprachwissenschaftliche Beiträge zum 14. Afrikanistentag, Hamburg, 11.-14. Oktober 2000. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe, 43-61.
Güldemann, Tom. 2002b. Using older Khoisan sources: quantifier expressions in Lower Nosop varieties of Tuu. South African Journal of African Languages 22,3: 187-196.
Güldemann, Tom. 2002c. Welche Evidenz gibt es für eine !Ui-Sprache namens !Khuai? Afrika und Übersee 85: 99-109.
Güldemann, Tom. 2002d. When 'say' is not say: the functional versatility of the Bantu quotative marker ti with special reference to Shona. In Güldemann, Tom und Manfred von Roncador (eds.), Reported discourse: a meeting ground for different linguistic domains. Typological Studies in Language 52. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 253-287.
Güldemann, Tom, Manfred von Roncador and Wim van der Wurff. 2002. A comprehensive bibliography of reported discourse. In Güldemann, Tom and Manfred von Roncador (eds.), Reported discourse: a meeting ground for different linguistic domains. Typological Studies in Language 52. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 363-415.
Güldemann, Tom. 2003a. Grammaticalization. In Nurse, Derek and Gérard Philippson (eds.), The Bantu languages. Routledge Language Family Series 4. London: Routledge, 182-194.
Güldemann, Tom. 2003b. Khoisan languages. In Frawley, William (ed.), International encyclopedia of linguistics, 4 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, vol.4: 359-362.
Güldemann, Tom. 2003c. Logophoricity in Africa: an attempt to explain and evaluate the significance of its modern distribution. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 56,4: 366-387.
Güldemann, Tom. 2003d. Present progressive vis-à-vis predication focus in Bantu: a verbal category between semantics and pragmatics. Studies in Language 27,2: 323-360.
Güldemann, Tom. 2004a. Complex pronominals in Tuu and Ju, with special reference to their historical significance. Afrika und Übersee 87: 79-103.
Güldemann, Tom. 2004b. Introduction to "Bushman grammar: a grammatical sketch of the language of the |xam-ka-!k'e" by Dorothea F. Bleek. In Hollmann, Jeremy C. (ed.), Customs and beliefs of the /Xam Bushmen. Johannesburg: Wits University Press with the Ringing Rocks Press, 385-387.
Güldemann, Tom. 2004c. Reconstruction through 'de-construction': the marking of person, gender, and number in the Khoe family and Kwadi. Diachronica 21,2: 251-306.
Güldemann, Tom and Rainer Vossen. 2004. Le Khoisan. In Heine, Bernd and Derek Nurse (eds.), Les langues africaines. Paris: Karthala, 121-148. (= French version of Güldemann and Vossen 2000).
Güldemann, Tom. 2005a. Asyndetic subordination and deverbal depictive expressions in Shona. In Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. and Eva Schultze-Berndt (eds.), Secondary predication and adverbial modification: the typology of depictives. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 323-353.
Güldemann, Tom. 2005b. Complex predicates based on generic auxiliaries as an areal feature in Northeast Africa. In Voeltz, F. K. Erhard (ed.), Studies in African linguistic typology. Typological Studies in Language 64. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 131-154.
Güldemann, Tom. 2005c. "Tuu" - a new name for the Southern Khoisan family. In Güldemann, Tom, Studies in Tuu (Southern Khoisan). University of Leipzig Papers on Africa, Languages and Literatures 23. Leipzig: Institut für Afrikanistik, Universität Leipzig, 3-10.
Güldemann, Tom. 2005d. Tuu as a language family. In Güldemann, Tom, Studies in Tuu (Southern Khoisan). University of Leipzig Papers on Africa, Languages and Literatures 23. Leipzig: Institut für Afrikanistik, Universität Leipzig, 11-30.
Güldemann, Tom. 2006a. Structural isoglosses between Khoekhoe and Tuu: the Cape as a linguistic area. In Matras, Yaron, April McMahon and Nigel Vincent (eds.), Linguistic areas: convergence in historical and typological perspective. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 99-134. 
Güldemann, Tom. 2006b. The San languages of southern Namibia: linguistic appraisal with special reference to J. G. Krönlein's N|uusaa data. Anthropological Linguistics 48,4: 369-395.
Güldemann, Tom. 2007a. Clicks, genetics, and "proto-world" from a linguistic perspective. University of Leipzig Papers on Africa, Languages and Literatures 29. Leipzig: Institut für Afrikanistik, Universität Leipzig.
Güldemann, Tom. 2007b. Preverbal objects and information structure in Benue-Congo. In Aboh, Enoch O., Katharina Hartmann and Malte Zimmermann (eds.), Focus strategies in African languages: the interaction of focus and grammar in Niger-Congo and Afro-Asiatic. Trends in Linguistics - Studies and Monographs 191. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 83-111.
Güldemann, Tom. 2008a. A linguist's view: Khoe-Kwadi speakers as the earliest food-producers of southern Africa. In Sadr, Karim and François-Xavier Fauvelle-Aymar (eds.), Khoekhoe and the earliest herders in southern Africa. Southern African Humanities 20: 93-132.
Güldemann, Tom. 2008b. Greenberg's "case" for Khoisan: the morphological evidence. In Ibriszimow, Dymitr (ed.), Problems of linguistic-historical reconstruction in Africa. Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 19. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe, 123-153.
Güldemann, Tom. 2008c. The Macro-Sudan belt: towards identifying a linguistic area in northern sub-Saharan Africa. In Heine, Bernd and Derek Nurse (eds.), A linguistic geography of Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 151-185.
Güldemann, Tom and Mark Stoneking. 2008d. A historical appraisal of clicks: a linguistic and genetic population perspective. Annual Review of Anthropology 37: 93-109.
Sands, Bonny and Tom Güldemann. 2009. What click languages can and can't tell us about language origins. In Botha, Rudie and Chris Knight (eds.), The cradle of language. Studies in the Evolution of Language 12. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 204-218.
Güldemann, Tom. 2010. The relation between focus and theticity in the Tuu family. In Fiedler, Ines and Anne Schwarz (eds.), The expression of information structure: a documantation of its diversity across Africa. Typological Studies in Language 91. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 69-93.
Güldemann, Tom and Edward D. Elderkin. 2010. On external genealogical relationships of the Khoe family. In Brenzinger, Matthias and Christa König (eds.), Khoisan languages and linguistics: proceedings of the 1st International Symposium January 4-8, 2003, Riezlern/Kleinwalsertal. Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 24. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe, 15-52.
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming a. Speaker-predicating quotative indexes as a cross-linguistic type. In Alphen, Ingrid van and Isabelle Buchstaller (eds.), Quotatives: cross-linguistic and cross-disciplinary perspectives. Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Series.Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming b. Person-gender-number marking from Proto-Khoe-Kwadi to its descendents: a rejoinder with particular reference to language contact. In König, Christa and Rainer Voßen (eds.), Festschrift for Bernd Heine. Routledge African Linguistics Series. London: Routledge. 
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming c. Typology. In Voßen, Rainer (ed.), The Khoisan languages. Routledge Language Family Series. London: Routledge.
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming d. Phonology: Eastern !Xõo. In Voßen, Rainer (ed.), The Khoisan languages. Routledge Language Family Series. London: Routledge.
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming e. Phonology: Other Tuu languages. In Voßen, Rainer (ed.), The Khoisan languages. Routledge Language Family Series. London: Routledge.
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming f. Phonology: Kwadi. In Voßen, Rainer (ed.), The Khoisan languages. Routledge Language Family Series. London: Routledge.
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming g. Morphology: !Xõo of Lone Tree. In Voßen, Rainer (ed.), The Khoisan languages. Routledge Language Family Series. London: Routledge.
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming h. Morphology: |Xam of Strandberg. In Voßen, Rainer (ed.), The Khoisan languages. Routledge Language Family Series. London: Routledge.
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming j. Morphology: Kwadi. In Voßen, Rainer (ed.), The Khoisan languages. Routledge Language Family Series. London: Routledge.
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming k. Syntax: !Xõo of Lone Tree. In Voßen, Rainer (ed.), The Khoisan languages. Routledge Language Family Series. London: Routledge.
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming l. Syntax: |Xam of Strandberg. In Voßen, Rainer (ed.), The Khoisan languages. Routledge Language Family Series. London: Routledge.
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming m. Syntax: Kwadi. In Voßen, Rainer (ed.), The Khoisan languages. Routledge Language Family Series. London: Routledge.
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming n. Sociolinguistics: South Africa - Khoisan-internal contacts. In Voßen, Rainer (ed.), The Khoisan languages. Routledge Language Family Series. London: Routledge.
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming o. Phonological regularities of consonant systems across Khoisan lineages. In Keuthmann, Klaus, Gabriele Sommer and Rainer Voßen (eds.), Essays in honour of Anthony Traill. Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming p. "Sprachraum" and geography. In Lameli, Alfred, Roland Kehrein and Stefan Rabanus (eds.), The handbook of language mapping. Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming q. !Ora. In Bonvini, Emile and Alain Peyraube (eds.), Dictionnaire des langues. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming r. Les langues khoisan. In Bonvini, Emile and Alain Peyraube (eds.), Dictionnaire des langues. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. (= French version of Güldemann 2003b).
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming s. Changing profile when encroaching on hunter-gatherer territory: towards a history of the Khoe-Kwadi family in southern Africa. In Güldemann, Tom, Patrick McConvell and Richard Rhodes (eds.), Hunter-gatherers and linguistic history: a global perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming t. How typology can inform philology: quotative jn in Earlier Egyptian. In Richter, Sebastian and Martin Haspelmath (eds.), Language typology and Egyptian-Coptic linguistics. Typological Studies in Language Series. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming u. Proto-Bantu and Proto-Niger-Congo: macro-areal typology and linguistic reconstruction. In Nakagawa, Hirosi, Christa König and Osamu Hieda (eds.), Geographical typology of African languages. Typological Studies in Language Series. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Güldemann, Tom, René Kriegler and H. Ekkehard Wolff. manuscript. Zur Typologie verbaler Flexionssysteme: Prädikationsfokus als Flexionskategorie in afrikanischen Sprachen. ("2. Kolloquium des DFG-Schwerpunktprogramms Sprachtypologie" 1997). Leipzig: Institut für Afrikanistik, Universität Leipzig.
Güldemann, Tom and Marten Mous. in preparation. Areal and contact linguistics. In Güldemann, Tom (ed.), Africa. The Field of Linguistics: A Survey of Linguistics Research 1, ed. by Hans Henrich Hock. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Good, Jeff and Tom Güldemann. in preparation. Historical linguistics and genealogical classification. In Güldemann, Tom (ed.), Africa. The Field of Linguistics: A Survey of Linguistics Research 1, ed. by Hans Henrich Hock. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Other edited works:
Bleek, Dorothea F. (edited by Tom Güldemann). 2000a. Notes on the language of the //ŋ !ke or Bushmen of Griqualand West. Khoisan Forum, Working Papers 15. Köln: Institut für Afrikanistik, Universität zu Köln, 17-28.
Bleek, Dorothea F. (edited by Tom Güldemann). 2000b. The //ŋ !ke or Bushmen of Griqualand West. Khoisan Forum, Working Papers 15. Köln: Institut für Afrikanistik, Universität zu Köln, 14-16.
Reviews:
Güldemann, Tom. 1994. Review: Susanne Michaelis, Komplexe Syntax im Seychellen-Kreol, Tübingen, Gunter Narr. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 47,4: 373-375.
Education and professional training
| University studies: | 1987 - 1993 |
|
|
| Graduate research: | 1992 - 1993 |
|
|
| 1993 - 1995 | |
|
|
| Research fellow: | 1995 - 1996 |
|
|
| 1996 - 2000 | |
|
|
| since 01/12/2000 | |
|
|
| since 01/06/2002 | |
|
|
| Positions: | 01/10/2006 - 30/09/2007 |
|
|
| 01/10/2007 - 30/01/2009 | |
|
|
| 01/02/2009 - | |
Actualised: 25/02/2011


