Daria Alfimova, M. A.
PhD Student
My research project focuses on quantitative approaches to linguistic areas.
In particular, it aims at clarifying the language relations in the Circum-Baltic area.
For instance, at the moment, I explore clustering of object marking strategies in the CB languages and some other languages of Western Eurasia outside the CB area. I think that when it comes to linguistic areas, a broader context is decisive in distinguishing genealogical patterns, language contact and language frequentalia.
Languages
Russian (native), English, German, Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian (basic knowledge)
As for programming languages, I mainly use R but also can work with Python
Contact
alfimova (at) uni-potsdam (dot) de
Education
2020 M. A. in Linguistics (With Distinction), Saint Petersburg State University. Thesis: “Parsing of Sentences with Modifier Attachment Ambiguity in Lithuanian: an Experimental Study” (Supervisor: Natalia Slioussar, Doctor of Sciences)
2018 B. A. in Linguistics, Saint Petersburg State University. Thesis: “Main Tendencies in the Creation of Neologisms in Modern Lithuanian” (Supervisor: Vanda Kazanskiene, Candidate of Philology)
2017 Exchange Student at Vilnius University (Subject: Lithuanian language and culture)
Professional Assignments
April 2022 - now PhD student at Potsdam University, Department of Slavic Studies
April 2021 - March 2022 PhD research fellow at Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel & Cluster of Excellence "ROOTS"
Publications
Alfimova, Daria. 2024. Object Marking in Western Eurasia: The Circum-Baltic Area Dissolves into the Broader Areal Background. Journal of Language Contact, 17(2), 281–314. https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-bja10065.
Alfimova, Daria & Søren Wichmann. 2022. Bivalent patterns in Danish. In: Say, Sergey (ed.). BivalTyp: Typological database of bivalent verbs and their encoding frames. St. Petersburg: Institute for Linguistic Studies, RAS. (Available online at https://www.bivaltyp.info).
Alfimova, Daria. 2019. Language Interference in Self-Translations from Lithuanian into Russian [Интерференционные явления в автопереводах с литовского языка на русский]. Proceedings of the 2nd Student Conference "Traditions and Innovations in Linguistics and Language Didactics: Intercultural Communication and Digital Culture", Saint Petersburg State University. (Available online at https://dspace.spbu.ru/).
Presentations
Alfimova, D. 2023. Almost parallel translations as a comparative tool: Baltic flagging in diachrony. 56th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, 29 August–1 September 2024, Athens, Greece.
Alfimova, D. 2023. Object Marking Strategies in Western Eurasia: When Languages in Contact Agree TO Each Other. 55th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, 24–27 August 2022, Bucharest, Romania.
Alfimova, D. 2021. Circum-Baltic object marking against a broader areal perspective. The 18th Conference on Typology and Grammar for Young Scholars. Institute for Linguistic Studies, RAS, St. Petersburg (Available online at https://www.bivaltyp.info/project/publications/).
Alfimova, D., Sliuossar, N. 2020. Modifier Attachment Problem: a Processing Experiment on Lithuanian. The 26th Architectures And Mechanisms For Language Processing Conference, University of Potsdam (Available online at https://osf.io/sjfg9/).
Alfimova, D., Olishevskaya V. 2020. Russian prefixed verb transparency: an experimental study on native speakers. The 1st International Student Conference “The Verb in the Mental Lexicon”, University of Hamburg.
Alfimova, D. 2020. Syntactic Ambiguity Resolution in a Typological Perspective. The 4th Student Conference on Philology and Linguistics, HSE University, Saint Petersburg (Available online at https://osf.io/8zvwu/).
Alfimova, D. 2019. Распределение частиц бы и б в устной непубличной речи [Distribution of Particles by and b in Russian Non-Public Speech]
The 6th Сonference “Constructional and Lexical Semantic Approaches to Russian”, ILS RAS (Available online at https://iling.spb.ru/).
Organizing Committee Member
2024 International PhD Conference “Emerging Topics in Typology” (Stockholm, Sweden / Online)
2023 International Conference “Explaining the Cross-Linguistic Distribution of Argument-Coding Patterns” (Potsdam, Germany)
Editorial Work
2023 - 2025 Alfimova, Daria, Kozhanov, Kirill, and Say, Sergey. Studies in Language, 49 (Special issue "Areal effects on argument-coding patterns").
Scholarschips
2019 - 2020 Scholarship of Kazimieras Būga from the Lithuanian Ministry of Education