Rebecca Grollemund

Rebecca Grollemund
Assistant Professor
321 Tate Hall
Education

Ph.D. in Linguistics, 2012, Université Lumière Lyon 2 & Laboratoire ‘Dynamique du Langage’, France

Research and Teaching

Historical Linguistics, African Linguistics with a focus on Bantu and Bantoid languages, Linguistics.

Awards and Honors

2022-2025: NSF Dynamic Language Infrastructure - NEH Documenting Endangered Languages (DLI-DEL) “Continuity and divergence in Cameroonian languages: New perspectives on the Bantu genesis”. $420,000. https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2152822&HistoricalAwards=false

2022-2023: Tri-Continental Partnership (3CP), project "Understanding African migrations through the study of specialized vocabulary". $5,000.

2016-pres: University of Missouri Honors College, ASH Research Teams, Documenting Luyia together. $22,000 per year (total $110,000).

2022-2023: Provost's Jr. Faculty Research and Creative Activity Award ($1,000)

2022-2023: The A&S Research Fellowship Program (course release). Project: “Phonological innovations support new Bantu migration routes at the north of the Equatorial rainforest

2018-2019: University of Missouri Research Leave. Project: “Reconstructing Historical Migrations in Sub-Saharan Africa” ($6,000)

Selected Publications

Grollemund, R. & Pagel, M. To appear in 2024. Phylogenetic approaches to Bantu historical linguistics. In The Oxford Guide to the Bantu Languages, Marten, L., Kula, N., Zeller, J. & Hurst, E. (eds). Oxford University Press.

Grollemund, R., Branford, B., Hombert, J.-M. & Watters, J. To appear in 2024. Towards a new phylogenetic classification of Bantoid languages. In Towards Proto-Niger-Congo: Comparison and Reconstruction, Watters, J. (ed.). Language Science Press.

Hartmann, Frederik, Sean Roberts, Paul Valdes and Rebecca Grollemund. 2024. Investigating environmental effects on phonology using diachronic models, 6-e8, Evolutionary Human Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2023.33

Grollemund, Rebecca, David Schoenbrun and Jan Vansina. 2023. Moving Histories: Bantu Language Expansions, Eclectic Economies and Mobilities. Journal of African History, pp. 1-25. doi:10.1017/S0021853722000780

González-Santos, M., Montinaro, F., Grollemund, R., Marnetto, D., Atadzhanov, M., May, C., Mabunda, N., de Maret, P., Oosthuizen, O., Oosthuizen, E., Capelli, C. 2022. Reconciling genetics, linguistics and geography in the dispersal of Bantu-speaking populations. American Journal of Biological Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24589

Marlo, M., Grollemund, R., Nguyen, T., Platner, E., Pribe, S. & Thein, A. 2021. A phylogenetic classification of Luyia language varieties. In Descriptive and Theoretical Approaches to African Linguistics: Proceedings of the 49th Annual conference on African Linguistics, Sibanda, G., Ngonyani, D., Choti, J. & Biersteker A. (eds.). Berlin: Language Science Press.

Philippson, G. & Grollemund, R. 2019. Methods of Bantu historical language classification. In The Bantu Languages, Second Edition, Van de Velde, M. & Bostoen, K. (eds). London-New-York: Routledge Press.

Grollemund, R., Hombert, J.-M. & Branford, B. 2018. A Phylogenetic study of North-Western Bantu and South Bantoid languages. In The Dynamics of Language: Plenary and focus lectures from the 20th International Congress of Linguists Cape Town, July 2018, Mesthrie, R. & Bradley, D. (eds), Cape Town: UCT Press.

Patin, E., Lopez, M., Grollemund, R., Verdu, P., Harmant, C., Quach, H., Laval, G., Perry, G.H., Barreiro, L.B., Froment, A., Heyer, E., Massougbodji, A., Fortes-Lima, C., Migot-Nabias, F., Bellis, G., Dugoujon, J.-M., Pereira, J.B., Fernandes, V., Pereira, L., Van der Veen, L., Mouguiama-Daouda, P., Bustamante, C.D., Hombert, J.-M., Quintana-Murci, L., 2017. Dispersals and genetic adaptation of Bantu-speaking populations in Africa and North America. Science, 356, pp. 543-546.

Grollemund, R., Branford, S., Bostoen, K., Meade, A., Venditti, C. & Pagel, M. 2015. Bantu expansion shows that habitat alters the route and pace of human dispersals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 112:43, pp. 13296-13301.

de Schryver, G.-M., Grollemund, R., Branford, S. and Bostoen K., 2015. Introducing a state-of-the-art phylogenetic classification of the Kikongo language cluster. Africana Linguistica , 21, pp. 87-162.

Bostoen, K., Clist, B., Doumenge, C., Grollemund, R., Hombert, J.-M., Koni Muluwa, J. & Maley, J., 2015. Middle to Late Holocene Palaeoclimatic Change and the Early Bantu Expansion in the Rain Forests of West Central-Africa. Current Anthropology, 56:3, pp. 354-384.

Bostoen, K., Grollemund, R., Muluwa, J., 2013. Climate-induced vegetation dynamics and the Bantu expansion: evidence from Bantu names for pioneer trees (Elaeis guineensis, Canarium schweinfurthii and Musanga cecropioides). C.R. Geoscience, 345:7-8, pp. 336-349.