Hi. My name is Johanna Benz and I'm a linguist.
I'm currently a postdoctoral researcher (Akademische Mitarbeiterin) at Universität Potsdam as a maternity leave replacement. Previously, I was a postdoc at Princeton University, and before that completed my PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, advised by Dave Embick. I also hold a BA and an MA in Linguistics from Universität Leipzig. My work focuses on syntactic word formation and its relationship to the rest of the syntax, semantics, and phonology.

Projects

  • In the spring of 2025, I defended my dissertation, entitled  "Structure and interpretation across categories", which is about allosemy, the syntax of category change, and derivational morphology, with case studies mainly from German (pdf). 
  • My paper on the syntax of the content reading in German nominalizations is out in the proceedings of NELS 53 (pdf), a longer version is in preparation (manuscript available on request).
  • (with Martin Salzmann) Evidence from German for N-stranding NP-ellipsis (https://lingbuzz.net/lingbuzz/008491)
  • (with Martin Salzmann and Gesoel Mendes) Against Evacuation Movement in NP-Ellipsis (lingbuzz.net/lingbuzz/007562).
  • I've recently revised a paper on the German "bekommen-passive" - which may not really be a passive, and that may not be the right question to start with (CGSW 36 handout)(bekommenjcglresub.pdf).
  • Another project of mine is concerned with the morpho-phonology of French verbs and why their analysis does not favor "suppletion only"-approaches to alternating Roots (Princeton Phonology Forum handout).
  • (with Dave Embick & Lefteris Paparounas) Blocking effects. In 2021, we wrote an overview paper for the The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Morphology (ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/006216). 
  • Structure Removal Counterfeeds Status Government. Some thoughts on non-finite verbal inflection in German, in particular the distribution of `zu'. A paper was published in the working paper volume Linguistische Arbeitsberichte 94 in 2019, edited by Andrew Murphy (paper available online at LAB).
  • Phonologically conditioned affix order in Washo. This was originally my BA thesis, supervised by Jochen Trommer (Leipzig) and Ryan Bochnak (Konstanz). I presented it several times:
  1. Workshop on Strata, 20 July 2017, Universität Leipzig (handout)
  2. EGG Summer School Open Podium, 28 July 2017, Palacký University Olomouc (slides)
  3. 15th Old World Conference on Phonology (OCP), 13 January 2018, University College London (handout)
  4. invited. Atelier de phonologie, 21 February 2018, CNRS/Paris 8 (handout)
  5. GLOW41, 11 April 2018, Budapest (poster)
  6. 16èmes Rencontres du Réseau Français de Phonologie (RFP), 28 June 2018, Paris (handout)
  • (with Shanti Ulfsbjorninn) Improving the Formalism of Phonological Parameter Hierarchies. presented at the Phonological Theory Agora (PTA) workshop at GLOW41, 14 April 2018, Budapest (handout)
  • Metrical Incoherence: different metrical structure at different strata. presented at the 26th Manchester Phonology Meeting (mfm), 24 May 2018, Manchester (handout)

Site and life still under construction.