School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics
African Languages, Cultures and Literatures Section
Department of Linguistics
Professor of General and African Linguistics
Doctoral School
Head of Department
Centre of African Studies
Management Committee Member
I joined SOAS in 1993 as a student in the MA in Linguistics programme, having studied English language and literature, philosophy and African studies at the University of Hamburg before that.
After a short spell at Zanzibar’s Taasisi ya Kiswahili na Lugha za Kigeni (Institute for Swahili and Foreign Languages, now part of the State University of Zanzibar), I returned to SOAS in 1995 for my PhD and I have been here ever since.
I served as Head of the Department of Linguistics, Dean of the Faculty of Languages and Cultures and as UK-Director of our London Confucius Institute, and I am currently the Head of the SOAS Doctoral School. I was involved in developing SOAS’s Language Strategy and in setting up our Language for Lockdown series. Outside of SOAS I am a member of the REF2021 sub-panel for Area Studies, and I am the editor of the Transactions of the Philological Society.
I have spent time as visiting researcher or guest lecturer at a number of universities in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America, including at the Languages of Tanzania Project (LOT) of the University Dar es Salaam, as A W Mellon Visiting Fellow of the Centre for African Language Diversity at University of Cape Town, and as Research Fellow at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Africa and Asia (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
My research interests are in formal linguistic and linguistic theory (syntax, semantics, pragmatics, formal models of interpretation – in particular Dynamic Syntax), comparative and historical linguistics, language variation and change, and questions of language, society and identity.
Most of my work focuses on African languages of Eastern and Southern Africa, in particular Bantu languages such as Swahili, Bemba, or Herero and I have recently completed a 3-year Leverhulme-funded major research project on ‘Morphosyntactic Variation in Bantu: Typology, contact and change’.
Morphosyntactic variation in Bantu: Focus on East Africa
Edelsten, Peter, Gibson, Hannah, Guérois, Rozenn, Mapunda, Gastor, Marten, Lutz and Taji, Julius, 2022, Journal of the Language Association of East Africa (1), 1, pp 1-24
Ulinganishi wa mofolojia na sintaksia baina ya lugha 19 za Kibantu za Afrika Mashariki [A morphosyntactic comparison of 19 East African Bantu languages]
Kempson, Ruth, Cann, Ronnie and Marten, Lutz, 2013, STIL Studies in Linguistics 6: Special Issue on Directionality of Phrase Structure Building (6), pp 49-81
Historical Linguistics and Ubuntu Translanguaging: Towards a model of multilingualism, language change and linguistic convergence in the Bantu Linguistic Area.
Marten, Lutz (2024). In: Gvozdanović, Jadranka, (ed.), Historical Linguistics 2023. Selected papers from the 26th ICHL, Heidelberg, 4–8 September 2023. Amsterdam: John Benjamins
Expressing politeness and respect in Bantu languages: A short comparative survey
Marten, Lutz and Kula, Nancy C. (2021). In: Chebanne, Andy, (eds.) and Lusekelo, Amani, (eds.), African Languages: Linguistic, Literary and Social Issues. A festschrift in honour of Prof. Herman Batibo.. Cape Town, South Africa: CASAS/UWC, pp 67-84
Gibson, Hannah, Guérois, Rozenn and Marten, Lutz (2019). In: Arche, M., (eds.), Fábregas, A., (eds.) and Marin, R., (eds.), The Grammar of Copulas Across Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 213-242
Downing, Laura J. and Marten, Lutz (2019). In: Van de Velde, Mark, (eds.), Bostoen, Koen, (eds.), Nurse, Derek, (eds.) and Philippson, Gérard, (eds.), The Bantu Languages (2nd edition). London: Routledge, pp 270-307
Vowel copying in Dciriku and Mwenyi: On the interaction between phonology and semantics
Kula, Nancy C. and Marten, Lutz (2019). In: Banda, Felix, (ed.), Theoretical and Applied Aspects of African Languages and Culture: Festschrift in Honour of Professor Mildred Nkolola-Wakumelo. Cape Town: Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS)
Marten, Lutz (2019). In: Abe, Yuko, (eds.) and Shinagawa, Daisuke, (eds.), Descriptive materials of morphosyntactic microvariation in Bantu. Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, pp v-viii
Locating the Bantu conjoint/disjoint alternation in a typology of focus marking
Gibson, Hannah, Koumbarou, Andriana, Marten, Lutz and van der Wal, Jenneke (2017). In: van der Wal, Jenneke, (eds.) and Hyman, Larry M., (eds.), The conjoint/disjoint alternation in Bantu. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp 61-99
Linguistic variation and the dynamics of language documentation: Editing in ‘pure’ Kagulu
Marten, Lutz and Petzell, Malin (2016). In: Seyfeddinipur, Mandana, (ed.), African language documentation: new data, methods and approaches. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii at Manoa, pp 105-129
Marten, Lutz (2012). In: Akyeampong, Emmanuel K., (eds.) and Gates, Henry Louis Jr., (eds.), Dictionary of African Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 402-404
Marten, Lutz (2012). In: Brenzinger, Matthias, (eds.) and Fehn, Anne-Maria, (eds.), Proceedings of the 6th World Congress of African Linguistics, Cologne 2009. Cologne: Koppe, pp 433-443
Defining initial strength in clusterless languages in Strict CV
Kula, Nancy C. and Marten, Lutz (2009). In: Nasukawa, Kuniya, (eds.) and Backley, Phillip, (eds.), Strength Relations in Phonology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp 251-284
Marten, Lutz and Kula, Nancy C. (2008). In: Simpson, Andrew, (ed.), Language and National Identity in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 291-313
Concepts of structural underspecification in Bantu and Romance
Marten, Lutz, Kempson, Ruth and Bouzouita, Miriam (2008). In: de Cat, Cécile, (eds.) and Demuth, Katherine, (eds.), The Romance-Bantu Connection. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp 3-39
Kula, Nancy C. and Marten, Lutz (2008). In: Austin, Peter, (ed.), One Thousand Languages. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Ivy Press/University of California Press, pp 86-111
Agreement, word order and information structure: some Bantu examples
Marten, Lutz (2007). In: Austin, Peter, (eds.), Bond, Oliver, (eds.) and Nathan, David, (eds.), Proceedings of the Conference on Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, pp 165-176
Marten, Lutz and Kempson, Ruth (2006). In: Brown, Keith, (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Languages and Linguistics, 2nd ed.; v.4. Oxford: Elsevier, pp 33-37
Bantu classification, Bantu trees and phylogenetic methods
Marten, Lutz (2006). In: Foster, Peter, (eds.) and Renfrew, Colin, (eds.), Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, pp 43-55
Nasality in Bemba: Onset-to-onset government and licensing constraints
Kula, Nancy C. and Marten, Lutz (2002). In: Chisarik, Erika, (eds.) and Sitaridou, Ioanna, (eds.), Proceedings of the eighth Manchester University Postgraduate Linguistics Conference, 27th March 1999. Manchester: University of Manchester, pp 2-22
Marten, Lutz (1997). In: Markve, Stephen, (eds.), Pennings, Evelien, (eds.) and Tsukiashi, Ayumi, (eds.), Proceedings of the Sixth Manchester Postgraduate Linguistics Conference. Manchester: University of Manchester, pp 239-255
