Faculty of Arts and Philosophy - Research Portal

Prof. Dr. Koen Bostoen

Koen Bostoen's picture

koen.bostoen@ugent.be

Contact details

Department

Department of Languages and Cultures

Research group(s)

BantUGent - UGent Centre for Bantu Studies

DiaLing - Diachronic and Diatopic Linguistics

Research Focus

Research Period

Protohistory (Bronze Age, Iron Age)

Research Region

Research Language

African languages

Research Methodology

Language and text analysis

Additional tags

Bantu

historical linguistics

comparative linguistics

Kikongo

Kirundi

Luganda

Cilubà

Mbuun

Nsong

Kiswahili

Tabgroup

Projects

Projects as supervisor

A typology of the passive voice in Bantu (2018 - 2021)
BantuFirst (2018 - 2022)
Reconstructing the subsistence strategies of the first Bantu speakers south of the Central-African rainforest. A historical-linguistic approach to plant and animal names in West-Coastal Bantu (2018 - 2022)
A grammar of Vinza, a Great Lakes Bantu language (JD67) of Tanzania (2017 - 2021)
Description of Kibindji, a Bantu language of the Kuba-Bushong (C80) group (W-Kasaï, DRC) (2014 - 2018)
Motion verbs in Kirundi (Bantu, JD62) (2014 - 2018)
Tense and aspect in Kikongo. A descriptive, comparative and diachronic approach to form and function (2014 - 2018)
A diachronic and spatial analytical approach to linguistic micro-variation in the Kikongo dialect continuum (2014 - 2018)
A corpus-driven study of the expression of modality in Luganda (Bantu, JE15) (2013 - 2017)
The interface between information structure, syntax and prosody in Kikongo. An integrated descriptive, comparative and diachronic approach (2012 - 2017)
KongoKing (2012 - 2016)
The Kongo kingdom. Chrono-typological and archaeological study of its pottery (2012 - 2017)
Documentation of cultural heritage in three endangered Bantu languages of the Kwilu (DR Congo). Ngong, Nsong and Nsambaan (2012 - 2015)
The Inkisi basin at the time of the Kongo kingdom. Confrontation of historical, archaeological and linguistic data (2012 - 2017)
A grammar of Fwe. A Bantu language spoken in Zambia and Namibia (2012 - 2018)
Production and circulation of contemporary pottery in the Kongo area (2012 - 2017)
Prosody, syntax and information structure in Kirundi (Bantu, JD62) (2011 - 2016)
African theatre and its characteristics. Analysis of some definitional criteria through Kikongophone urban theatre (2010 - 2014)
Bantu languages of North-Western DR Congo. Documentation, reconstruction, classifications and contacts with Ubangi languages (2010 - 2015)
The expression of modality in Kirundi. A corpus-based approach (2009 - 2014)

Projects as co-supervisor

Theoretical underpinnings for a user-friendly, corpus-driven, semi-bilingual, digital dictionary of Swahili (2018 - 2022)

Publications

Key publications

Pots, words and the Bantu problem: on lexical reconstruction and early African history(2007)
- Koen Bostoen
Bantu Spirantization: Morphologization, Lexicalization and Historical Classification(2008)
- Koen Bostoen
Molecular perspectives on the Bantu expansion: a synthesis(2011)
- Brigitte Pakendorf
- Koen Bostoen
- Cesare de Filippo
Middle to late holocene paleoclimatic change and the early Bantu expansion in the rain forests of Western Central Africa(2015)
- Koen Bostoen
- Bernard-Olivier Clist
- Charles Doumenge
- Rebecca Grollemund
- Jean-Marie Hombert
- Joseph Koni Muluwa
- Jean Maley
The antipassive in Bantu(2015)
- Koen Bostoen
- Sebastian Dom
- Guillaume Segerer
Linguistic innovation, political centralization and economic integration in the Kongo kingdom: reconstructing the spread of prefix reduction(2015)
- Koen Bostoen
- Gilles-Maurice de Schryver
Prehistoric language contact in the Kavango-Zambezi transfrontier area: Khoisan influence on southwestern Bantu languages(2015)
- Hilde Gunnink
- Bonny Sands
- Brigitte Pakendorf
- Koen Bostoen
Bantu lexical reconstruction(2016)
- Koen Bostoen
- Yvonne Bastin
Prehistoric Bantu-Khoisan language contact(2017)
- Brigitte Pakendorf
- Hilde Gunnink
- Bonny Sands
- Koen Bostoen

Most recent publications

Full bibliography

Teaching