People

Piia Taremaa is a research fellow at the Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics, University of Tartu. She defended her PhD thesis in linguistics at the University of Tartu in 2017. Situating herself in the framework of cognitive linguistics, her research interests include semantics, morphosyntax and constructional variation. She has a particular interest in the expression of space and motion, and she is also interested in reference, spoken language perception and academic writing. In her studies, she applies corpus and experimental methods, and combines quantitative research methods with qualitative ones.

Ann Veismann is a lecturer in Estonian language and general linguistics. Her background lies in cognitive and functional linguistics. Her main research interest is the semantics and usage of grams (adpositions, particles) and more broadly the interconnections between grammar and semantics. She has also been interested in time and space vocabulary in Estonian, conceptual metaphor theory and spatial frames of reference. In addition to qualitative and quantitative corpus studies she is keen on experimental semantics (e.g. forced choice tasks and acceptability ratings).

Len is a master’s student and research assistant at the University of Tartu’s Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics. Len has been involved in the KirKe project since its preliminary stages in 2021, when the project’s activities began with the support of a one-year bridging grant from the Estonian Research Council. Len collects and annotates corpus data, conducts experiments, assists with technical matters, and participates in discussions. Areas of interest include usage-based linguistics, as well as experimental and corpus methods.

Johanna is a doctoral student at the Insitute of Estonian and General Linguistics. She made significant contributions to the project until August 2024. Johanna is now actively exploring new and exciting linguistic paths, working as the linguistics editor for the journal Keel ja Kirjandus. Her research focuses on the neoclassical prefixes (e.g., mega-, pseudo-, anti-) in the Estonian language.