Senior Researcher, Department of Caucasian Languages
Bio
Born in 1975, Moscow.
Graduated from Moscow State University (Philological faculty, Dept. of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics) in 1998.
PhD in linguistic typology in 2002, Moscow State University (“The typology of grammaticalization paths of motion and posture verbs”, advisors Alexander Kibrik, Vladimir Plungian).
Since 1995 has taken part in linguistic expeditions, mainly to Daghestan (Tsakhur, Bagwalal, Bezhta, Agul, Andi languages), also to Azerbaijan (Udi language).
Since 2001 has worked at the Dept. of Caucasian Languages, Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Since 2017 also works at the Linguistic Convergence Laboratory of NRU Higher School of Economics.
Editorial board member of the journals "Rodnoy Yazyk" and "Languages of the Caucasus", and the book series "Languages of the Caucasus".
PhD Habil in 2023, HSE University (“Grammaticalization in Nakh-Daghestanian Languages: Typological, Diachronic and Areal Perspectives”), cum laude.
Research
Research interests include, though are not limited to, the typology and grammaticalization of verbal categories, tense and aspect systems of East Caucasian languages, language documentation.
The major current projects are devoted to the grammatical description and the processing of text corpora of Agul and Udi (Lezgic branch of the East Caucasian family), and the study of the verb system of Andi (Andic branch).
Links
Scientific Profiles
Science Index
Selected publications
Publications include two monographs (in Russian), three edited volumes, and papers in grammaticalization typology, tense and aspect systems of East Caucasian languages, lexical-semantic typology.
Monographs:
- Timur Maisak. 2005. Grammatikalizacija konstrukcij s glagolami dviženija i glagolami pozicii. {= Grammaticalization paths of motion and posture verbs: a typology.} Moskva: Jazyki slavjanskix kul´tur. — 480 pp.
- Timur Maisak. 2014. Agul´skie teksty 1900-x-1960-x godov. {= Agul texts of 1900s to 1960s.} Moskva: Academia. — 494 pp.
Edited volumes:
- Timur Maisak, Ekaterina Rakhilina (eds). 2007. Glagoly dviženija v vode: leksicheskaja tipologija. {= Verbs of aqua-motion: lexical typology}. — Moskva: Indrik. — 752 pp.,
- Mikhail Alekseev, Timur Maisak, Dmitry Ganenkov, Yury Lander (eds). 2008. Udinksij sbornik: grammatika, leksika, istorija jayzka. {= Udi collection: grammar, lexicon, history of the language.} — Moskva: Academia. — 463 pp.
- Gilles Authier, Timur Maisak (eds). 2011. Tense, mood, aspect and finiteness in East Caucasian languages. (Diversitas Linguarum, 30) — Bochum: Brockmeyer. — 204 pp.
- Diana Forker, Timur Maisak (eds). The semantics of verbal categories in Nakh-Daghestanian languages: Tense, aspect, evidentiality, mood and modality. Leiden: Brill, 2018. — 218 pp.
Major papers in English:
- Timur Maisak. 1999. Multiple periphrastic perfectives: another case of “bounder perfectivization”. In: Language Typology: Proceedings of electronic conference (May 15-25, 1999). Also: Web Journal of Formal, Computational & Cognitive Linguistics: CD Edition., 2000.
- Timur Maisak. 2002. Review: Heine, Bernd, and Tania Kuteva. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization. Cambridge University Press, 2002. LINGUIST List 13.2166, Sat Aug 24 2002
- Timur Maisak, Sergei Tatevosov. 2007. Beyond Evidentiality and Mirativity: Evidence from Tsakhur. In: Guentchéva Z., Landaburu J. (eds). L’Énonciation médiatisée II. Le traitement épistémologique de l’information: illustrations amérindiennes et caucasiennes. Louvain etc.: Peeters, 2007. P. 377-406.
- Dmitry Ganenkov, Timur Maisak, Solmaz Merdanova. 2008. Non-canonical Agent marking in Agul. In: Helen de Hoop & Peter de Swart (eds). Differential Subject Marking. (Series: Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, Vol. 72.) Dordrecht: Springer, 2008. P. 173-198.
- Dmitry Ganenkov, Yury Lander, Timur Maisak. 2010. From interrogatives to placeholders in Udi and Agul spontaneous narratives. In: Nino Amiridze, Boyd Davis, Margaret Maclagan (eds). Fillers, Pauses, and Placeholders. (Typological Studies in Language, 93) Amsterdam: Benjamins.
- Timur Maisak. 2011. The Present and the Future within the Lezgic tense and aspect systems. In: Gilles Authier, Timur Maisak (eds) Tense, aspect, modality and finiteness in East Caucasian languages. (Diversitas Lingvarum, 30). Bochum: Brockmeyer.
- Michael Daniel, Timur Maisak, Solmaz Merdanova. 2012. Causatives in Agul. In: Pirkko Suihkonen, Bernard Comrie and Valery Solovyev (eds). Argument Structure and Grammatical Relations: A Crosslinguistic Typology. (Studies in Language Companion Series). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
- Yury Lander, Timur Maisak, Ekaterina Rakhilina. 2012. Domains of aqua-motion: a case study in lexical typology. In: Emile van der Zee & Mila Vulchanova (eds.) Motion Encoding in Language and Space. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Anna A. Zalizniak, Maria Bulakh, Dmitrij Ganenkov, Ilya Gruntov, Timur Maisak, Maxim Russo. 2012. The catalogue of semantic shifts as a database for lexical semantic typology. In: Linguistics 50.3, 633-669.
- Dmitry Ganenkov, Timur Maisak. 2016. Aghul. In: Peter O. Müller, Ingeborg Ohnheiser, Susan Olsen, Franz Rainer (eds) Word-Formation: An International Handbook of the Languages of Europe. (HSK Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, 40/2.) Berlin: De Gruyter.
- Timur Maisak. 2016. Morphological fusion without syntactic fusion: the case of the “verificative” in Agul. In: Linguistics 54:4, 815-870.
- Timur Maisak. 2016. Subject pronoun doubling in Agul: Spoken corpus data on a rare discourse pattern. In: Studies in Language 40:4, 955-987.
- Timur Maisak. 2018. The Aorist / Perfect distinction in Nizh Udi. In: Diana Forker, Timur Maisak (eds). The semantics of verbal categories in Nakh-Daghestanian languages: Tense, aspect, evidentiality, mood and modality. Leiden: Brill, 2018.
Contact info
timur.maisak@gmail.com / maisak@iling-ran.ru
Institute of Linguistics
Bolshoj Kislovskij pereulok, 1/1
Moscow 125009
Russia