Camil Staps

Camil Staps [kaˈmil stɑps]he/his

info@cdummyamilstdummyaps.nl

  

I am a linguist, broadly interested in what language can tell us about human cognition. I am currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft.

The Bigger Question I aim to address is how abstract concepts like causation and evidentiality are represented in the mind. In particular, I study the relation between spatial and non-spatial meanings of prepositions, demonstratives, and other function words. I defended my doctoral dissertation in June 2024.

Publications

I keep track of time from submission to publication.

Dissertation

2024

Staps, Camil. 2024. The persistence of space: Formalizing the polysemy of spatial relations in functional elements. Leiden University dissertation. Amsterdam: LOT. doi: 10.48273/LOT0673. (There are errata.)

Refereed articles and book chapters

In preparation

Staps, Camil. In preparation. Iconic features in nominal reduplication.

Staps, Camil. In preparation. Complementation and Common Ground: Discursive effects in Biblical Hebrew.

2024

Staps, Camil. 2024. Large Language Models and Biblical Hebrew: Limitations, pitfalls, opportunities. HIPHIL Novum 9(1):46–55. doi: 10.7146/hn.v9i1.144177.

Staps, Camil & Martijn Beukenhorst. 2024. Semantic properties of prepositions: The distinction between causal min ‘from’ and ‘in’. Brill's Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 16. doi: 10.1163/18776930-01602002.

Staps, Camil & Johan Rooryck. 2024. Formalizing spatial-causal polysemy of Agent prepositions. Semantics & Pragmatics 17(4):1–47. doi: 10.3765/sp.17.4.

2023

Staps, Camil & Johan Rooryck. 2023. The interpretation of [+distal] in demonstratives and complementizers. Linguistics 61(5):1195–1231. doi: 10.1515/ling-2022-0178.

2022

Staps, Camil. 2022. Voice, discourse prominence, and aspect: The niphal and passive qal of yālad. In Pierre Van Hecke & Hanneke van Loon (eds.), Where is the way to the dwelling of light? Studies in Genesis, Job and linguistics in honor of Ellen van Wolde, 387–408. Leiden: Brill. doi: 10.1163/9789004536296_020.

Staps, Camil. 2022. Lip̄nē ‘in the face of’: A Locative preposition with a threatening connotation. Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 22(1):1–24. doi: 10.5508/jhs29582.

2020

Staps, Camil. 2020. “When dust was poured out”: Creation in Job 38.36–38. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 44(3):456–471. doi: 10.1177/0309089219862828.

Staps, Camil. 2020. Prepositions and the grammaticalization of Ancient Hebrew bipartite reciprocal markers. Journal of Semitic Studies 65(1):61–84. doi: 10.1093/jss/fgz050.

2019

Staps, Camil, John van Groningen & Rinus Plasmeijer. 2019. Lazy interworking of compiled and interpreted code for sandboxing and distributed systems. In Jurriën Stutterheim & Wei Ngan Chin (eds.), Implementation and Application of Functional Languages (IFL '19), September 25–27, 2019, Singapore, Singapore. doi: 10.1145/3412932.3412941.

2018

Staps, Camil. 2018. A case study of reciprocal middles in Biblical Hebrew: The niphal of לחם. Orientalia 87(2):159–183.

Book reviews

2021

Staps, Camil. 2021. Review of: Peter Bekins, Inscriptions from the world of the Bible: A reader and introduction to Old Northwest Semitic. Bibliotheca Orientalis 78(5/6):723–726.

Staps, Camil. 2021. Review of: Margaret Winters, Historical linguistics. LINGUIST List 32(1438).

2020

Staps, Camil. 2020. Review of: Elitzur A. Bar-Asher Siegal, The NP-strategy for expressing reciprocity. Bibliotheca Orientalis 77(3/4):318–322.

Non-refereed work

2019

Staps, Camil. 2019. Tense, aspect and modality in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic. Leiden University MA. thesis.

Staps, Camil. 2019. Lazy interworking of compiled and interpreted code for sandboxing and distributed systems. Radboud University Nijmegen MSc. thesis.

2017

Staps, Camil. 2017. Code generation for the Thumb-2 instruction set. Radboud University Nijmegen BSc. thesis.

Talks

I keep track of the conferences I visit and how much CO2 I emit in doing so.

Upcoming

2025Feb 8–9, IcoSem3Iconic features in nominal reduplication (abstract).

Past

2024Feb 2, TaaldagWith Johan Rooryck. The raadselen/#raadsels ‘riddles’ behind Dutch double plurals (slides).
2023Oct 13, SPE12/OASISWith Johan Rooryck. Interpreting [+distal] complementizers as markers of Common Ground (slides; handout).
2022Dec 9, CogLing DaysWith Johan Rooryck. Finite complementizers as demonstratives in the clausal domain (slides; handout).
Nov 21, SBL AnnualWith Martijn Beukenhorst. Semantic properties of prepositions: the distinction between causal מן and ב (slides).
Nov 9, COCOAWith Johan Rooryck. Space in the causal chain: The perspective from French and Biblical Hebrew (handout).
Aug 25, SLE2022With Johan Rooryck. On the demonstratives nature of finite complementizers (slides; handout).
Jan 12, AIL2With Johan Rooryck. French double Agents: a force-theoretic account of de and par (handout).
2020Jan 10, NL-FP dayWith John van Groningen and Rinus Plasmeijer. Lazy interworking of compiled and interpreted code.
2019Sep 27, IFL31By Rinus Plasmeijer, with John van Groningen. Lazy interworking of compiled and interpreted code for sandboxing and distributed systems.
2018Jan 26, CLIN28Combining grammatical features for dating texts in small-corpus languages (abstract & slides).
Jan 5, NL-FP dayCloogle: a programming language search engine and its applications (abstract & slides).

Software projects

MəḇaqqēšA spreadsheet application for scholars of the Hebrew Bible and Biblical Hebrew.
HebrewToolsSeveral web applications for Biblical Hebrew education (GitHub).
NitrileA package manager for the functional programming language Clean.
CloogleA search engine for Clean code (GitLab).

Find more on GitLab, GitHub, and git.camilstaps.nl.

Teaching

2022–2023Hebrew I–II, Radboud University Nijmegen (10 ECTS).
2021–2022Hebrew I–II, Radboud University Nijmegen (10 ECTS).
2020–2021Hebrew II, Radboud University Nijmegen (5 ECTS).
Hebrew I–III, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (15 ECTS).
2015–2019Student assistant for various courses in computing science, Radboud University Nijmegen. See under Employment for a list of courses.

Service

2024Proofreader for Language Science Press.
Reviewer for Glossa.
2023Reviewer for Glossa, Open Mind, and The New Scholar.

For journal review details, see here. For book reviews, see above.

Grants

2024–2026NWO Rubicon, €144K (for two years post-doctoral research at ZAS Berlin; grant no. 019.233SG.004).
2019–2024NWO PhDs in the Humanities, €249K (applied for by Holger Gzella; grant no. PGW.19.015).

Employment

Sep 2024–presentResearcher, Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft.
Apr 2024–Aug 2024Compiler engineer, TASKING.
Sep 2019–Apr 2024PhD candidate, Leiden University & Radboud University Nijmegen.
Supervised by Johan Rooryck and Ellen van Wolde.
Feb 2023–Jun 2023Lecturer, Radboud University Nijmegen.
Sep 2019–Aug 2021Scientific programmer / software architect, TOP Software.
Feb 2021–Jul 2021Lecturer, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Sep 2015–Aug 2019
Student assistant, Radboud University Nijmegen (click for an overview of activities).

2018–19: work on the Clean ecosystem

2017–18: Combinatorics, Functional Programming for AI

2016–17: Algorithms and Data Structures, Combinatorics, Functional Programming for AI, Functional Programming 1, Introduction to Cryptography, Operating Systems

2015–16: Combinatorics, Functional Programming 1, Functional Programming 2, Introduction to Cryptography, Mathematical Structures

May 2013–Mar. 2019Owner of ViviSoft.

Education

2019–2024PhD. in Linguistics, Leiden University (cum laude).
2017–2019Research MA. in Hebrew and Aramaic Studies, Leiden University (cum laude).
2017–2019MSc. in Software Science, Radboud University Nijmegen (summa cum laude).
2014–2017BSc. in Computing Science, Radboud University Nijmegen (cum laude).