Degrees Held
- PhD, University of Frankfurt 1999
- Staatsexamen, University of Frankfurt 1993
Research Interests
- Bantu languages
- Syntax and Semantics
- Experimental linguistics
- Language and cognition
Teaching Interests
- Syntax
- Neurolinguistics
- Language and thought
Selected Recent Publications
Publications
Books
Journal Articles
Chapters in Books
Books
- Lutz Marten, Ellen Hurst-Harosh, Nancy C. Kula & Jochen Zeller (eds.) (2025), The Oxford Guide to the Bantu Languages. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Link.
Journal Articles
- Zeller, Jochen (2023). ‘Agreeing objects in Zulu can be indefinite and non-specific’. Linguistics Vanguard 9:1, 25-36. DOI
- Eva-Marie Bloom Ström and Jochen Zeller (2023), ‘Verum in Xhosa and Zulu (Nguni)’. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 42:3, 493–524. DOI
- Zeller, Jochen, Emanuel Bylund and Ashley Glen Lewis (2022), ‘The parser consults the lexicon in spite of transparent gender marking: EEG evidence from noun class agreement processing in Zulu’. Cognition 226: 105148. DOI
- Ćwiek, Aleksandra, Susanne Fuchs, Christoph Draxler, Eva Liina Asu, Dan Dediu, Katri Hiovain, Shigeto Kawahara, Sofia Koutalidis, Manfred Krifka, Pärtel Lippus, Gary Lupyan, Grace E. Oh, Jing Paul, Caterina Petrone, Rachid Ridouane, Sabine Reiter, Nathalie Schümchen, Ádám Szalontai, Özlem Ünal-Logacev, Jochen Zeller, Bodo Winter and Marcus Perlman (2021), ‘Novel vocalizations are understood across cultures’. Scientific Reports 11, Article number: 10108. DOI
- Carstens, Vicki & Jochen Zeller (2020), ‘Nguni phrase-final focus particles and the LCA’. Linguistic Inquiry 51(2), 199-235. DOI
Chapters in Books
- Zeller, Jochen (2024), ‘Asymmetries in isiZulu possessor raising constructions.’ In Anke Himmelreich, Daniel Hole and Johannes Mursell (eds.), To the left, to the right, and much in between: A Festschrift for Katharina Hartmann. Goethe Universität, Frankfurt, 171-181. Link
- Zeller, Jochen (2020), ‘Syntax’. In Rainer Vossen and Gerrit Dimmendal (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of African Languages. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 66-87. Link
Selected Student Supervision
Honours
Masters
PhD
Honours
- Siphesihle Neo Shange (2025) Negation in Sesotho.
- Akhona Zungu (2022). ‘Discourse markers’
- Chulumanco Yanelisa Mbana (2022). ‘Deriving modifier orders in isiXhosa’
- Nam Hee Ro (2018). ‘Some evidence from English and Latin in support of the DP-hypothesis and a few in opposition’
- Slindile Nwabisa Damoyi (2017) ‘An analysis of Zulu locative applicatives with particular reference to motion verbs’
Masters
- Mfundo Didi (2023). ‘The influence of word order and quantification on agreement resolution strategies with conjoined subjects in isiZulu’
- Andrew Bevis (2018). ‘A comparative aalysis of selected ellipsis constructions in English and isiZulu’
- Mohammad Gaseem Shakhatreh (2018). ‘A Comparative Study of SV/VS word order in Arabic and Bantu’
- Faheem Suliman (2015). ‘Light verbs in Hindi’
PhD
- Naomi Njobvu (2021). ‘The morphology and syntax of compound words in Cinyanja’
- Progress Dube (2021). ‘Relatives and relativisation in Zimbabwean Ndebele: a Distributed Morphology-approach’
- Jean Paul Ngoboka (2017). ‘Locatives in Kinyarwanda’
- Feyi Ademola-Adeoye (2011). ‘A Cross-linguistic Analysis of Finite Raising Constructions’