Dr. Somdev Kar

Personal Information

 Name: Dr. Somdev Kar
 Designation: Associate Professor (Linguistics)
 Contact Number: +91-1881-232265
 Email:somdev.kar@iitrpr.ac.in
 Address: M-02, Har Gobind Khorana Block (SAB-C), Dept of HSS, IIT Ropar
 ORCiD ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2133-7900

Areas Of Research

  • Phonetics, Phonology (Optimality Theory), Morphology
  • Speech Processing, Natural Language Processing (NLP)
  • Evolutionary Linguistics

Short Biography

Dr. Somdev Kar is an associate professor of Linguistics at the Indian Institute of Technology Ropar. He completed his MA in Applied Linguistics from the University of Hyderabad (India) in 2004. In 2005, he moved to the University of Tübingen in Germany to pursue doctoral research in Linguistics under the supervision of Prof. Hubert Truckenbrodt and received his PhD degree in 2009. His doctoral research is in the area of Optimality Theory (Phonology) and Distributed Morphology, and with a focus on the syllable structure of Bangla. Later, Dr. Kar worked on the phonology of a group of Tibeto-Burman languages of Sikkim as part of his post-doctoral research at CIIL, Mysore, India.

Education

2009 PhD (Linguistics), University of Tübingen, Germany

2004 MA (Applied Linguistics), University of Hyderabad, India

2002 BA (Honours in Linguistics), University of Calcutta, India


Work Experience

  • Associate Professor, IIT Ropar, 2018- Present
  • Assistant Professor, IIT Ropar, 2010-2018
  • Visiting Assistant Professor, Qatar University, 2010
  • Fellow, Indian Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore, 2008-2010
  • Scientific Employee – DFG-SPP 1234, Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS), Berlin, Germany, 2008

Research

Publication

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  1. Kumari, Priyeshi, and Kar, Somdev. (In press). Metathesis in Maithili. Dialectologia.
  2. Venkatakrishnan, Ramprashanth, and Kar, Somdev (2025). Sonorant gemination in Old Tamil. Bhasha: Journal of South Asian Linguistics, Philology and Grammatical Traditions, 4(1), 95-122 (DOI: 10.30687/bhasha/2785-5953/2025/01/005)
  3. Narzary, Albina, Dwivedi, Pankaj, Arulmozi, Selvaraj, and Kar, Somdev (2025). Aspects of language contact among the Hajongs of the Goalpara district of Assam. International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 54(2), 82-117.
  4. Sarkar, Sharmistha, and Kar, Somdev (2024). Word stress patterns in Dharamshala Tibetan: An Optimality Theoretic formalization. Concentric: Studies in Linguistics, 50(2), 113-144 (DOI: 10.1075/consl.00036.kar)
  5. Raza PP, Thamanna, and Kar, Somdev (2024). Intervocalic Gemination in Mappila Malayalam: Evidence from Perso-Arabic Loanwords. SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics, 21(1), 2-31 (LINK)
  6. Arif, Hakim, Bhattacharja, Shishir, Hamid, Obaidul, Rahman, Sayeedur, Ghosh, Aditi, & Kar, Somdev (Eds.)(2024). Matribhashapedia: IMLI Linguistic Encyclopedia of Mother Languages (Vol. 1). Dhaka: International Mother Language Institute (IMLI). [ISBN 9789843559678]
  7. Chand, Gulab, and Kar, Somdev (2020). Reduplication initiated through discourse markers: A case of Hadoti. Dialectologia, 25, 115-139. (DOI: 10.1344/dialectologia2020.25.6)
  8. Kar, Somdev, and Truckenbrodt, Hubert. (2019). Syllable structure and stratification in Bangla. Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics, 6(1), 1-25. (DOI: 10.1515/jsall-2019-2008)
  9. Dwivedi, Pankaj, and Kar, Somdev (2018). Phonology of Kanauji. In G. Sharma (Ed.), Advances in Hindi Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, pp. 189-220, Munich: Lincom Europa. (LINK)
  10. Chand, Gulab, and Kar, Somdev (2017). Revival of Endangered Languages: A Case Study of Hadoti. International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 46(2), 153-170. 
  11. Dwivedi, Pankaj, and Kar, Somdev (2017). On Documenting Low Resourced Indian Languages: Insights from Kanauji Speech Corpus. Dialectologia, 19, 67-91. (LINK)
  12. Chand, Gulab, and Kar, Somdev (2017). Sonority and Reduplication in Hadoti. Journal of Universal Language, 18(2), 1-37. (DOI: 10.22425/jul.2017.18.2.1)
  13. Dwivedi, Pankaj, and Kar, Somdev (2016). Kannauji of Kanpur: A brief overview. Acta Linguistica Asiatica, 6(1): 101-119. (DOI: 10.4312/ala.6.1.101-119) 
  14. Kar, Somdev (2013). Complex onsets in regional varieties of Bangla. Language Sciences, 40, 212-220. (DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2013.06.001) 
  15. Kar, Somdev (2013). Slot-specific glide formation in Bangla. International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 42(1), 67-83. 
  16. Kar, Somdev (2012). Voicing agreement in Bangla word-medial clusters. Indian Linguistics, 73(1-4), 175-184. 
  17. Kar, Somdev (2010). Syllable Structure of Bangla: An Optimality Theoretic Approach. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. (ISBN 978-1-4438-2402-6)  
  18. Kar, Somdev (2008). Gemination in Bangla: An Optimality Theoretic Analysis. Dhaka University Journal of Linguistics, 1(2), 87-114. (DOI: 10.3329/dujl.v1i2.37189)  

Project

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  • Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), New Delhi, (Ministry of Education, Govt of India) 2025 (Ongoing)

ICSSR Minor Research Project titled “Evolutionary Traces in Indian Language and Linguistic Tradition”- as Project Director (PD)


  • Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), New Delhi, (Ministry of Education, Govt of India) 2025 (Ongoing)

ICSSR Multi-Disciplinary Research Studies on Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) of India, titled “Language, Culture, and Survival: A Sociolinguistic and Ethnographic Exploration of the Birhor PVTG Across Indian States” – as Co-Project Director (Co-PD)


  • Indo-Taiwan Joint Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, IIT Ropar        2024

A joint research project titled “Speech Vector Approach to Linguistic Phylogeny of Indian Languages” with National Taiwan University (NTU), Taipei, Taiwan

Collaboration

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  • National Taiwan University (NTU), Taipei, Taiwan
  • National Institute of Technology (NIT, Raipur

CV

Courses

PG/PhD Courses

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  • DS 554 - Natural Language Processing (3 credits)
  • HS 505 Sound Patterns in Human Language (3 credits)
  • HS 607  English Syntactic Structure (3 credits)
  • HS 608  Topics in Optimality Theory (3 credits)
  • HS 614  Computational Phonology (3 credits)

UG Courses

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  • HS 452  Fundamentals of Linguistics (3 credits)
  • HUL456  Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology (3 credits)
  • HS 461  Morphology (3 credits)
  • HUL465  Laboratory Phonology (3 credits)

Other Information

PhD SCHOLARS

Past

  1. Dr. Gulab Chand, PhD (IIT Ropar), MA Linguistics (BHU, Varanasi), MPhil (MGAHV, Wardha)
  2. Dr. Pankaj Dwivedi, PhD (IIT Ropar), MA Linguistics (BHU, Varanasi)
  3. Dr. Thamanna Raza P P, PhD (IIT Ropar), MA Applied Linguistics & MPhil (University of Hyderabad)
  4. Dr. Sharmistha Sarkar, PhD (IIT Ropar), MA Linguistics (University of Calcutta), MPhil (Jadavpur University)


Current

  1. Priyeshi Kumari, MA Linguistics (BHU, Varanasi)
  2. Ashitha Rachel Jacob, MA Linguistics (Central University of Kerala)
  3. Pahi Gogoi, MA Linguistics (Tezpur University)


POST-DOCTORAL SCHOLARS

  1. Dr. Kalyani Pradhan, PhD Linguistics (Indira Gandhi National Tribal University)
  2. Dr. Albina Narzary, PhD Applied Linguistics (University of Hyderabad)


INDUSTRIAL CONSULTANCY

  1. Appen, as Consultant, 2023-
  2. Appen Butler Hill Group / Clarasoft, USA, as Consultant, 2018 - 2019
  3. Appen Butler Hill Group / Oracle, USA, as Consultant, 2016 - 2018
  4. Appen Butler Hill Group / Microsoft Corporation, USA, as Consultant, 2011- 2015
  5. Acapela Group Sweden AB, Solna, Sweden, as Consultant (Linguist), 2010
  6. Zi Corporation, Calgary, Canada, as Language Consultant (Bengali), 2004 - 2005