LaTeX wizard: reformatting and editing linguistic descriptions in LaTeX
Hannah Sande, Professor
Linguistics
Applications for Spring 2026 are closed for this project.
This project involves reformatting and editing a descriptive grammar of the endangered Guébie (Kru) language of Côte d'Ivoire, which has been documented, described, and analyzed by Professor Hannah Sande and her students over the past 12 years. Professor Sande is finishing up a grammar that presents the first description of the phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics of the Guébie language, and this project will involve editing and (re)formatting that grammar for publication. The undergraduate research assistant will learn about steps involved in linguistic documentation and description research and in publication of a book. Students with expertise in LaTeX would be a great fit for this project!
Role: The Guébie grammar currently exists in a particular LaTeX format, but will need to be updated to use a different LaTeX template and follow a different set of formatting guidelines to be in line with the publisher's requirements. The undergraduate would be responsible for carefully copying over the content of the grammar to the publisher's new template, and for recoding various items that do not directly translate to the new template (for example, LaTeX codes for IPA characters will need to be systematically changed from the tipa package codes to unicode). Additionally, the researcher may be asked to edit the grammar for content and consistency. The undergraduate research assistant will learn about steps involved in linguistic documentation and description research and in publication of a book, and will gain experience with LaTeX and specifically with the LaTeX templates of particular linguistics publishers.
Qualifications: Familiarity with LaTeX required. Familiarity with linguistic packages in LaTeX (such as tipa and gb4e) preferred.
Hours: 3-5 hrs
Social Sciences