I completed my PhD at the University of Freiburg in 2018, under the supervision of Christian Mair, as part of the “Frequency Effects in Language” research training group. My dissertation explored grammatical obsolescence. Since 2019, I have been an assistant professor at the Faculty of Languages, University of Gdańsk. Additionally, I have conducted research at the University of Oslo (2022), the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (2023), and was a visiting professor at the University of Regensburg (2024).

My research focuses on:

• Variation and change in language: This includes examining grammatical obsolescence, a central theme of my PhD research, and ongoing studies on non-verbal plural number agreement from various perspectives.
• The impact of new technologies on language use: I study how artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as Grammarly and ChatGPT, influence language, particularly sentence structure and style and what the textual characteristics of AI tools tell us about how these tools use language.
• Cross-linguistic studies of large-scale linguistic trends: I compare linguistic phenomena across languages, exploring the variation and commonalities in grammar, such as plural number agreement, across diverse linguistic systems.

Publication list

Rudnicka, K. & Whitt, R. J. In press. When people overload the/their stomach(s): Non-verbal plural number agreement and generic reference in early and late modern medical discourse. In English Historical Medical Discourse: Corpus Linguistic Perspectives, Gavin Brookes, Emma Putland, Tony McEnery (eds.). Routledge. 

Rudnicka, K. & Klégr A. 2024. Non-Verbal Plural Number Agreement in the Cross-Linguistic Context: Combining Corpus Findings with Two Kinds of Acceptability Rating Results for English, German, Polish, and Czech. In H. Hasselgård & S. Oksefjell Ebeling (eds.), English in Contrast: Corpus-based Approaches [special issue], Nordic Journal of English Studies, 92-119. DOI: 10.35360/njes.v23i2.39166 

Rudnicka, K. 2024. Non-verbal plural number agreement – a pilot study comparing English and German using Oslo Multilingual Corpus data. Slovo a slovesnost 85(1): 27–54. DOI: 10.58756/s1118554

Rudnicka, K. 2023. Can Grammarly and ChatGPT accelerate language change? AI-powered technologies and their impact on the English language: wordiness vs. conciseness. Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural 71, 205–214. ISSN 1135-5948; DOI: 10.26342/2023-71-16

Rudnicka, K., Klégr, A. 2023. Non-verbal plural number agreement. Between the distributive plural and singular: blocking factors and free variation. In Free Variation in Grammar. Empirical and theoretical approaches, Kristin Kopf & Thilo Weber (eds.), 74-98.  Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.234.04rud

Rudnicka, K. 2021. The “negative end” of change in grammar: terminology, concepts and causes. Linguistics Vanguard 7 (1), 20200091: 1-9. DOI: 10.1515/lingvan-2020-0091

Rudnicka, K. 2021. In order that – a data-driven study of symptoms and causes of obsolescence. Linguistics Vanguard 7 (1), 20200092: 1-11. DOI: 10.1515/lingvan-2020-0092

Rudnicka, K. 2021. So-adj-a construction as a case of obsolescence in progress. In Lost in Change: Causes and processes in the loss of grammatical elements and constructions, Svenja Kranich & Tine Breban (eds.), 51-73. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.218.02rud

Rudnicka, K. 2019. The Statistics of Obsolescence: Purpose Subordinators in Late Modern English. NIHIN Studies. Freiburg: Rombach. DOI: 10.6094/978-3-928969-75-8

Rudnicka, K. 2019. Lose one's life and lose one's job with singular they: two constructions, two regional varieties, many practical aspects of working with mega-corpora. Forum Filologiczne Ateneum 1 (8): 149-162. DOI: 10.36575/2353-2912/1(8)2020.149

Rudnicka, K. 2018. Variation of sentence length across time and genre: influence on the syntactic usage in English. In Diachronic Corpora, Genre, and Language Change, Richard Jason Whitt (ed.), 219–240. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/scl.85.10rud