I am interested in comparing the syntax of various languages, the
differences as well as the similarities. One of my research concerns
is word order in the many stages of English as well as in other Germanic
languages. Changes in word order start (as I argue in The Rise of Functional
Categories, Benjamins, 1993), for instance, when verbs lose meaning
and are reanalyzed as auxiliaries (i.e. as functional categories).
A related research interest is variation in verbal agreement (Verbal
Agreement and the Grammar of its `Breakdown', Niemeyer, 1997). I argue
that the `Rise of Functional Categories' causes some of this. Currently,
I am working on a book on reflexive pronouns, also connecting changes
in these to general changes in the language, i.e. verbal agreement
and loss of Case. The main question is what changes when a synthetic
language becomes an analytic one. Examining `mistaken' agreement ties
in with an interest in the prescriptivist-descriptivist debate which
I incorporate in most of my undergraduate courses such as English Grammar
(for which I am writing a textbook) and History of the English Language.
In the latter course, I try to make students work with computer-readable
Old and Middle English texts such as Chaucer and Shakespeare. I have
recently become interested in authorship debates and, with Jean Brink,
taught `Language and Literature in the Renaissance', an interdisciplinary
course in 2001. Other classes I regularly teach are Introduction to
Linguistics and Generative Syntax. Seminars I teach include historical
linguistics, and typology.
I am interested in comparing the syntax of various languages, the
differences as well as the similarities. One of my research concerns
is word order in the many stages of English as well as in other Germanic
languages. Changes in word order start (as I argue in The Rise of Functional
Categories, Benjamins, 1993), for instance, when verbs lose meaning
and are reanalyzed as auxiliaries (i.e. as functional categories).
A related research interest is variation in verbal agreement (Verbal
Agreement and the Grammar of its `Breakdown', Niemeyer, 1997). I argue
that the `Rise of Functional Categories' causes some of this. Currently,
I am working on a book on reflexive pronouns, also connecting changes
in these to general changes in the language, i.e. verbal agreement
and loss of Case. The main question is what changes when a synthetic
language becomes an analytic one. Examining `mistaken' agreement ties
in with an interest in the prescriptivist-descriptivist debate which
I incorporate in most of my undergraduate courses such as English Grammar
(for which I am writing a textbook) and History of the English Language.
In the latter course, I try to make students work with computer-readable
Old and Middle English texts such as Chaucer and Shakespeare. I have
recently become interested in authorship debates and, with Jean Brink,
taught `Language and Literature in the Renaissance', an interdisciplinary
course in 2001. Other classes I regularly teach are Introduction to
Linguistics and Generative Syntax. Seminars I teach include historical
linguistics, and typology.