I am interested in morphology, syntax, semantics, and linguistic typology. I am particularly fascinated by the syntax-semantics interface of argument linking and valency-changing operations, and by the properties of experiencer predicates.
My past and ongoing research work includes the following topics:
- middle voice and anticausative constructions
- interaction of valency-increasing (applicative, causative) and valency-reducing (anticausative, middle, passive) operations
- differential object marking
- object-experiencer verbs
- light verb constructions
- verb semantics: agentivity, affectedness and causality
I work on several languages and families, among them Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan (Romance), German, Scandinavian languages (Germanic), and recently, I have also been exploring data from Setswana, Gĩkũyũ (Bantu) and Kannada (Dravidian).
My PhD project is entitled Argument Alternations of Object-Experiencer Predicates: Syntax, semantics and typology. My advisors are Jens Fleischhauer and Kilu von Prince.
As part of Rolf Kailuweit’s research group at the Department of Romance Linguistics of HHU Düsseldorf, I worked on a project about the morphosyntactic and semantic variation of object-experiencer verbs in several Romance languages. Our research was mainly based on corpus data, but we also planned an experimental study together with Carmen Pietropaolo. We still cooperate on some research questions: Within a comparative corpus study on a selected set of Romance object-experiencer verbs, I am responsible for the description of Portuguese data and for the cross-linguistic quantitative analysis. We recently presented some findings at the German-Catalan Conference in Bern, and we are currently working on a paper. In September 2023, we are going to host a workshop on psych predicates on Romance languages, featuring talks by several international experts as well as contributions by MA students. The workshop is part of a DAAD-funded cooperation with Elga Cremades (UIB Palma, Spain).
Still at HHU Düsseldorf, I am continuing my research on object-experiencer verbs in the environment of Kilu von Prince‘s research group at the Department of General Linguistics. At the moment my effort concentrates on two work packages: My current primary tasks is improving the quantitative dimension of two studies that will form a part of my dissertation, and I am working on a new strategy for determining causative semantics of experiencer predicates.
Currently I am also studying light verb constructions with experiencer objects in German together with Dila Turus, who is working in the DFG-funded project „Funktionsverbgefüge: Familien und Komposition (FFK)“ at the same department. What started as a small side project has given rise to three conference talks and two accepted papers.
In an ongoing project on urban linguistic fieldwork, I work with speakers of Pontic Greek, Kinyarwanda, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam (and maybe more languages in the future). Within that project, Ana Krajinović and I co-taught a seminar where we supervise student research groups that work on topics in those languages. After receiving a grant for a continuation and elaboration of the project, we are now building up relations to more language communities in Düsseldorf. In the summer semester 2023 I co-taught another hands-on class on urban fieldwork with Kilu von Prince and we are still planning to host a series of outreach events.
A list of my publications and presentations is available here.