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Main
research
interest:
Dialectology,
microparametric variation, and language change. See projects
below.
Syntax and the
syntax/morphology and syntax/semantics interfaces. Previous research
has been centered around areas such as the internal structure of noun
phrases, expletive constructions, and the Definiteness Effect. The last
few years I have been working on issues concerning Verb Second (see
postdoc project below) and the syntax of wh-questions, and I have
recently started to investigate the morphosyntax of wh-determiners in
Scandinavian (see this
abstract).
See otherwise this
abbreviated CV.
Teaching:
The
current semester (spring 2007) I am not teaching any courses.
Projects:
Scandinavian
Dialect Syntax -
ScanDiaSyn:
I coordinate the project Scandinavian Dialect Syntax project umbrella
(ScanDiaSyn) which is a
collaborative research effort involving nine Scandinavian/Nordic
research groups. The main objective of the project is to systematically
map and investigate the syntactic variation across the Scandinavian
dialect continuum. ScanDiaSyn is supported by various Nordic and
national funding bodies in addition to the partners in the network.
Nordic
Center of Excellence in
Microcomparative Syntax - NORMS:
NORMS is one of four Centers of Excellence that were appointed by the Joint Nordic Research Committee
for
the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS) in 2005. This virtual
center, which creates synergy between ScanDiaSyn and Tromsø's
Center for Advanced Study in Theoretical Linguistics, will run
throughout 2010, and a major objective of the project is to combine
detailed
investigations of the syntax of Scandinavian dialects with modern
linguistic theorizing. The NORMS project is directed from
Tromsø by Professor
Peter Svenonius and myself. Within NORMS I furthermore lead the
Tromsø group and the cross-institutional thematic group on the syntax of the
Left Periphery.
Postdoc project:
Since
the spring term 2002 I have conducted a postdoctoral research project
on the lack of V2 in wh-questions in Norwegian dialects, with a
special focus on the dialects of two municipalities in Sogn in western
Norway (Sogndal and Gaupne). The overall goal of the project is to
investigate, under a unified approach, how grammar internal and grammar
external factors trigger language change. More specific goals are to
seek a better understanding of the specific lack of verb second effect
both in terms of dialect geography and theory of grammar. The project
has been financed by the Norwegian
Research Council. Some prelimenary findings and
speculations are presented in the first three papers below. More
specific reports will be ready during 2007.
Selected
papers and publications:
2005: Microparameters
for Norwegian wh-grammars. Linguistic
Variation
Yearbook 5, 187-226.
2005: (with Marit R. Westergaard)
WH-questions,
V2, and the Left
Periphery of three Norwegian dialect types. Journal of
Comparative
Germanic Linguistics 8. 119-160.
2004: On wh-questions
and V2
across Norwegian dialects: a survey and some speculations, Working
Papers in Scandinavian
Syntax 73, 1-59.
2003:
(co-edited with Anders Holmberg and Lars-Olof Delsing) Dialektsyntaktiska
studier av den nordiska nominalfrasen. Novus forlag, Oslo.
2002: Icelandic
expletive constructions
and the distribution of subject types . In Peter Svenonius (ed.): Subjects,
Expletives, and the Extended Projection Principle, 43-70. Oxford
University Press.
2002:
A verb's gotta do what a verb's gotta do! On Scandinavian infinitivals
and the AGR parameter. In J.W. Zwart and W. Abraham (eds.) Studies
in Comparative Germanic Syntax , 205-219, Benjamins,
Amsterdam.
2002: Distributiv
possessiv - en binominal konstruksjon. In Inger Moen (et al.), Mons
9: Utvalgte artikler fra Det niende møtet om norsk språk i
Oslo 2001 , 230-243. Oslo: Novus.
2001: On noun
phrase architecture,
referentiality, and article systems . In Studia Linguistica 55,
249-299 .
1999: The
identification of functional architecture, doctoral
dissertation defended on 29 January 2000. (Table
of contents and downloadable
files here.) A trial
lecture on the assigned topic Grammatical change
and generative theory was given on 28 January 2000. (Press bulletin)
1998:
Double definiteness and possessive constructions in an Eastern Swedish
dialect. In Timo Haukioja (ed.) Papers from the 16th Scandinavian
Conference of Linguistics , 425-439. Publications of the Department
of Finnish and General Linguistics, University of Turku, No. 60,
Turku.
1994: The syntactic source and
semantic reflexes of the
Definiteness Effect. Cand. philol. (MA) thesis published in Skriftserie
fra Institutt for fonetikk og lingvistikk 48. Universitetet i
Bergen: Institutt for fonetikk og lingvistikk .
Some
recent presentations:
2007: Experiences
from networking. Invited presentation given at a seminar for new
NordForsk networks, Oslo 26 April.
2007: On the morphosyntax of Scandinavian adjectives: A display
of selected issues. Lecture given at the University of Stuttgart, 1
February.
2006: On wh-determination across Scandinavian.
Selected paper presentation at the Workshop
on DP-internal information structure, University of Utrecht, 17-18
November. (Handout)
2006: Syntactic doubling
phenomena in
Scandinavian. Invited speaker at the Workshop
on Syntactic Doubling in European Dialects, Meertens Institute,
Amsterdam, 16-18 March. (Handout)
2005: Questions of wh and V2 in Norwegian
dialects. Invited lecture at the Department of Scandinavian
Languages, University of Lund, 9 February.
Links:
ScanDiaSyn
– Scandinavian Dialect
Syntax
NORMS – Nordic Center of
Excellence in
Micocomparative Syntax
CASTL – Center for Advanced
Study in
Theoretical Linguistics
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