Academic Background

  • 1984-1991 Student of mathematics and linguistics, University of Tübingen and Frankfurt/M.
  • 1991 Diploma in Mathematics (equivalent to masters degree)
  • 1996 Dr. phil. (Institut für maschinelle Sprachverarbeitung, University Stuttgart) on the proper ontology of actions and events for natural language analysis.
  • 2003 Habilitation in Historical Semantics (Humboldt University Berlin)
  • 2005 Professor of English / Linguistics, Göttingen
  • 2008 full Professor of English / Linguistics, Göttingen
  • 2015 full Professor of German and General Linguistics, Konstanz

Professional career

  • 1992-1994 grant at the Graduiertenkolleg “Grundlagen der maschinellen Sprachverarbeitung”, University of Stuttgart.
  • 1994-1995 Researcher in the European Research Cluster DYANA
  • 1995-1997 Researcher at the Collaborative Research Center (SFB 282) “Theorie des Lexikons”, Düsseldorf
  • 1997-2003 Researcher at the Collaborative Research Center (SFB 471) “Wandel und Variation im Lexikon”, Konstanz
  • 2003-2005 Assistant Director of ZAS (Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung) Berlin.
  • 2005-2015 Professor at the Faculty of Humanities, Dept of English, Göttingen, Germany.
  • 2015-current Professor, Konstanz, Germany
  • 2008 Professorship (W3) offer by Universität des Saarlandes
  • 2010 Professorship offer by NTNU Trondheim

Recent Projects (2005-current)

  • Questions and Focus. ZAS Project 2005-2008. Co-Leader.
  • Negative Polarity Items. DFG Project, 2009-2012. Leader.
  • Multi-Layered Text Protocol. Courant Center Göttingen, since 2010. Co-Founder and PI.
  • Self-Addressed Questions. Project as part of the DFG Research Cluster Questions at the Interfaces. Konstanz. Leader.