Projects
Cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease: motoric, cognitive and linguistic aspects of sentence production University of Antwerp
Prestige as explanatory factor for borrowability: a Cognitive Contact Linguistic approach. KU Leuven
Why do the Dutch refer to their best friend as their 'soulmate' instead of their 'zielsvriend'? Why do the French use 'pipole' to talk about 'celebrities'? More generally, why do people borrow words from other languages? The two most popular answers linguists have provided are lexical gaps and prestige. It is not hard to understand the importance of lexical gaps: new objects or concepts need new names, and borrowing words is a convenient way ...
Verbal periphrases in Greek: a typological and diachronic research from cognitive- linguistic perspective. Ghent University
This project researches the use of verbal periphrases in postclassical Greek, based on a corpus of early Christian biographical (narrative) texts. The project is embedded in the theory know under the umbrella term "cognitive Linguistics". The main objectives are: (1) definition and typology (2) description of the position of the verbal system (3) description of the use in context (pragmatics).
Eye movement and cognitive-interactional linguistics. In a multimodal approach to interaction management. KU Leuven
Face-to-face communication is an inherently multimodal process, with multiple semiotic channels operating simultaneously and collaboratively, including verbal, para-verbal (e.g. intonation, pace and volume of speech) and non-verbal behaviour (e.g. gaze, gesture, posture). This project presents a novel approach to multimodal interaction, with a specific focus on the role of interlocutors’ eye gaze in relation to the other semiotic channels. In ...
The concept of functional opposition in general linguistics, 1916-1966: methodological status and technicaldescriptive relevance. KU Leuven
Although “difference” as an undefined, almost intuitive concept has played a role in linguistic thought and practice from the early beginnings, it was only in the 20th century that a “technical”, operational concept of fundamental axiomatic importance for linguistic description was formulated and argued for in terms of “differential” and “oppositional” relationship. The Cours of F. de Saussure (1916) systematizes this concept, specifically in ...
Non scholae sed vitae? An Empirical Study on the Cognitive Transfer Effects of Studying Classical Languages in Flemish Secondary Education Ghent University
Do smart pupils study classical languages (CLs), or does studying CLs make pupils smart? Anglo-Saxon research suggests that Latin pupils surpass their Latin-less peers in L1 ability c.q. English, and that studying Latin possibly has a positive effect on mathematical skills as well. However, it has not been settled whether these results are due to preselectivity (pupil influx) or cognitive transfer (one task affecting another). While a ...
Cognitive writing process characteristics in Alzheimer's disease. University of Antwerp
Cognitive control in the lexical processing of interlingual and intralingual homographs. University of Antwerp
An integrative account of codeswitching: reconciling structural, sociolinguistic and cognitive factors. Ghent University
This project contributes to a better understanding of the grammar underlying Spanish-English(-Kriol) codeswitching (CS). Its objective is threefold. First, at an empirical level, it provides insight into the way the conflict between synthetic/morphological and analytic/lexical patterns is handled in CS contexts. It therefore looks into the factors governing intensification (e.g. ‘a huge project’) and attenuation (‘a little lucky’), which ...