Projects
Sabbatical Jean-Christophe Verstraete: Paman languages of Princess Charlotte Bay (northeastern Australia): typology and diachrony KU Leuven
The planned research focuses on the study of Paman (< Pama-Nyungan) languages from Princess Charlotte Bay in north-eastern Australia, from a typological and historical-comparative perspective. In the past five years I have made a number of breakthroughs in the historical-comparative study of these languages, including new evidence for genetic subgrouping (Verstraete 2018a) and a new model for the evolution of phonotactic structure ...
Counterfactuals in the History of Greek: An Enriched Diachronic Typology using a Context-Sensitive Evolutionary Model Ghent University
(1) If I were you,… (2) I should (have) know(n). (3) If only she had listened. These constructions are counterfactuals. They speculate about an unrealizable state of affairs based on an unrealized condition. Every language has these expressions but in varying forms. Counterfactuals originate from formerly non-counterfactual expressions through semantic bleaching, phonological reduction etc. in a grammaticalization cycle. Cross-linguistic ...
Transitivity oppositions in a diachronic typological perspective: Labile Verbs in the history of the Indo-European languages Ghent University
Many linguists believe that the language of our Indo-European ancestors had a considerable number of verbs which may appear both in intransitive and transitive constructions with no formal change in the verb, as in the case of English "The door opened" ~ "John opened the door" or Dutch "De sleutel draait in het slot" ("The key turns in the lock") ~ "Jan draait de sleutel in het slot" ("John turns the key in the lock"). Such verbs are called ...
Non-canonical subject marking in Romanian: a synchronic and diachronic account Ghent University
The aim of this project is to study oblique subject-like arguments in Contemporary Romanian and their evolution in Romanian texts from the 16th century until now, in order to verify whether decline, stability or increase in productivity of non-canonical subject marking can be observed, bringing Romanian closer to or further away from the Standard Average European type.
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 known under the umbrella term " Cognitive Linguistics". The main objectives are: (1) definition and typology (2) description of the position in the verbal system (3) description of the use in context (pragmatics),
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).
A diachronic quantitative inquiry into the preterite morphology of Dutch KU Leuven
The goal of this project is to trace the diachronic development of the preterite morphology in Dutch from the early Middle Ages up until present-day Dutch. The primary focus is on the competition between (1) the so-called strong inflection (e.g. vaar – voer (‘sail’)), which is based on root apophony (Ablaut), and has developed from the Proto-Indo-European perfect (Mailhammer 2007), (2) the so- called weak inflection ...
DIACRONEX: Supporting material with diachronic linguistics courses. KU Leuven
Syndetic and asyndetic complementation in Spanish. A diachronic probabilistic account KU Leuven
My dissertation focuses on the alternation between syndetic and asyndetic finite complement clauses in Spanish. Syndetic complements, introduced by an explicit complementizer que ‘that’, as in (1a), are the most frequent patterns of complementation in Present‑day Spanish. Alternatively, a complement clause can also be introduced asyndetically, i.e. without the complementizer que, as shown in (1b), where the absence of the complementizer is ...