About me

Visit my new website for more up-to-date info: sfla.ch

I am a post-doctoral research fellow at the Université de Neuchâtel in Switzerland. My primary research interests focus on the analysis of lexico-grammatical patterns in English and the way in which this contributes to our understanding of human linguistic knowledge. Most generally, I focus on the interaction of lexis and syntax from a usage-based, quantitative perspective.

In early 2017, I received my PhD from Freie Universität Berlin for an analysis on constraints of English serial verb constructions. At the FU, I also worked as a research assistant for the chair “Structure of Modern English” and taught at BA level in English Linguistics.

I am the author of the R package {collostructions} for the calculation of lexis-construction interaction. A how-to is part of Unit X in the R tutorial, which is part of a larger e-learning project for empirical methods in linguistics.

Research interests

  • Lexico-grammatical patterns in English
  • Usage-based approaches to language
  • Corpus Linguistics
  • Quantitative methods in linguistics
  • Cognitive Linguistics
  • Language change
  • Digital Humanities

+++ « While I’m in Switzerland »-note for FU students +++

As of March 2017, I am on extended research leave from the Freie Universität. Please contact my colleagues in Prof. Stefanowitsch’s workgroup for advice on corpus issues if my video tutorials don’t cover them. You can also ask questions *below* a particular video on YouTube if you have a Google account. This is a surprisingly underused option to clarify questions—but it could make Q&A available for future students! If all else fails or if you have a very specific question, you’re welcome to email me to say hi (and ask your question of course).

All pending term papers have been graded and all Leistungsnachweise have been entered. If you think have submitted a paper but have not yet received a grade or Teilnahme yet, please contact me immediately.